We have awfully hard water, so we prefer to use distilled water in both our nugget icemaker and the coffee maker. Then, of course, there are things like irons, humidifiers, and steamers. We use a LOT of distilled water in our house! That said, the price of bottled distilled water has doubled in the past few years, so this, along with our increased consumption of it, led me to think there had to be a better way! Amazon to the rescue! After reading reviews of several water distillers, I decided on this one. It arrived quickly, came well packaged, and was easy to set up and use. Filling the container with water to the fill line marked inside of it will yield about a gallon or so of distilled water. Each cycle takes approximately 3-4 hours to complete. It came with a small plastic jar of \"cleaning crystals\" (citric acid), which is pure magic for cleaning this thing because the leftover stuff in the bottom of this distiller and dried up along the sides after you distill a gallon (give or take a little) will disgust you. Yes, that stuff is IN your water! You only need about 1/8th of a teaspoon of the cleaner in a couple of cups of water—there's no need to refill the entire container! Let it sit for a while, then use a dish scrubber with the cleaning \"solution\" you made in the distiller to clean the sides. Rinse it out well, and you're ready to use it again! You'll need to buy more citric acid when you run out of what's in the jar included with this distiller and there's plenty to be found on Amazon! This has more than paid for itself!