For two seasons I was in charge of deciding which humidifiers to buy residents at McMurdo station in Antarctica. So I've researched A LOT and I've had a lot of experiences with humidifiers. I worked in the housing office and it was my job to give these out to residents and collect them and clean them and make them ready for new residents (people live in dorms for approx. 3-13 months so there's constant turn over). There had been previous brands used before so we had a wide variety of humidifiers floating around the station. So I've handled a lot of humidifiers and seen all sorts of ways people have managed to eff them up. For the price these were the best. Are there nicer humidifiers? Definitely. Are they really expensive? Heck yes. Were they worth the extra cost? I'm not sure. Residents would probably have said yes. I personally would have said no since cleaning them ended up falling on me and these were always the easiest to clean and salvage.When I stopped deploying I started researching which humidifier I wanted to buy for myself and I kept coming back to this one. I live in CO so it gets pretty dry. I figured at that point in time they had to have come up with some upgrades. But... it didn't seem that way. I found some that were better, but they were also well above my budget. So this is also my own personal humidifier.If you're having trouble with your humidifier it could very well be a "PEBCAK" of sorts (but not on a computer obvs). Seriously, the problem is most likely you. I had residents return this machine to me completely coated in mineral deposits and gummed up with essential oils and run around the clock until it stopped working. After some cleaning (and some cursing) I was able to get most of the humidifiers returned to me in this state working again. I wasn't able to save all and had some casualties, but it was the least with these machines compared to the other types we had on station.You really do need to clean it. You need to clean any humidifier you get. Sorry. That's just the nature of it. Want to decrease the cleaning? Only use distilled water in it. Are you going to do that? Probably not. I most certainly wouldn't. But, even if you do put in that extra effort, you're still going to have to clean it occasionally. For reals people, just follow the instructions and soak the heating element in distilled white vinegar. Be an adult. And if you aren't going to do that then stop whining that it breaks. You're car won't run without occasional maintenance, you can't keep going without some basic health and hygiene, your home doesn't stay clean without you actually cleaning it, a humidifier isn't any different.Now, after ranting a bit, I have noticed a few things about this humidifier. First, if you don't turn it off before removing the tank to refill it it will stop working and you'll have to deep clean it after each use. In other words, when the tank gets empty make sure you flip the switch to off then remove the tank and refill. If you leave it on something seems to happen and when you put the refilled tank back on it will still register as out of water and won't turn back on until you deep clean it. No clue why. I'm not an engineer. So that's pretty simple to keep in mind, remember to turn off before removing tank.Also, if you follow some cleaning guides online you might end up with melted plastic in the tank like I did. Some recommend putting tea tree oil inside to disinfect (or other essential oils). While that might work for some people it melted the plastic on the inside of my tank. Is this the humidifiers fault? Absolutely not. I included a pic of what it did (that's not hard mineral deposits, it's the actual plastic that's been warped). I knew some essential oils could ruin plastic (citrus oils especially) but I trusted whatever blog I had stumbled across and did it anyway. So learn from my stupidity and just stick to distilled white vinegar to remove hard mineral deposits.If you really truly feel it needs to be disinfected more use a small amount of bleach diluted in cool water. Hot water decreases the efficiency of bleach. And never mix anything in with it (especially vinegar, so rinse super duper well if you've just used vinegar in it). Bleach and water only and always! Otherwise you subjecting yourself to some pretty nasty gases. Also, use less bleach than you think. The recommended about is 2 tsp per 1 gallon. That's very little bleach. Most people will dump in a cup or more. You're just wasting bleach though if you do that.So, the basics of cleaning any humidifier crazy well is to soak it with distilled white vinegar overnight to remove hard mineral deposits (following the manual for where to apply vinegar). Scrub off deposits with a soft sponge, brush, toothbrush, and/or qtips. Rinse until you're positive the vinegar is gone. This is where I usually stop, but if you want it to be extra sterile make a bleach solution and soak it in that for a short time (again only put the liquid where the manual directs). Rinse really super well once again until you're positive the bleach is gone. Let it air dry completely. Then you're ready to store it until next season or run it!Next I want to talk about the medicine cup. That's one of my favorite parts of this machine! Most humidifiers in this price range don't come with that. This one is intended for medicine though (Vicks humidifier additive for example), not essential oils. However, that being said, many residents who used our humidifiers were determined to use essential oils at any cost and if there wasn't a place to put oils they'd put them in the humidifier tank itself. Don't do that! Ever! First, like I said earlier, you run the risk of damaging the plastic inside the tank. Second, it's going to ruin and break your machine. Humidifiers are designed to evaporate water and nothing else. So if you're determined to use your humidifier as a diffuser then please buy a humidifier like this one that has a medicine cup and just put the oils in the medicine cup. It'll get gunky, but that's loads better than ruining the machine itself. Plus it's possible to still clean the cup, even if used incorrectly.You can soak the plastic piece with the cup in vinegar and that'll help a wee bit but you'll most likely need something that can really cut through the oil residue. Dish soap (that's intended to cut grease) will work very well if you make sure to clean the cup out regularly. However if you leave oil in it and/or use it for long periods without cleaning and it gets really bad you'll probably want to spring for an actual degreasing agent (G510 was what we used on station, but it's only available commercially). I'd recommend buying an oven cleaner (they also de-scum bathtubs really well!). Just make sure whichever one you pick is safe to use on plastics. Spray a little in the cup and the greasy oily residue should dissolve almost magically. Rinse really well, continue with your vinegar soak for the heating element and tank (and bleach if you want) and then call it good!All in all, this is a great and cheap machine. It has a lot of features that many equally priced humidifiers don't. If you love it it will love you back. And I know this because I've seen how many unloving people have treated many kinds of humidifiers. The golden rule applies to your belongings just as well as it does to people.