Firstly, clean water is essential for many important things! Many of your internal body functions that transfer nutrients and removes waste use the water that you take in to accomplish this. And the cleaner the water the more effective and efficient the process! After running a distiller cycle or two you will see the extracted impurities within the tank that were in the water.This is not my first distiller. However, it is better than the last one that I bought (which lasted about one year). The lesser model was either on or off only. This unit has a heater control with a wide range of settings. I guess if in a hurry increase the temperature? I set to mid-level before bed and in the morning it is always done.This unit is also better in that it shuts off automatically when the cycle is done! The cheaper model did not. It remained on running dry until I shut it off (could have contributed to its short life).And as a bonus! Every appliance that uses water will last many times longer when filled with clean water only! Like the iron/steamer and coffee maker. Is much better for cooking just knowing that the water and food is cleaner. I have two 2.5-gallon containers that I keep filled with clean water.I have a water softener on my entire house and though I do not get as much extracted filth to remove from the distiller (I had the distiller only first and saw worst case), there are still visible impurities that the system removes.Do yourself a favor and try this system. You will be glad that you did!