it depends on what you're trying to filter out if the water. Drinking distilled water long-term can cause health problems, from what I hear. We use a 3-stage whole house filter, including a paper filter, activated charcoal, and alumina. we're just filtering rain water, though, not trying to remove heavy metals or chlorine from municipal water or well water.
Discussion
That’s a good point. I suppose I’m mostly trying to filter out atrazine, fluoride, chlorine, some acids from pesticide runoff, and some heavy metals like chromium. It’s municipal water.
Reverse osmosis is the only method that filters fluoride that I’m aware of, which is why I originally went that route.