Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This distiller has worked as I expected, although I think the "5-hour" estimate of how long it takes to distill one gallon is a little optimistic. Not a problem for me - I turn it on and let it go. It produces a lot of heat in the house (can't be avoided). In cold weather, it's great because it helps warm up the house, but in the summer, it's an air-conditioning nightmare (I live in Florida). So in the heat of the summer, I will probably have to move it outside. I don't like the plastic container. I'd rather have glass, and you can get the glass jugs but they're expensive. I'd rather see the spout a little further out so that I could fit a standard glass jug underneath it. But for the money, I can't find another one that has this capability. I tested the water with a Sprite water tester and the conductivity was around 1uS/cm (microsiemens per centimeter - a standard measure of water impurity), which is comparable to distilled water from Zepherhills (rain water off my dirty roof is around 9uS/cm and my ordinary Florida tap water is around 2500uS/cm - not bad, and probably cleaner than other places - filtered tap water goes up to 2700uS/cm - which is even worse, so filters don't do dooddily-squat). When I used the charcoal filter, the conductivity went up to around 9uS/cm, so the filter adds (probably harmless) impurities, but I use it to help capture other chemical impurities that won't distill out. The inside of the container gets caked-over after a single distilling. It doesn't come off, easily. I haven't used the chemical remover yet (I've only had this about a month or so), but I use a copper kitchen scrubber on it once in a while and that keeps the buildup down to a manageable level. The leftover water (a little bit at the bottom) stinks after one use (a testament to the impurity of my tap water), so it has to be rinsed out after each use (and occasionally scrubbed). I don't like the way the top cord connects to the bottom. I have to unplug it to take the top off and put new water in. If there was a small, built-in connector that comes loose when you take the top off, that would be ideal. Also, there should be a better way to remove the top. You have to wrap your hands around it to get it off, and if it's hot, you're in for a steam burn (so I don't touch it for at least two hours after it's done). Finally, the only serious problem I have is that the "Reset" button is also the safety shutoff. There should be one of each. If the Reset button ever fails, there needs to be a back-up emergency switch that engages, and it should be plain for the customer/user to see. Otherwise, it could be a potential fire hazard (in other words, don't leave the house or go to sleep with this thing on). So I run it only when I'm going to be home and able to be near it for the duration. My previous calculations of cost to distill one gallon of water (about 26 cents - energy to vaporize one gallon of water is about 8.5MJ (MegaJoules), which is about 2.4kWh (kilowatt-hours), which costs around 26 cents), may be off, since I did not include the cost of running a fan to cool the condenser, and if you cool the air with an air conditioner, multiply that number by 4 (minimum - more if your air conditioner is inefficient) to get your total expense for one gallon of distilled water. Don't overfill the canister or you will have a pond on your kitchen cabinet.