American Water Distillers review: No Customer Service - No Buyer Protection 8

THE GOOD: I purchased an American Water Distiller Love Model 1 (polycarbonate water bottle) from American Water Distiller at their Web site, www.webeatprices.com, in November, 2009 . I ordered some extra accessories with the distiller, including extra filters and cleaner, paid $24 for shipping and waited. After a few days, the distiller arrived. I read the instructions, set it up, turned it on and it worked as advertised. I regularly run the distiller once or twice a day.

I had occasion to call American Water Distillers (AWD) to ask about my filters that were in the order but didn't arrive. I got the impression that AWD is a one-man operation but, so what? So is MY company! The man on the phone told me that the filters were not in stock and that I probably didn't get charged for them. I didn't. The company does not correspond by e-mail.

The distiller seems to work very well. It provides a gallon of distilled water in about four hours; faster if I (preheat) microwave/nuke the water for 5 minutes before putting it in the distiller. Power consumption was 2.6 kwh for about four hours and my unit ran at about 700 watts of power.

The distillers construction is good and looks "professional"; I have no complaints there. The polycarbonate water bottle should work out just fine. I see no practical need for a glass water bottle.

Everyone who drinks the water that we produce from the American Water Distiller likes it - a lot. The water has a very nice taste to it and I was surprised. I expected the water to taste "bland;" it doesn't. But, the inside of the unit sometimes feels "slimy" when I clean it with a paper towel after one use. I don't know why as I use soft, filtered water to fill the unit.

THE REST OF THE STORY:

The instructions were complete but obviously written by someone whose first language was not English; probably Cantonese, but understandable. The pages are not numbered but page 1 is where we expect to find page 3. The order of the pages is: Cover sheet, page 2, page 1, packing list.

The distiller was probably made in China. No mention is made, anywhere, of the country of manufacture and there is no UL label. Buyer/user take care. I don't anticipate an electrical problem but I plugged the unit into a protected outlet (RFI), I don't use the unit near anything flammable, and I use it in a room that has a fire alarm.

The Water Bottle is not quite tall enough, by about 1/2", to completely seal to the discharge cap. I put a 1/2" pot holder under it.

The Water Line in the inside of the Machine Body is about 1/2" too high for the volume of the Water Bottle. Water poured into the Water Body up to the Water Line will overflow the Water Bottle at the end of the distilling cycle. Pour in water up to about 1/2" below the Water Line. Some Chinese engineer got his/hers volume calculation wrong. :-)

The Instructions instructions suggest washing the unit out after each use with clean water. I wipe mine out with a paper towel and I use a mild plastic pad to wipe the bottom, gently, where "crud" collects in a crescent-shaped pattern. I can't completely clean up the crud without using the cleaner/detergent that comes with the unit but I can keep it to a minimum. The instructions suggest cleaning the inside of the unit once a month with the detergent. I do it about once a week (about every 10-15 gallons of distilled water) to reduce the amount of crud in the bottom of the unit. But, I only need to put in one teaspoon of detergent since the crud only appears, so far, on the bottom of the unit; not on the sides or top.

OTHER COMMENTS:

I happened to run across some negative comments on an American Water Distiller competitor's (Ecopure) Web site and include the link to be fair. You decide. It is
http://www.canada-shops.com/Stores/ecopurewater/c333877.2.html .

Hi, WaterBug here.

When I went to replace my filters, I called American, read them the model number from my invoice and ordered replacement filters, They sent the wrong ones. They sent the ones that look like tea bags. I needed the large plastic kind with the filter inside. I called and they refused to take back the unused, sealed-in-the-package filters. Said it was a "safety" issue. There went $25 down the loo. Or did it? I used a dental tool to open the filter screen, dumped out the old filter material and inserted a "tea bag" filter. Then, I replaced the screen. I replaced filters about every three months. Worked fine until the screen got too rusty for me. Then I bought one replacement filter of the correct kind and kept replacing the "tea bags" until the distiller died.

It has been about 2 1/2 years since I bought my FIRST American Water Distiller. It finally want to Distiller Heaven. It had several problems toward the end of it's life.

One - after about 1 1/2 years, the polycab water bottle developed cracks in the bottom along the outer rim through NORMAL use; never got dropped, etc. I used superglue to seal the cracks but, over time, they got larger and I finally bought a new water bottle.

Two - after about 2 years, the thermostat went out. I bypassed it and plugged the distiller into a timer which I set for 3 1/2 hours and all worked fine.

Three - the distiller developed a small 1/8" crack or hole in the bottom which widened over time. In the end, all the water leaked out of the distiller when the water boiled and I had to buy another distiller.

Of course, there was no warranty and, anyway I had the unit for almost three years so, I bought another AWD distiller. I could have bought the real deal - the Waterwise Water Distiller Model 4000 - for $289 but, I'll try the Chinese AWD again. This time, I bought the NEW Model Love 4 - for $139 - which is claimed to be superior to the old Love 3 plastic that I bought in 2009. We'll see ...

WaterBug

I sent the money to AMD to get M8 disteller it took 3 months to get it and about 50 phone calls.Worked great fou two weeks and blew a fuse.went and got a new fuse and worked 2 min and blew again.Called and left 5 messages to customer service and no one would return my call.this is the worst company that I have done business with.Please do not do business with them or you will regret it.this company SUCKS BIG TIME!

Dave lost our M.O. then, Dave asked my husband call back at different times daily, for someone who would be in later that day, this someone never appeared. Eventually, my husband talked Dave into checking his back account, as the money order was cashed and low and behold, Dave had cashed it a week ago! We received the wrong distiller just one day later. Now we have a cheaper model that holds less than the 5 gallons one we ordered and Dave made and extra 100.00 for sending us the cheaper model.
Had Dave been honest we would have mailed it back, but we feared losing all 600.00 to this crook.
Our new distiller is full of dust and putty, fortunately my husband had tools and knowledge to break down the machine and clean all the components including the holding tank which had rust in it.

Beware of Dan and all of his companies names: American Water Distillers and AAA Wholesale

Ive used a total of 3 distillers in almost 15 yrs, they work great, price is the best available. no idea why the SAME lDlOT keeps writing the SAME EXACT REVIEWS... did it not ever occur to you that NOONE PAST THE AGE OF 6 MAKES FUN OF THE WAY SOMEONE TALKS!? so this makes it PAINFULLY OBVIOUS its the same person?

I`m not the same person, and this American Water Distiller company does not back up their warranty, they have no customer service, and yes, Dave, even after calling him everyday doesn`t know who I am. He puts you on hold and never returns to the line, tells you somebody else who is not there at the moment needs to be checked with, bla bla bla. The new distiller we got last April hasn`t worked since the middle of June and I spent my own time trouble shooting it and it was just a waste of time, after determining the circuit board was faulty, Dave won`t do a damned thing to help or get me another circuite board. Avoid this place at all costs and save yourself the ultimate aggravation of dealing with Dave.

I picked up a used American Water Distiller at a garage sale for $5. We've used it for 4 seasons so far at our cottage distilling lake water. So far so good.. I do not use any other filters just straight distilled water into the bottle. We used it every 2nd or 3rd day during the summer. If I hadn't read the above reviews I would buy another one when this one dies but now I'm not sure.