<prompt> Human: If you live in an area with appliance wrecking hard water there is a inexpensive alternative to cooking and brewing coffee with bottled water.Chances are your local grocery store has an RO machine. An RO machine takes your cities tap water and processes it through several filters and a UV light to purify it. If youre skeptical, we had one on our cutter and it turned sea water into potable fresh water.RO water here costs between 25 and 32 cents a gallon, depending on the store. The store I fill up at has 2 machines and is 27 cents per gallon.Youll need your own containers. I use polycarbonate 3 gallon containers. Polycarbonate because its durable, I did accidentally roll a full one down 2 flights of stairs. It held! 3 gallon because its easier to muscle around. Water is heavy, a little more than 8lbs per gallon. These containers cost about 18 each. 4 is a good number for a single person. I go 3 weeks between fill ups. Youll be surprised how long a gallon lasts.Youll also want a 3 gallon fridge dispenser. This has a spigot on it. You fill it from the top, leave the cap loose, and put it in your fridge to dispense water. A second one in a cupboard is nice for room temperature water for cooking. These cost around 20.As you can see there is a little up front cost. However, I cant buy a gallon jug of store shelf water for 27 cents. The bottles and the fridge dispenser will last forever if you dont break them.My last coffeemaker lasted 2 years before the scale build up killed it. When I bought my current machine I switched to RO water, 5 years later and it still looks good. Same story with my electric kettle and everything else I use water in. Food cooked with RO water tastes much better too.The environmental savings must be significant. I go through 4 gallons of RO water a week. Multiply that by disposable bottles and I must have saved a blue whale, at least.I hope this has been informative. Of course, if you own your own home a water filtration system is an option. Being a renter, tearing apart my landlords plumbing is not an option.Assistant: OP your scale buildup is not from unfiltered water, its from hard water. The RO water you buy is softened. If you just install a home RO without a softener youll still have buildup. Human: My landlord wont allow the installation.  <response>: Do it anyways? You can buy under the sink systems that filter your tap water only and can be removed easily. I seriously doubt theyd care. We did this at our old apartment and we also werent allowed to. The maintenance people and property manager even saw it. Nobody cared. 