We’ve been using our Megahome water distiller every single day since January 2018, so if anyone’s qualified to write an honest review of one, it’s probably us. This isn’t a quick unboxing after a week of use. This is what happens to one of these machines after eight and a half years of daily, sometimes twice daily, use in a real family kitchen.
I’ve written before about why I drink distilled water and the benefits we’ve noticed, but this post is different. This is specifically about the machine itself. Would I buy it again? What’s it actually like to live with long term? Is it worth the price? Let’s get into it.
What is the Megahome water distiller?
The Megahome is a countertop water distiller. You fill the chamber with tap water, switch it on, and over the next few hours it boils the water, catches the steam, cools it back into liquid, and drips pure distilled water out into a jug on the side. Everything that was in your tap water, the minerals, chemicals, and whatever else was dissolved in there, gets left behind in the chamber.
Ours is the stainless steel base version with a white top and a glass jug. That combination costs around £250 today. You can get it cheaper with a plastic jug instead of glass, but I’d choose glass every time. It looks nicer on the side, it should last longer, and I genuinely think the water tastes better out of it too, though I’ll admit that might partly be in my head.
How much does a Megahome water distiller cost?
We paid £155 for ours back in January 2018. Prices have gone up a fair bit since then, and you’re looking at closer to £250 now for the same stainless steel and glass jug combination, depending on where you buy it and which colour top you go for.
Is it still worth that price? For us, yes, without hesitation. We’re not talking about a novelty appliance that got used twice and shoved in a cupboard. This thing has run once or twice a day, every single day, for over eight years.
Before we had it, we hated the taste of our tap water and were spending a fair amount on filters and bottled mineral water just to avoid it. Even running the distiller daily, factoring in the electricity, it still works out cheaper than that was. Worked out per use, it’s about as good value as any kitchen appliance we own.
Our honest experience after eight years
The bottom part of our distiller, the actual boiling chamber and base, has never had a single problem. Not once. It’s the workhorse of the whole unit and it just keeps going.
The top part is a different story. As it’s got older, it’s started getting noisier when it runs. Most of the time this is just dust that’s built up inside and needs a clean out, which is fine if you’re happy taking it apart and putting it back together.
We had to replace the top section entirely back in 2021, and the website we’d ordered from seemed surprised it needed replacing at all, since they usually last much longer. We’d positioned ours a bit too close to some shelving above, so I think it overheated slightly because of that. Lesson learned. Give it plenty of clearance around the fan on top.
Since then, in the past several years, we haven’t had to replace anything else.
What we love about it
The taste is still the biggest thing for us. It’s clean, pure, and once you’re used to it, everything else tastes off by comparison. Even Evian, which used to be my go to bottled water, tastes flat and slightly odd to me now.
It’s also reassuring watching what actually comes out of your tap water. If you’ve never seen the residue left behind in one of these after a few uses, it’s genuinely eye opening. It’s what would otherwise be going straight into your body.
We use it as our main drinking water for the whole family, and it goes in our kettle too, so our tea and coffee benefit from it as well. Our kettle, by the way, still looks close to new after years of use with no limescale at all.
It’s also really easy to actually make the water, fill it, switch it on and leave it. You don’t need to be around for any of it.
It’s easy to keep clean too, especially if you swill it out and stay on top of it between uses rather than letting residue build up. A few seconds after each run saves you a proper deep clean later on. I’ve gone into much more detail on exactly how to clean a countertop water distiller if you want the full method, and to learn why I rarely ever have to do a deep clean.
Another thing we really like is how easy it is to find replacement parts. Lots of sellers stock the top, the bottom, and the jug separately, so if something breaks you don’t need to buy a whole new unit. You can just replace the one part that’s gone.
What we don’t love
I’ll be honest with you, because I think reviews that only list positives aren’t very useful. At the moment, ours gets really noisy towards the end of the cycle, usually the last third of distilling. I give it a bash and it stops for a bit, then creeps back in.
It can be a bit much if you’re working from home or trying to relax nearby. To be fair to it, ours isn’t normally this loud. It’s just getting old and it does an enormous amount of work for us, running up to twice a day. I suspect our top part is getting old again and might need replacing before too long, but it’s worth saying it’s lasted another five years since we last replaced it. It still works, just noisy.
It also takes up a decent amount of worktop space. In our current kitchen this isn’t an issue as we’ve got room for it, but in our old kitchen, which had a lot less counter space, it genuinely ate into what we had available. If you’ve got a small kitchen, factor this in before you buy.
For us though, it’s not really a problem. We use it so much, up to twice a day, that the space it takes up feels completely justified by how much clean water it gives us in return.
It also takes around four hours to distil a full jug, which can feel like a long time, especially when you’re new to it and just want a glass of water. Our solution was buying a large Kilner jug with a tap, so once a batch is done we pour it into that. That means we always have a good supply ready to drink rather than needing a fresh batch every time we want a glass.
Glass jug or plastic, and which colour top?
We went for the glass jug originally and I’d choose it again every time. It feels more premium, it’s better for the environment than plastic long term, and I do think the water tastes cleaner out of glass, even if that’s partly psychological.
As for colour, we’ve got a white top because our kitchen used to be mostly white, and it matched our kettle and toaster. Our new kitchen has a mix of white walls with black hardware, handles, and internal doors, so if I were buying today I’d probably go for the black top instead, just to tie in better.
Either works fine really. It comes down to what matches your own kitchen.
Have we tried any other brands?
No, and I don’t feel like we’re missing out. We did a lot of research before buying, watched comparison videos, read reviews, and Megahome kept coming out as one of the best performers for removing dissolved solids from tap water.
We tested this ourselves with a TDS meter and it removed well over 99% of what was in our tap water, so the research held up in practice.
That said, we do also own a Big Berkey now, which my husband and daughter use regularly. It’s a gravity fed filter rather than a distiller, so it works differently and doesn’t produce quite the same level of purity. It also takes hours to filter through, much like the distiller does.
The nice thing is having both on the go at once. We always have filtered Berkey water and distilled Megahome water ready, so we, and any guests, can simply choose which one they’d rather drink.
The Berkey does have one genuine advantage though. It’s gravity fed, so it doesn’t need any electricity to work. The distiller relies on power to run, so if we ever had a long power cut, the Berkey would still be filtering water for us while the Megahome sat idle. Worth bearing in mind if you’re thinking about backup options for an emergency.
I still reach for the distilled water myself though. For pure taste and knowing exactly what’s left in the water, distillation still wins for me.
Who is the Megahome water distiller right for?
This is really suited to anyone who’s conscious of what might be in their tap water and wants to drink the purest water genuinely available at home. If that’s you, and you’re willing to build the habit of running a batch each day, I think you’ll get a lot out of it.
It’s probably not the right fit if you’ve got a very small kitchen with limited worktop space, or if you’re not someone who’ll stick with the routine of filling and running it regularly. It’s not a set and forget appliance in the way a filter jug is. You do need to build it into your day.
Where to buy one, and what to know about warranty
We originally bought ours through an authorised seller rather than directly from Megahome, and that website no longer exists, but there are plenty of other places to buy from now, both dedicated retailers and eBay.
If you buy new from a proper retailer or authorised seller, you’ll get a warranty and it’s easy to sort out any problems if something goes wrong early on. Buying secondhand Megahome distillers on eBay is usually cheaper, and there’s a good supply of used ones out there, but obviously you won’t have any warranty cover if it develops a fault.
It’s a trade off between price and peace of mind, and which one makes sense will depend on your budget.
Our verdict
Eight and a half years, daily use, and only one part replacement. For us, that’s a genuinely excellent track record for a kitchen appliance that runs this often. It’s not perfect.
It can get a bit noisy as it ages, it takes up space, and there’s a small habit to build around using it properly. But the water tastes better than anything else we drink, our kettle has stayed limescale free, and we’ve cut out a huge amount of plastic waste from bottled water along the way.
If you’re after the purest water you can get at home and you don’t mind the small routine of running a batch each day, I’d recommend the Megahome without hesitation. When ours eventually needs another new top, we’ll simply be ordering the part and carrying on exactly as we have been.
You can shop Megahome water distillers and other brands on eBay by clicking here!
Is the Megahome water distiller worth the money?
Yes, in our experience. At around £250 for the stainless steel and glass jug version, it works out very well over the years when you consider we’ve used ours daily since 2018 with only one part needing replacement.
How long does a Megahome water distiller last?
Ours is still going after over eight years of daily, sometimes twice daily use. The base has never had an issue. The top section can eventually need replacing, which happened to us once, but you can simply order a replacement part rather than buying a whole new machine.
Is Megahome the best water distiller brand?
We haven’t tried other distiller brands ourselves, but we did extensive research before buying and Megahome consistently came out as one of the strongest performers for removing dissolved solids. That research has matched our real world experience since.
Should I choose the glass or plastic jug?
We’d choose glass every time. It looks better, should last longer, and we think it makes the water taste even cleaner, though the plastic option is cheaper if budget is the main factor.
More about distilled water
If this review has helped, here’s everything else you might want to read:
- Why I drink distilled water – our full story since 2018
- Benefits of drinking distilled water – the full breakdown
- How to make distilled water at home – step by step with photos
- Is distilled water safe to drink? – addressing the myths
- What is distilled water used for? – beyond just drinking
Discover more from Healthy Vix
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.