Westinghouse W15120a Sa98910 Aquavie Healthy Survey I've owned this unit now about 8 1/2 months. I use it nearly every day up to 3 times a day. I use it for drinking, for my ultrasonic humidifier, to top off my little aquarium and to water house plants. for drinking, I need to run the end product thru a Brita filter in order to remove that "distilled" flavor. it has been a godsend for my ultrasonic humidifier. . I live in Dallas and we have some of the hardest water I've ever had to deal with. My only niggle on this is the capacity. it would be fine if I wasn't relying so heavily on my humidifier for my sinuses. but without it. the entire house fills up with that awful white mineral dust that gets in to everything and actually can trigger my asthma. My house plants also love it. our tap water in Dallas is so hard it actually can kill the houseplants. My fish tanks are doing much better on the distilled water as the hardness of the tap water destroys the little filters by gumming up the parts with hard, mineral deposits and I have not lost one filter or a fish since switching to the distilled water. bear in mind, this thing puts off a ton of heat. . it's like having a space heater on the 750 watt setting while it's running. I tuck mine in the back bathroom in the part of the house I rarely use because of the heat. especially in the summer. The distilled water tastes like plastic has been melted in it. Gross! Apparently this is melted glue and is supposed to go away over time. I'm losing my patience as I have distilled 10-15 gallons of water it and still no change in the taste or smell. I will give the distiller credit for removing dissolved solids though - consistently 1-2ppm. The only thing I would recommend this distiller for is watering your plants as it produces acidic water in the 5. 5 to 6. 5 ph range. I ordered this item about a month ago. A week or later after my order I sent an email to the seller, and found out that it was on the back order and they promised to ship it in two weeks. It arrived about two weeks later, as they mentioned. The distiller looks and feels well-built, even though it's mostly all plastic. Works fine in a sense that it makes the distilled water. The main problem though was that the water was not drinkable at all. It had a strong chemical odor and taste. I tried a glass jar, as one of the on-line forums suggested, but it didn't make any difference. Then I found a forum at the bottom of this product page right here on Amazon, to which I also contributed. It's called "How to get that plastic smell out of the water?" Here is the link just in case: http://www. amazon. com/that-plastic-smell-out-water/forum/Fx1VWL73TB130G2/Tx1E0U1PTZCM6M8/1/ref=cm_cd_dp_ ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B0057RCE00 I will not repeat the details here, but just want to mention that Westinghouse is familiar with the problem and claims it is due to a glue :-), and the smell should disappear after some usage. I ran the unit for a few days while disposing the produced water just to get rid of the smell. After a few weeks of using the unit, the glue is still leaching into the water, and I have to use a carbon filter in a pitcher to remove the odor. The smell gets weaker, but is still present. I got a reply from Westinghouse to my email that says the issue was passed to the management, and that they will inform me on the solution, but I haven't gotten anything from them yet. I don't know if it's important or not, but I didn't use the included mineral cartridge, so I don't know if it makes a difference. As you can tell from my story, I was mostly focusing on making sure the distilled water was odorless, as I thought it should be before making this purchase. If you have similar problems with your units, or found a remedy, please post it here, or on the forum below. I am thinking about keeping the unit, hoping this problem will fade away, so I would like to learn about this issue as much as possible. I have owned many water dispensing units and now own this water distiller. Tap water makes me ill. I found with any water distilling or dispensing unit that has plastic compenents that the very first cleaning is essential to remove the plastic taste. Running white vinegar with several distilled water
rinses of any bottled water unit takes care of the odor and taste. The boiling chamber pot interior must have a vinegar solution soaking 24 hours before first use. Rinse well & discard the first batch(don't waste your charcoal filter on the first discarded batch). Enjoy the taste of this water distiller! I plan to buy and use activated charcoal for future filtering and add a liquid mineral concentrate I get from vitacost. com. We all need minerals for healthy bones and teeth and other body functions. Distilling removes them along with all the nasty impurities of tap water. I do not recommend buying the Westinghouse W15120A/SA98910 distiller because : (1) The distilled water has strong plastic smells and tastes until after about 80 gallons have been made. Boiling container has metal at the bottom only, and black plastic elsewhere. The collection container is made of plastic. The plastic parts have a strong chemical smell. The mineral cartridge contains calcium /magnesium and activated carbon. It is used to cover up/reduce the plastic tastes. (2) It is leaking water badly, 1/2 a gallon, after 3 months, creating a watery mess on counter top. I get tired of cleaning up the mess and getting only 1/2 gallon of distilled water after 4 hours. I stop using it. I am still using a discontinued 5-year old Sears distiller with an all steel boiling container. The distilled water has no smell and taste after the first gallon. I am very pleased with it. (3) Chemicals leached from plastics can cause cancer and damage kidneys etc. (4) Item is discontinued. No new models. Customer service number 866-365-5339 given in Use & Care Guide is disconnected. No support. I confirmed that by calling 866-442-7873 for other Westinghouse products. You can buy it on the internet for as low as $79. 99. I recommend buying 1 of these below : ------------------------------------------ (1) An undersink reverse osmosis (R. O. ) unit for around $120 to $200. Amazon sells and ships one for $121. 67. It comes with an auto-shutoff 1-gallon to 5-gallon storage tank. Enter "B002LHDL7E", all capital letters, and click Search on Amazon (5 Stage Reverse Osmosis Water Filter. . . . ). Get an adapter called "Diverter Valve", that connects to the kitchen faucet, allowing water to flow to R. O. unit or out of the faucet. Connect the inlet tube (incoming water) from the R. O. unit to the diverter valve. The R. O. unit can sit on top of the kitchen table beside the sink. No drilling. Nothing under the sink. You drain the waste water into the kitchen sink. Without the diverter valve, you have to connect it under the sink and have to drill holes. A 25 GPD (gallons per day/24 hours) R. O. membrane makes 1 gallon of purified water every one hour. A 50 GPD makes 1 gallon every 1/2 hour. (2) A distiller with a "all steel" boiling chamber and condenser tubes for $150 to $300. A "glass" or "steel" collection container. Plastic or aluminum parts can leach hazardous chemicals into the water, especially when hot. Table top unit makes 1 gallon water in 4 to 5 hours. The Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of water I tested using a $12 HMD TDS meter : distilled water. . . . . . . 0 ppm (parts per million) or milligram per liter R. O. water. . . . . . . . . . . 20 to 30 ppm tap water. . . . . . . . . . . . . 550 to 700 ppm It takes time to research these information. Please click "Yes" below this line if this review was helpful to you.
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