Megahome Countertop Water Distiller Stainless, Glass Collection

Almost exactly 3 years ago in February 2023, we bought this and it is still working strong and well. It does what we wanted from it. Produce our daily supply of pure drinking water. It is a basic simple not fancy no special feature water distiller, so, in our estimate, it would not go bad too quickly. It is working just fine 3 years later. We highly recommend it for anyone looking for a reliable water distiller. It is not cheap price-wise, but it is worth more than the price.

**update** 14 months and I cannot get it to stop popping loud. It's clean and dry and on a level surface. EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED WILL NOT BUT ANOTHER ONE. DANGEROUS. Read a lot of reviews and did a lot of research before deciding which water distiller to purchase. Upon using my MegaHome countertop for the first time, I was satisfied with my decision. Hopefully it will last years like others who have reviewed it. Sturdy, fan has noise as expected, average speed, great water quality (see below), feels/looks like good quality, great packaging, easy to clean. *IMPORTANT* Like some other reviews say-stop the distiller before the water level gets low. This not only makes cleaning VERY EASY, but prevents (or helps) the stainless from becoming pitted which will mean you'll get rust. In fact, to all those who reviewed this and complained about rust and pitting, please know that this warning IS IN THE OWNERS MANUAL. I started by using others recommended times. For me, 3.5-3.75 hours leaves approximately two inches of water remaining. IMPORTANT - for your safety let the machine cool down before touching and removing the cover. The manual says 20 minutes minimum. My sensitive fingers need at least 25 minutes. Water quality-my first test was 0.01 TDS/PPM. The start T.D.S. of my bad & hard water varies from the 290's upwards of nearly 500. Yes, nearly 500 at times! I did decide to use the carbon filters since they were provided. The water has NO taste - PERFERCT TASTING WATER. Moving forward, I'll do a cost/value analysis to find whether the filters are worth my time and cost as compared to passing the water through my existing Brita carbon filter, or experiment with no filter. Packaging - IMHO the packaging was designed by an American Engineer. The styrofoam is perfectly cut to fit each item. The only exception is the glass cantor. I can see why some might get damaged if the package is handled roughly or dropped. It is packaged inside the base with plastic and one polyurethane sheet. Due to the fact that the base is tapered with the top side smaller, you cannot completely secure it to prevent all damage. Mine arrived in PERFECT CONDITION. Speed - I would like it to be faster and wish it would shut off before drying out; however, these are conditions that cannot be improved at this time with any brand or model that I'm aware of - at least not in my price range.

I bought this on 12/31/2013, and am writing this review on 10/18/2014. I've ran about 250 gallons water water though the distiller. It is easy to set up, very easy to use. When we first bought it, I washed the main stainless steel container, and the glass flask. We filled the distiller with about a gallon of distilled water I bought from Walmart and distilled the first gallon of water just to initially clean the internal parts that one cannot clean, and discarded the first gallon. After that we use it almost every day and store one gallon of distilled water in the fridge, and the other gallon we keep in a separate covered glass container on the counter (for cooking, coffee making, drinking when one does not want cold water, etc.). If we fill it with cold water, it takes about 6 hours to complete the distilling process (about a gallon); if we fill it with hot water, it takes about 4 1/2 to 5 hours to distill a gallon of water. At the completion of the distilling process, the unit shuts off automatically, and the glass container holding the distilled water will be warm, this is to be expected; this is one reason why we store a gallon in the fridge and have another gallon at room temp on the counter. How much noise does it make? It's not real noisy, similar to a bread making machine during the baking portion. The part that makes noise is the fan blowing air over the condensing coils. We run it either when we go to bed or when we leave the house for the day; the noise is then not an issue. It is supplied with charcoal filters that are meant to be placed in the discharge portion, but we never used them. We think the water tastes fine without using the filters; I think that would be a preference based on each individual. There may be a reason why they supplied the filters, but for us they aren't necessary. I wash out the distiller after every use just to get rid the the stuff left over from the distilling process. We throughly clean the distiller about every 7 to 10 gallons of use to get rid of the accumulated minerals that stick to the interior surface. At first we used the cleaning chemical they included (citric acid, in powder form) and followed the instructions. It worked very well. When we ran out of the cleaning chemical, we just used vinegar. We place about 1/2 inch to 1 inch of vinegar in the distiller, and leave it work on the bottom part first (about 20 minutes for our cleaning needs), then we have a setup where we turn the distiller on its side without letting the vinegar spill out (i.e., tilt it and rest it on a piece of wood or something so the vinegar doesn't spill out, I hope this is clear), then just rotate the distiller every 20 minutes or so. This way the vinegar will remove the minerals along the sides of the distiller too. It takes time, but it works. I usually set a timer and put the distiller out in the garage so the house doesn't smell of vinegar. I can imagine that some people will need to clean the distiller more often; it depends on your water source. We live remotely, and our water supply is a mountain stream, or water that we stored. The distiller will definitely kill anything in the water that may make you sick, without adding the chlorine taste. The distilled water is crystal clear. I hope my experience with the product is helpful to those reading this. I would highly recommend this product. It works well, is easy to use, easy to clean, and the price is very reasonable. I've had no problems what so ever so far.

***Update 10/5/2024*** I purchased this the end of October 2011. I run it at least every other day, sometimes daily, and occasionally twice a day. It is still going strong. Well worth the money! It's been a workhorse for almost 13 years. Now the nozzle is having difficulty staying in. When I purchased the white version, from Mega Home, I noticed that they are now selling replacement nozzles. My original nozzle is all plastic, the new one has a porcelain insert. So I quickly added that to my cart! Other that the nozzle tending to fall out after 13 years, there have been zero problems! I only drink, cook, and make coffee with distilled water. I have started keeping a bottle of distilled in the shower to do a final rinse of my hair to get rid of left over tap water chemicals... like rinsing with rainwater. It's made a big difference! ***Update 11/25/2020: I just started a batch of water and it crossed my mind that I have had this machine for quite some time now. Can you believe I purchased this distiller in October of 2011 and it is still going strong! I have used this machine steady since my purchase. When I have time, I clean it with vinegar and water, let it come to boil with the lid off, once it starts boiling, I unplug it and let it sit before rinsing. I have to admit that I probably Don't clean it as often as recommended, yet it still preform like a champ. Usually I just rinse it between batches. The only thing I use tap water for is washing, everything else is distilled (cooking pasta, coffee, tea, any recipe that needs water)....so needless to say, this machine gets a workout. I used to fill bottles with reverse osmosis water from the vending machines, it was pretty good, but a hassle... The taste of of RO water was better than tap, but it was nothing compared to distilled. A friend was raving over the taste of my ice tea, she couldn't get enough of it. The only thing I did different from her was use distilled water. This distiller was well worth the investment and I can honestly say it has more than paid for itself! Original review: I have had this distiller for two months now and it works great. It takes about five to six hours to distill from cool tap water but yesterday I used hot tap and heated about half of the water on the stove to almost a simmer and it only took four hours (I didn't want it completely boiling because I wasn't sure how that might affect the element in the machine). Previously I would fill big three gallon water jugs at reverse osmosis water dispenser and that was a pain lugging those bottles back and forth so this is a bit more convenient because I can just fill it up and go. But the big difference everyone in the house noticed was the taste. I always thought that you couldn't beat the taste of reverse osmosis water but I was wrong. I don't notice the difference in just drinking a glass of water but when I make coffee there is an extreme difference. Coffee made with this distilled water rocks! People ask me what kind of coffee it is because it tastes so much better than before and the only thing that is different is the water. UPDATE January 20, 2023 I purchased this in 2011 and it is still going strong. I use it everyday ... that is an appliance life span that is almost unheard of in this day and age. It removes all the chemicals and leaves only pure water. Everything tastes so much better, coffee, tea, spaghetti, anything you need water to make... you can taste what they are really supposed to taste like. This is a a real value!

Color me not impressed. You take the unit out of the box and then you have to assemble the glass pitcher yourself. The whole thing is enormous - it looks from the pictures like it is about as big as coffee maker - wrong. You are going to need a lot of counter-space to house this beastie. For scale, the glass carafe is easily 3x the size of a typical coffee maker carafe. Next weird thing: there is no actual on/off switch anywhere on the unit, just a breaker reset on the front of it. Basically, it boils the water, the steam rises into a condenser where it is cooled back into water by a little fan using the ambient air to cool the coils. The condensed water drips down into the glass pitcher. Rather than run on a timer or somehow sense that there is no water left in the unit, it is supposed to boil dry then the breaker trips off as the base gets too hot. That is how it shuts itself off. This does not seem like a particularly sensible design to me. It is basically designed to deliberately get very hot, when the temp rises too high in the base, it SHOULD stop before it catches itself on fire. Not a design I am particularly comfortable leaving run when I'm not home for example, and this is supposed to run for hours on end. It will take several hours to distill a full pot of water. Unfortunately, the little breaker on mine was defective, shutting off the unit after it ran for 10-15 minutes, instead of the 4 hours plus it was supposed to run. I checked everything over repeatedly, went through all the trouble-shooting steps in the manual - nothing helped. It was tripping off like it was overheated when there was still 95% of the water unprocessed. So now I have to go return it. Next unpleasant surprise. Even for defective units, you get to pay the shipping back to the manufacturer and this thing is big and heavy. My guess is that even slow shipping this monster back is going to cost me $40 or more. Doesn't really seem right that I have to pay anything out of my own pocket for shipping when I got a defective unit. If there was nothing wrong with it and I just didn't want it - ok, but I didn't get a working unit and now I am out of pocket a fair bit of money due to a manufacturing defect. Yes, I could have looked at the fine print on the shipping policies from a third party purchase, but I didn't and now I got burned. I have had occasional, defective products from Amazon, and they seem to always treat you right, sending somebody to come pick up the thing to make the return process painless and easy so you'll come back to them again in the future. Not so much for some of these third party sellers, apparently. If that makes you hesitant to buy this particular item - good. It isn't particularly loud in operation and there is nothing otherwise objectionable about it. The steel cylinder inside looks relatively easy to clean, although it cannot be immersed in water and would probably be a lot easier to clean if it didn't boil dry each time.

(see updates at the bottom) Got this the other day. It works just as promised; I have no issues with it. It arrived packaged very well - so well in fact I am impressed with whoever designed all the specific/unique packages within the main package. It came with 6 little charcoal filters and a cleaning solution for the stainless steel inside of the distiller unit. The water looks so clean and tastes good; it holds one gallon and takes about 5 hours and 15 minutes from start to finish. I've heard that heating the water first will hasten the process, however I just use cold tap. Some have said the pitcher spills water when poured. Either they are pouring it wrong or the company has re-designed the pitcher because I have not spilled a drop and think the pitcher is great. Many have reported yucky stuff left behind that is slimy, stinky and so on. YES!! This happens every time (I just wipe it out with a damp cloth). For an experiment I ran a gallon of newly distilled water through the distiller again and I am so happy to report that nothing was left behind :) Next I plan on trying a gallon of distilled water from WM. I am thankful for this machine and hope it lasts me a while. I will update any changes. Edited on May 24, 2014 The machine is still running strong however there is one quirk that has surfaced ... for some reason once in a while the water will leak out where the spout is connected to the lid. I have not figured out why this happens and it seems to be random. I just keep a towel under the machine 'just in case'. It will go for several weeks without leaking and then all of the sudden it will leak for a few cycles and then stop again. When it does leak it's usually not that much (a few tablespoons to a fourth cup maybe?), however a few times it has leaked 1-2 cups!! But, like I said, it suddenly stops and there are no issues. I'm not sure if this is bad or not but the stainless-steel underside of the top section is no longer nice and shiny but dark orange/brown in color. This could be because of our really bad water here where I live? (SW MO) Has anyone else had this issue? I know that when I used to filter my water it first went through a 'micro sponge' of some sort that was white ... but would turn burnt orange if I did not clean it off regularly. It might be totally unrelated but then maybe not. As I stated in my original post, I have no problem with the container leaking when I pour out the water ... UNLESS I pour too fast. So, my advice to those who have issues with the pitcher leaking: try slowing down. When my cleaning solution that came with it ran out I tried to find the exact brand online to reorder however I could not so I just ordered another brand. The new brand does NOT do as good of a job as whatever brand came with the machine (the bottle had no brand name on it). If you know of a good brand to order, please let me know as I am not happy with the one I got. I am still very thankful for the purchase and will update again when I feel the need. UPDATE 03/14/15 It is still working HOWEVER about half the time it makes and obnoxious, high pitched, squealing sound for a few minutes when you first turn it on. This, I assume, is the fan motor struggling to go properly. I tried using a can of compressed air to force out the dust, and while a lot of dust did come out it had no effect on the squeal. I am way past the year warranty so if anyone has ideas on what to do, let me know! Other than that, it does work and we still run about 2 to 3 gallons through it each 24-hour period. UPDATE 11/08/15 The obnoxious, high pitched, squealing sound: I finally took the top apart and cleaned it off really good, however this did NOT work. My son took the motor apart, cleaned all the inner parts, lubricated them with sewing machine oil, and WOW!! it runs like new again. SO HAPPY. I'm including a photo of the discoloration on the underside of the lid - the side that is stainless steel. It just gets darker and darker, but I assume this does not matter?? TO CLEAN IT: No need to buy the yucky chemicals!!! An elderly friend of mine gave me some advice a few months ago ... just fill the tank up 3 or so inches with white vinegar and run it through like water. Once done, I scrape off the nasty and run it through one more time. This works SO MUCH BETTER than the chemical stuff!! After I am done cleaning it out I fill the tank with an inch or two of water and run that through so vinegar is rinsed out of the pipe. UPDATE January 2017 My son has cleaned it about 4 times since my last update, but it finally broke and I'm not sure why. We have had thoughts of taking it to a small engine repair man and seeing if he can fix it, but so far we haven't because we are just too busy right now. Once things settle down a little I might take it to see if the man can fix it.

****200 GALLONS UPDATE**** Since I love improvements I wanted to share we've made 200 gallons with this unit and I have an update to how I clean and maintain it. I've changed how I fill the reservoir. **I fill it using two 1/2 gallon glass canning jars. **As soon as I've emptied those jars into the distiller reservoir I go straight to the tap and fill those jars up again. **I let the jars sit, full of water with no lid until I'm ready to make the next gallon. **The chlorine in the tap water evaporates while sitting. **There is much less residue in the distiller. Chlorine was accounting for a lot of it! We still have a good amount of limestone and other minerals but w/o the chlorine it is about 1/2 the residue as before! We can now go 2 weeks in between cleaning the reservoir!!! I clean the same way as the last update, but I've reduced the citric acid down to 1/3 - 1/2 cup. ****UPDATE**** We've now made over 150 gallons and this unit is still running strong! We mostly make a gallon a day, there is a day or two per month where we need to make an extra gallon. After all these gallons I have developed a routine: Once the water is distilled I unplug the unit, remove the lid, and pat out all the wet leftover minerals with a single paper towel. After that there is still some residue stuck on the unit and I'm fine with it. I leave it to build up all week. On the weekend I sprinkle 3/4-1 cup of citric acid all over that residue, like I'm flouring a cake pan. Then I fill the unit with hot tap water and let it sit while I do laundry or run to the market. An hour or more later I dump out the water and the unit is mostly clean leaving only a little residue that needs to be gently scrubbed away. This method requires less effort and uses less citric acid than before when I was doing it every other day. ****ORIGINAL REVIEW**** We've made at least 50 gallons with this and are very pleased with its performance. I would say that it'll take a while for it to pay for itself compared to the price of distilled water at a supermarket since the power consumption is pretty high, but the convenience is totally worth it. Convenience meaning I don't have to lug big bottles of water from the store anymore. I don't have to worry about the bottle water limit at the store anymore. And I don't have to deal with all the plastic because we go through 1-2 gallons a day so the recycling impact was pretty high. I did save 10 of those plastic jugs to keep extra distilled water on hand for a power outage but other than that we're done with the plastic which makes us real happy. Cleaning isn't too tough - I bought a 10lb bag of citric acid and I use 1/2 cup with hot tap water and a scrubber brush to clean the reservoir every 2 days to get the sediment off the sides and bottom. It takes me just a couple minutes. Then I rinse it with water and then fill it up and start running a distillation cycle again. Ours did not come with the charcoal filters though it said it did. I guess they forgot those, but it isn't necessary. We test the water every 10 gallons and it is always 0 ppm so I don't see the use in the charcoal filters. Our tap water is 244 PPM with a lot of limestone so its been really great to have distilled water that doesn't clog my iron, my steamer, his CPAP, or our espresso maker. We do sometimes remineralize the water after making tea or coffee just for the taste - we use electrolyte drops (unflavored) and that works great. If you're thinking about it I recommend this. It isn't the cheapest or the most expensive but it is very reliable, very easy to use and manage, and there isn't too much assembly - just the silver bands and handle need to be put on the pitcher and you're pretty much ready to go. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED If this review helped you to make a decision: please consider tapping the helpful button. Thanks!!

***Update*** Good Lord. It's hard to believe but we've been running ours every day FOR 8 YEARS! The only blip was when I broke the fan a couple years ago with a too strong air blower while cleaning it. It was easier buying a new head than trying to replace the fan blade. Megahome shipped us a new one pretty quick and we were back in business. But the base is the same. Just clean it maybe once a week with citric acid change the carbon monthly and that's it! Good Luck and Stay Healthy! ---------------------------------- Holy cow. Never thought I'd be updating this review 4 years later. Guess what? The distiller is still running strong! We run it anywhere between 1 - 3 times a day. Even if I only average 1 per day, that's still over 1,000 gallons we've distilled so far. Think about that for a bit. The most important advice I can give is to keep it clean. I clean the inside as needed (about after every 5 runs) with citric acid per the instructions. Looks new again every time. Then, once a year I clean the head assembly. Depending on how obsessed you are with cleaning, this can take up to an hour or more to take the assembly cover off and clean the coils and such. I just purchased an XPower Air Duster to help blast out the dust. (got tired of paying for canned air) The glass carafe is also holding up well and requires minimal maintenance. That's about it. Cheers! ************ There are many uses for distilled water. If you are searching for affirmation as to why you would want to distill your water for drinking then you should probably skip my review. I'd rather address those who have had their "come to Jesus" moment and are at the point of deciding between competing distillers. I live in South Florida but grew up in New York City. Like 100% of the New Yorkers that first encounter Florida water my first reaction was "Eww...wtf is wrong with the water down here". The water comes from the Biscayne aquifer and is processed by the local cities. It typically has a brown appearance and depending on the city either smells like a swimming pool or something worse. Most Floridians arm themselves with an arsenal of bottled water, under-the-sink filters, faucet filters or whole house filters. Then toss in a fair dose of denial and acceptance for good measure. It is what it is. I guess we're mostly happy to be alive and not leveled by a category 5 hurricane once or twice a year so crappy water is the least of our hazards. Moving on, I've watched endless videos and read tons of reviews on distillers and distilling water for quite a while before taking the leap. Although there are cheaper distillers on Ebay and elsewhere, I found myself constantly circling back to Amazon and the Megahome distiller. It just seemed like a decision I would regret if I was looking to cut corners. There is a video out there on unpacking and setting up the MH943SB and my experience was the same. I'll just move along to usage and just say it was all very easy to unpack and set up. The Unit itself is large but not as large as I imagined. The stainless steel is beautiful both inside and out and projects a sense of quality. Nothing looks or feels cheap including the carafe. The carafe is large in that it holds one gallon of water. The glass is thick and has weight which gave me a sense of it not feeling cheap like so many coffee carafes. All in all I was very impressed with the look and feel of the distiller and carafe out of the box. So on to actual use... On first use I filled the boiler chamber to a line clearly marked on the inside with straight tap water. Placed the top on and plugged that into the base. I plug the base into a cheap timer I bought that does 2/4/6/8 hours. From what I understand the distiller has two internal methods to shut off automatically but I'd rather turn it off than have it run until it is dry. I set it for 4 hours the first time just to get a sense for how it works and plugged it in. The fan is not as loud as I was led to believe. My microwave is way louder. My dishwasher is louder. My air conditioner is louder. Just for fun I used "Sound Meter" on my android and it clocked in at about 30db from a couple of feet away. Sound Meter describes 30db as "Quiet whisper at 3 ft, Library". It doesn't disturb anyone in the house day or night. I hope that helps. My wife also grew up in NYC and is a harsh critic of pretty much everything. I was concerned with the first batch as it had a strong chemical smell. She said she wasn't going anywhere near that so I dumped it. Let me say right away if you buy this unit don't be discouraged by this. It took 3-4 batches to clear out whatever was causing this. The second batch still had a slight odor so I dumped that one too. The third batch had no odor. I had a sip and it seemed incredibly pure but either I wasn't used to clean water or it was just still a little off somehow. I was getting concerned the horrible smell of the left over gunk from the tap water was impinging on the distilled water. There is a gas escape hole so I was hoping that wasn't happening. For the fourth batch I rinsed off and used two carbon filters in the spigot as directed. The next day I poured a cold glass for my wife. She simply gave it the highest compliment you could give drinking water. She said it tasted as close to NYC water as she has ever had. In fact, I am not allowed now to alter it in any way with additives like minerals or alkaline boosters. Her reasoning was simple. "You spent all this time removing all that stuff so why add anything back in?" As far as what remains in the boiling chamber, I can barely describe it. Yellow brown sludge of some sort with various crystallized particles and debris. I even ran a batch with a famous brand faucet filter with the same ugly result. I suppose it is mostly lime and maybe calcium. I can't account for why it would be a yellow/brown color though. This is also the only way to unbind fluoride from a water molecule so that must be in there too. I did clean the boiler chamber after four days of continuous use. The citric acid cleaner is fast and effective and brings the inside of the base back to new condition with no scrubbing or wiping. So in conclusion, it took three to four batches to maybe clear out the condenser coil and get a pristine batch every time after. It does take 5-6 hours to produce a gallon but if you time things out you can build up a little reserve. I did run some batches with hot faucet water and you might shave of a half hour or so. Just be warned this will ruin water for you everywhere. I became acutely aware of unpleasant tastes and smells in water at various restaurants etc. I'll update after a few months but so far early indications are the Megahome Countertop Water Distiller is a winner and exceeded my expectations.