MegahomeCountertop Water Distiller, White, Glass Collection

I haven't used this alot yet, but I figured I't throw my 2 cents in as a first and second time user since I've ran it twice so far.It isn't quiet, but it's not loud enough to hear in the living room from my kitchen. Pretty straight forward. I didn't use the carbon filter and the water tasted good but i'm going to see the difference after a couple of cycles and try it with the carbon filter put in.It's basically fill the water to the 'fill' line inside, put the top on. make sure the spout is pointing into the glass pitcher and plug it in, then wait 4-5 hours.It turned off automatically last night after it was complete. No issues, I'm happy. If I had more money I'd buy two so I could have more water but for now it's good for drinking and coffee water.EDIT 4/27/2017:After using this many times and making it a part of my water use in the kitchen and for drinking, I am very glad I purchased it. I use "Concentrace Trace Mineral Drops" to add trace minerals back into the water when complete, and the "metallic taste" that most people refer to is mostly from the lack of trace minerals. I usually end up making a gallon a day since I'm only one person but it honestly feels idiot-proof. I don't even use the carbon filter, there's never been a need to since it's basically purified from evaporation anyway. Cleaning the water canister is simple, I just scrub it a bit each time with a plastic brush. I'll use some vinegar and leave it stand for a bit after another month or so to break up the crud.I'm very impressed by this, it's been a great addition to the family.EDIT August 24th 2017:I've been using this every 1 to 2 days since I bought it, and it works without any issues. I clean out the container every week since that's about when it's time. Other than that, it's been a trustworthy appliance I've had on my counter to use when my 2 gallon glass water canister in the fridge gets low. This saves me worries about bottled water service or going to a water store. I didn't think that would be a big thing until I got this and after a while felt the burden lift off of me. Only thing is I'm finding myself timing my use of large amounts of purified water instead of just doing it. Not a big deal since I'm a single guy in a home of my own, but I can imagine if I had a family it'd be a big harder.EDIT June 21 2018:My first one is still going great, no issues at all. I need more water since I've started using distilled water for everything I do now that I can make it... so I bought a second one of this. My second one came in today and was purchased in "used" status, which basically was completely reconditioned. When I opened it, there was no difference from "new" status really. It looks perfect, and everything works wonderfully. I put everything together, and made my first pitcher of water next to my first distiller. The Megahome brand distiller has worked better than I ever thought they would, and the quality of the glass is not thin either. All in all, I'll probably end up buying another in a year or two when I need more made at a time, as well.EDIT June 19, 2019:This has become a major piece of my, and my pet's lives. I have two of these that I use daily or every other day depending on needs, and they have worked without any issues whatsoever and I love it. Of course, the Concentrace trace mineral drops needed to be replaced three times over the years ;) I'm glad they're so durable, that's mostly all I have to say.

[SIX YEAR UPDATE: 2/6/2016 - Our water distiller is still going strong after six plus years of use. When we wrote the original review we had no expectations of this appliance, that's been run daily distilling either one or two gallons of water, to last this long - with no repairs or replacement parts. We were pleased with the distiller back then, and now, in this era of planned obsolescence and "mean average time to failure" equipment, we are beyond amazement at this well made appliance. Perhaps we are just lucky at the longevity of our distiller, but we felt it was worth mentioning.]Original Review:Where we live the water is bad looking and bad tasting, and our home has old galvanized piping and copper with joints that are lead soldered. We've been buying bottled drinking water for the past couple of decades.The cost of bottled water keeps going up in price. Pulling out the calculator, we estimated that our family's bottled drinking water consumption, at current bottled water prices, is costing around six hundred dollars a year!The economics of the matter was quite clear; despite the initial cost and the electricity to run the appliance, a water distiller would save us money and effort over buying and hauling water from the store.Enter the distiller.We bought a water distiller and have been making a couple of gallons of distilled water a day since it arrived. The distiller works very well with little oversight or interaction needed, though it needs occasional descaling and rinsing, and you must be careful when working with the appliance when it is hot.The method for using the distiller is dirt simple: Fill the tank with water to the line, place the cooling/steam recovery tower on top of the boiler tank, put the water collection bottle under the water drain, plug the appliance in, and walk away. Then, come back later to pour the freshly distilled water into your water storage container of choice.Other reviewers have noted the problem with large amounts of scale residue left in the boiler tank after distillation, and we noticed the same thing especially with the crappy water we start with. We partially solved the problem of scale residue by buying a "pitcher style" water filter and using that as a quick "pre-filter" to remove much of the sediment, chemicals, and other impurities, and then pouring the filtered water in the distiller. We now filter the water before we add it to the distiller.(Note that "pitcher style" water filters are only rated for removing a portion of the contaminants found in the average municipal water supply, and for us is no substitute for the purity of distilled water. Using a pitcher type water filter as a "pre-filter" for your distiller adds to the final cost per gallon of distilled water when you factor in the replacement cost of filters.)We noticed that the "pre-filtered" distilled water tastes better, as the pitcher style water filter uses activated charcoal to filter water before it goes into the distiller. The "pre-filter" method has cut down on most of the baked on sediment and residue that coated the bottom and sides of the distiller, making boiler tank cleaning a much more infrequent necessity and saving us time and trouble.(Even after filtering the water with a "pitcher style" water filter like those advertised on television, the quantity of residue left in the distiller tank is amazing.)We also followed the advice of other reviewers and now use a heavy duty appliance timer to turn off the distiller after five hours of running, and that leaves about a half inch of water in the bottom of the tank so the sediment and residue remains dissolved and doesn't cook to the tank.One caution: Wait a good half hour or more after turning the distiller off (pulling the plug) before removing the top "cooling tower". A distiller is nothing more than a boiler, and it gets very hot and contains lots of high temperature steam that can burn you quickly. Wait for the machine to cool before handling.We have the distiller on a kitchen counter and we don't find the fan noise obnoxious or disturbing, but it does make a noticeable sound.The best advantage of the water distiller is we no longer have to haul gallons and gallons of drinking water home every week from the store! We have arrived in the twenty-first century; finally, we have clean drinking water on tap.=============================Two (2) year update:Our distiller is still going strong with constant use, distilling at least one, and often two gallons of water a day and it still works as good as new. We're very pleased to the point where we are adding this update with our latest observations about this excellent appliance.Before we made the purchase two years ago through Amazon, we factored in all of the costs in a spreadsheet to see if buying a water distiller made economic sense, and at the time we determined it would take two years of use for the distiller to work out being cheaper than buying store-brand distilled water in gallon containers. If you break down the costs for the distiller unit based on the number of gallons you use per year divided by the cost of the unit, then add in the electrical cost (distiller wattage times number of hours to distill a gallon of water, times cost per watt hour charged by your electric company), you will arrive at a cost per gallon of distilled water.We determined that the distiller's cost per gallon was around seventy-one cents per gallon, after two years producing two gallons per day. Two years ago, distilled water was selling for around eighty-three cents a gallon at the grocery store, so it made sense to buy the distiller if it would last at least two years, and we are please to report that the distiller has indeed lasted two years and is still going strong.You should be aware that your distiller might require special maintenance (beyond regularly descaling the interior boiler compartment with white vinegar), as described below:The upper section, the removable top of the unit which is the steam recovery area, has a small fan to draw outside air through a series of fins attached to a long curved water tube that captures the steam and then cools and condenses it back into water to drip into the glass collection container. The closely spaced cooling fins can collect dust when air is pulled through the upper unit by the fan. To remove the dust build up, there are three (3) screws that can be unscrewed to remove the outer plastic cover of the upper unit, giving access to the interior fan and water cooling section with the attached fins.It is quite simple and easy to clean the upper section: Remove the three screws (gently pry back the rubber sealing ring to expose the screw heads), and take the two sections apart. Then rinse the solid plastic cover to remove any accumulated dust. Be careful with the section containing the water cooling fins and the electric fan - we used a small dusting brush with soft bristles to successfully remove all of the built up dust that had worked its way into the upper system and into the fins surrounding the cooling tube. Once all of the dust was removed we screwed the unit back together and put the distiller back to work.Our distiller sits on a section of kitchen counter close to an outside window, and we were surprised to find that after a couple of years use there was a substantial amount of dust build up inside the upper cooling tower. Possibly our unit is pulling dust from the outside that's being captured in the cooling fins, but this is something you might want to monitor to ensure there's no dust build up in your machine. Dust build up along the cooling fins will reduce the efficiency of the water recovery tower.We recommend this appliance to anyone looking to save their back and their wallet by processing their own pure water at home.