http://tinyurl.com/yr7jny

I doubled my distiller capacity this morning from a find in a local
thrift shop I frequent. This model sells at Sears for $99, on sale if
you'd like a great distiller at a good price. I paid $9 for it with the
usual broken boiler seal.

The seals fail because they are made of linear seal material and
Waterwise, the actual manufacturer, cuts the material TOO SHORT every
time, then superglues the ends together to form what SHOULD have been an
O-ring, 1/4" in thickness around the seal.

My solution costs, of course, nearly nothing. 1/4" latex hose from Home
Depot, a lifetime supply of seals it's so long, is a couple of bucks and
when cut to the proper length, I use polyester 1/4" water hose made for
your freezer's ice maker to make a 1" interconnecting nipple to put the
ends together making the latex hose airtight and full of air. When the
heat comes up on the boiler, the pressure inside the hose, of course,
increases, forming a very tight, steam-proof seal in the stainless steel
cover's groove. Nothing escapes, even after 2 years of service, in my
other Waterwise distiller, a better model than this with a clock-timer
and computer which tracks the carbon filter hours. The original seal is
long forgotten because Sears wanted $16 for a tiny length of door seal,
last time I checked a few years ago. My seal works much better, once the
hose gets hot a few times so it conforms to the groove and stops binding
with the pot. The longer it's used, the better it works.

Sears' price of $99 is VERY much more reasonable than Waterwise wants at
$469.00 for the one with the digital control in it! Sears must be
closing them out as they didn't sell well over $100. They didn't really
"sell" them, they stocked them with the chinzy carbon filters.

This stainless steel distill WILL turn seawater into distilled water at
about 2.8ppm total dissolved solids. I've tried it with mine, just for
the hell of it. Hell, creek or lake water leaves LESS residue in the pot
than Charleston city water! Of course, seawater cakes the boiler with
solid salt after you boil the water off it, but it washes right off the
stainless steel this boiler is made from with a light plastic brush.
It'll make 4 gallons per day if you have shore power or a 2KW+ genset
running continuously.

Instead of buying the overly-expensive carbon filters that go in the top
of the carafes on both my distillers, I buy coffee filter paper made for
old-fashioned percolators that are just flat sheets that fold up around
the coffee with holes in them for the tube. I fold at these holes and
push into the carafe's filter holder, fill with activated carbon from
WalMart's fish tank department (16 oz is $3, a lifetime supply), and fold
the paper neatly over it to seal the carbon granules inside while I put
it in the cover, upside down pushing up until it clicks. Works great,
change it every 100 gallons or when the water starts tasting slightly
metallic, indicating the carbon has loaded up with benzene, which
distillers also distill out of the water.

An overall good day at the thrift shop. The other day I bought a Netgear
MR814 v3 4-port + wireless router for $4 with the Netgear wall wart, no
book. Luckily, thrift shop employees aren't well versed in data network
gear...(c; It sells for $99, too!

Larry
--
You don't HAVE to drink those exotic bugs and the swampwater from the
docks, you know. This distiller's output water is simply
delicious...even from seawater!