If you work in any historic photographic process, you know how important distilled water (DH2O) is - you can’t really do much without it.
So what’s going on lately with the supply and the cost? I suppose it’s “COVID fallout”. The lack of workers (sick or refusing to work) and transport (truck drivers, etc.) to get this product to market. I used to buy distilled water in the supermarket. I paid between .89 cents (USD) and .98 cents - less than a dollar for 3.78 liters, or one gallon.
Recently, I’m finding that the supermarket it out (bare shelves) and online stores (including Amazon) are charging a lot of money for it. I saw it as high as $10 USD per gallon (3.78 liters). And that’s not including shipping. Absolutely insane! I took a hard pass on all of it and bought a water distiller.
I think I’ve distilled 10 gallons now. Easy, relatively inexpensive, no driving to a store, no extra bottles hanging around, no shipping boxes to deal with, etc. All around a huge win.
If you work in a process that requires a significant amount of DH2O, I highly recommend looking into distilling your own.