Megahome Water Distiller with Polypropylene Collection Bottle - MH943TWS

Pour deux raisons, l'eau distillé et la rendre potable

Been using this guy for well over a year now. No issues at all. I just wanted to touch upon a few points that are mentioned in other reviews and our own thoughts since using the Megahome distiller.1) The cleaner and carbon filters aren't THAT expensive. A lot of reviewers seem to gripe about that, but we replace our filters every 1-2 months and clean our machine every 3 weeks or so. We got the Distiller Charcoal Filters 12pk from "Barker Technologies" for $15, and the Kleenwise clear for roughly $30. Both have lasted over a year, so you're probably paying $30-40 per year in maintenance supplies. Yes the recommended cleaning and filter change is sooner than what we tend to do, but there don't seem to be any issues with the way we've been doing it thus far with water quality. We bought some non-scratch scour pads as recommend in the demo to save on cleaner, but to be honest, we haven't been able to take any of the residue off with one at all. Don't waste your money.2) Another complaint I've seen is the loudness. I'm not sure what people are expecting, it's GOING to make noise by it's very nature as an appliance. I have very sensitive hearing, and have never been bothered by the noise, and I find it actually very soothing. If you're fine with fan noise, then you'll be fine with the distiller noise. The only issue with volume is when I'm trying to listen to a podcast or talk radio in my kitchen at the same time.3) The addition to our electric bill for distiller usage is about $10-15 a month, rough estimate. On average I'd say we make 2 batches a day.4) The process is quite easy. Once you get the hang of it, it takes about 2-3min to start a batch, and most of that is just waiting for the water to fill up. It does take about 5-1/2 hours to finish a batch, we usually make one in the morning before work, and at night before bed. Coming home or waking up, we have a full gallon ready to go.5) It will make the room slightly warmer... which is nice for the winter, not so nice for the summer. The good with the bad, what are ya gonna do?6) Cleaning is pretty easy. Just take the top off, fill up the water about half way or so, then spoon some cleaner to cover the bottom. Plug it in without the top component and let it boil for like 30min to an hour depending is how we do it. We tend to do this in an area we aren't in since it does smell a little chemical-y. The filters can be tricky, but once you figure it out, the plastic piece just snaps off.7) It's made in China, but unless you want to shell out over $500 for a USA made one, you'll have to make due.8) Some people have complained about the initial pour from the glass jug... it tends to spill a tiny bit when you first start pouring, but it's such a small amount its negligible in my opinion, and if you do it right, it shouldn't spill at all. We store all our water in 1/2 and 1 gallon growlers. Also, we put padding on the bottom of the glass jar, we have granite countertops so its a little scary placing this sort of glass down on the counter. We just use one of those liner foams that you put inside drawers for utensils etc. It sticks without any adhesive well enough, so we just take it off when we want to wash the jar.9) Inside the fan gets a bit dirty over time, and there's no clear way to take the top apart and clean it, so that's the only real complaint, that the fan inside will just get dirtier and dirtier over time. [*update* there appears to be screws but we have yet had the bravery (or motivation) to try to open and clean the fan]10) Probably the most important thing, the water is great. Very clear and without any distinct taste. We use it for drinking and watering our plants. There's some controversy about drinking distiller water, but after seeing the nastiness leftover from our tap water, and how refreshing and easy it is to drink a large amount of water each day, I'd recommend not worrying about any 'controversial' articles from health professionals like Dr. Mercola. We don't add anything to it, but some have suggested minerals, himalayan salt etc., so that might be something to experiment with. The biggest difference I notice, is that drinking tap water it's very hard for me to drink a lot of it consistently, it's hard to explain the reason, but it's a certain 'heaviness' to it if that makes sense. The distilled water is light and refreshing, and I stay hydrated much easier throughout the day. We chose this over reverse osmosis set-ups due to renting and not wanting to drill holes near the sink etc. and potentially upsetting the landlord, and also avoiding a complicated installation process. If we had to do it over again, I'd absolutely go with the Distiller because it's worked out very nicely for us. Enjoy!

[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.

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.

I recently wrote another Amazon product review for the Baby Brezza Temperature Controlled Water Kettle, which I use to keep water at body temperature for nasal irrigation. Shortly after I started using that product, I realized that I was growing tired of worrying about the possibility, albeit a remote one, of getting an infection of the amoeba "Naegleria fowleri" from my well water, and was also tired of always running out of gallon jugs of distilled water from the store just when I needed it. Besides occasional nasal irrigation, I also have some backup sump batteries that need topping off with distilled water in the colder and dryer months, and I also run some chemical processes in my home laboratory that require distilled water for best results. I started looking for a small distiller intended for home use, and Google searches led me to this MegaHome unit. It had mostly good reviews so I bought one from Amazon.The product comes with the boiler/condenser unit, a glass pitcher of about 1 gallon capacity, a box of six activated charcoal packets, and a jar of citric acid pellets. The product arrives in a box that at first seems to have only the boiler/condenser inside, but on closer inspection it reveals a sort of Russian doll scheme where the glass pitcher, with handle removed, is inside the boiler tank, the handle parts, citric acid and charcoal filters are inside the pitcher. You need to assemble the handle to the pitcher, which involves wrapping two stainless steel straps around the pitcher (they fit into recessed grooves in the glass), then screwing the handle onto nuts that are welded to the straps. A plastic cover snaps onto the handle to cover the mounting hardware. You also need to assemble the condenser which is comprised of a small glass funnel and a plastic housing for the funnel, and this snaps onto the discharge end of the condenser. One packet of activated charcoal fits wadded up inside the glass funnel, and it removes any residual chemicals that might have been distilled along with the water; in practice this makes distilled drinking water taste better. The assembly snaps off to change the packet.The boiler/condenser is in two parts. The boiler rests on the counter top, shelf, or other suitable flat surface. It consists of a stainless steel tank that holds a bit more than one gallon, with an electric heating underneath. An integrated circuit breaker/thermostat on the side of the boiler turns off the heater when all the water in the tank is boiled off, and also protects against overloads or other faults. It does not work as an on/off switch.The condenser rests on top of the boiler, and stays in place because a lip along the edge keeps it centered on the boiler. A gasket seals the two together, although it is only gravity at work and no hardware is used to latch it in place. The condenser consists of a stainless steel dome that collects the steam created from the boiling water below, and the steam exits the dome through a hole that leads to a double coil of stainless steel tubing that wraps around inside the condenser. An electric motor with a fan is mounted in the middle of the coils of tubing, and draws in cool air through side vents, past the coils (cooling the steam inside and condensing it back to water), and exhausts through vents in the top. An electrical cord runs down from the condenser and plugs into a socket near the base of the boiler, right next to where the power cord comes in. This makes it easy to unplug and detach the condenser from the boiler for cleaning.The citric acid is used to clean the stainless steel when it gets funky from minerals and other impurities bake onto the surfaces after some use. You just make a batch with some citric acid in it, then drain and wipe clean.In practice, you lift the condenser from the boiler and lay it down next to the boiler. Then fill the boiler tank to the 'FULL' line, replace the condenser on top, and plug it into the electrical outlet. The electric heater starts and the fan also starts. It takes at least half an hour for the water in the tank to reach a good boil, but the insulated boiler keeps the outside from getting more than just a bit warm to the touch. Once the water is boiling, you will notice that the air exiting the top of the condenser is now pretty warm, since it is removing heat from the steam. Distilled water begins to drip out of the discharge nozzle on the side (it passes through the activated charcoal inside the glass funnel on its way out), and into the glass pitcher. The discharge nozzle fits right into the pouring spout of the pitcher, so that the plastic pitcher cover can remain in place during distillation. This keeps dust, bugs, cats, etc; out of your pure distilled water. When all the water is boiled off, the temperature inside the boiler rises sharply and this causes the thermostat to pop and turn the electric heater and fan off. Now you have a full gallon of distilled water in the pitcher ready for use. I pour it directly into an empty plastic jug that 'store-bought' distilled water came in. You can then leave the distiller alone, or you can immediately refill the tank, reset the thermostat, and make another batch right away.The distiller works at a rate of about one gallon per every six hours, so you can distill up to four gallons in a 24 hour period.I use my distiller on well water that has a number of impurities, including iron, magnesium, calcium, 'sludge', and other trace elements. After a few batches of water, the inside of the boiler tank has a film of this stuff baked on. As confirmed by the users manual, this is OK to leave there, as it does not affect the quality of the distilled water coming out. But eventually, I want to clean it and this is where the citric acid comes in. I put in a gallon of water and some acid, bring it to a boil, then drain and rinse, then wipe the inside surfaces, rinse once again and I'm ready for more distilling.One 'trick' to reduce how fast the mineral film builds up inside the boiler is to never allow all the water to be boiled off. I try to arrange it so that I stop the process when about 1" of water remains in the boiler tank. I use a digital electrical timer to turn the power on for 5 hours and 30 minutes, and this setting seems to reliably do the trick. Unfortunately, finding a suitable timer that was easy and accurate to set, with repeatable resolution of not greater than 10 minutes and a timing length of at least 6 hours was difficult. Most timers out there, at least those readily available to consumers, have either short duration of less than an hour, or else they are difficult to set accurately and you will either have them running for too long or not long enough. Some timers such as this one:http://www.amazon.com/15079-7-Day-Plug-In-Digital-Timer/dp/B002HEO7N8/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1359170269&sr=8-16&keywords=digital+electric+timer+countdownmight work, but you would need to make sure that the one you choose can be operated WITHOUT being cyclic, in other words it will not turn the distiller back on a while after turning it off at the end of a distilling batch. I chose a rather pricy one by Borg General (digital interval count down timer series 650, originally made by Diehl) that costs about $100 and is available online. This works brilliantly but needs to be mounted in something since it does not have an enclosure of its own. By the time you put it in a box, add a power switch and power cord and outlet for plugging in the distiller, you will have spent $150 on it.I am very pleased with the quality of this product, and it works well for me.The