Morton Pool Salt from Home Depot really messed up my pool

[mknauss]

Interesting. I thought Clorox was one if the companies getting salt from fracking brine waste?

A long time ago, maybe. There is not enough fracturing occurring in the Marcellus area anymore. And I know that the major players in the Permian Basin would not condone that.

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Morton used to be one of the brands of salt highly recommended here on the forum. Now it will also fall Into darkness like Clorox salt. It would have been nice to end this story with, "At least they made it right." Their failure to stand behind their product and take care of the consumer will cost them much more than the bad salt alone.

 

[JamesW]

PA Fracking Wastewater Turned into Clorox Pool Salt​

February 18, 2019 Bradford County, Energy Services, Eureka Resources, Industrywide Issues, Pennsylvania, Wastewater

In 2013 Eureka Resources built a Marcellus Shale wastewater treatment facility near Towanda (Bradford County), PA with a capacity to treat up to 10,000 barrels of wastewater per day (see Eureka Resources Building PA’s Biggest Marcellus Wastewater Plant). Among the products produced at the “Standing Stone” plant near Towanda is swimming pool salt.

PA Fracking Wastewater Turned into Clorox Pool Salt | Marcellus Drilling News

In 2013 Eureka Resources built a Marcellus Shale wastewater treatment facility near Towanda (Bradford County), PA with a capacity to treat up to 10,000 barrels of wastewater per day (see Eureka Resources Building PA’s Biggest Marcellus Wastewater Plant). Among the products produced at the...

marcellusdrilling.com

 

[JamesW]

By 2019, it was apparent that “slowdown” was a euphemism for bust. There were only 19 drilling rigs in the entire state by January of that year, down from 114 in the same month of 2012. That’s fewer rigs than Pennsylvania had before the fracking boom began.

The fracking boom is over. Where did all the jobs go?

Fracking created startlingly few jobs in Appalachia, and most of them no longer exist.

www.technologyreview.com

 

[Oly]

The serial # of my Mortons pool salt is GR22238007 and does not have Mexico printed on the bag. Again my bags were nothing like what pictured by the OP.

Mortons states on the bag that they are members of the APSP (Association of Pool and Spa Professionals) and use the APSP logo on their label. It also states that this product is certified to NSF/ANSI standards 50 & 60.

 

[rstrouse]

I just bought 4 more bags of Morton's pool salt from the Home Depot in Roseville, CA. It was not fine grained but it was fine salt nonetheless. It was clean, pure, and left no residue. My advice is that if it is fine grained or has leaflets 3 let it be.

 

[jmastron]

I wonder if it might make sense to put a warning on TFP site to avoid Morton salt for now, or at least avoid the mfg code I listed earlier (Mexico LB23065002). This seems like the 3rd confirmation? Certainly appears like this was not just a few bags. I don't want anyone else to go through this. That is why I refuse to bring my remaining 4 bags back to Home Depot, to avoid someone else getting their pools messed up if Home Depot tries to resell them.

I understand that, but I think returning them is actually more likely to help others than hurt. HD has pallets more of the bags, likely from the same lot, so people are going to get them whether your 4 bags go back there or not. And in many cases returned merchandise doesn't go on the shelf; it goes back to the manufacturer. And more importantly, if you ask for a manager to take a look, no guarantee but there's at least some chance they'll take action on the whole lot. They might be willing to open one of them and see. HD has a lot more buying power than you do, so if they do have multiple reports of defective product there's a better chance of them getting Morton's attention.

And in the end, you bought a product from them that you aren't happy with because it isn't as advertised, and per their policies are entitled to refund the unused products. I'd even bring in the empty bags with the pictures, as they might even be willing to refund all of them. But in any case, if I were running a store I would want to know if there were real problems with any of the products I sold so I could at least track them.

I just bought 4 more bags of Morton's pool salt from the Home Depot in Roseville, CA. It was not fine grained but it was fine salt nonetheless. It was clean, pure, and left no residue. My advice is that if it is fine grained or has leaflets 3 let it be.

Do you have pictures of the salt in an opened bag, and pictures of the lot/plant info? That would be a great data point to compare. I'm going to stick with the Diamond Crystals brand, but it is good for people to know what to look for or not.

 

[mrm1682]

I used Morton last year and again this year. Both times I bought from HD. I had 2 bags left over from last year which were fine and this years bags were a bit more coarse. 4 bags in total which were all clean and no oily or dirty material inside. The bags are marked exactly the same so no idea why one was coarse and one was fine but either way they were clean. I’m not trying to defend them but just stating my experience with Morton product.

 

[Bperry]

I understand that, but I think returning them is actually more likely to help others than hurt. HD has pallets more of the bags, likely from the same lot, so people are going to get them whether your 4 bags go back there or not. And in many cases returned merchandise doesn't go on the shelf; it goes back to the manufacturer. And more importantly, if you ask for a manager to take a look, no guarantee but there's at least some chance they'll take action on the whole lot. They might be willing to open one of them and see. HD has a lot more buying power than you do, so if they do have multiple reports of defective product there's a better chance of them getting Morton's attention.

And in the end, you bought a product from them that you aren't happy with because it isn't as advertised, and per their policies are entitled to refund the unused products. I'd even bring in the empty bags with the pictures, as they might even be willing to refund all of them. But in any case, if I were running a store I would want to know if there were real problems with any of the products I sold so I could at least track them.




Do you have pictures of the salt in an opened bag, and pictures of the lot/plant info? That would be a great data point to compare. I'm going to stick with the Diamond Crystals brand, but it is good for people to know what to look for or not.

This.

If no one is returning product, they assume all is fine. It’s when they start getting returns that companies pay attention and it’s a key driver for whether they do something about it or not.

 

[midlifecrisis]

Off topic, to an extent, but last week (ish) when I converted my pool, I bought Diamond Crystal salt from Home Depot.

I was under the impression those were just fine to use, but I "feel" everyone is trying to use crystals, or avoiding the normal pellets. Am I missing something? I dumped them in, and 30 minutes later they were gone.

 

[Bperry]

Off topic, to an extent, but last week (ish) when I converted my pool, I bought Diamond Crystal salt from Home Depot.

I was under the impression those were just fine to use, but I "feel" everyone is trying to use crystals, or avoiding the normal pellets. Am I missing something? I dumped them in, and 30 minutes later they were gone.

No they are fine and sometimes cheaper.

 

[midlifecrisis]

No they are fine and sometimes cheaper.

My feelers need to be calibrated apparently.

 

[look30]

BTW, I got the yellow salt bags from Costco, salt for water softeners and its nice white and pure 99.95%
I am also in the Bay area, how much you paid for the re-plastering ? Would you recommend the company that did it ?

 

[mknauss]

BTW, I got the yellow salt bags from Costco, salt for water softeners and its nice white and pure 99.95%

Likely has iron stain inhibitor. Not something you want to add to the pool water.

 

[Mdragger88]

Off topic, to an extent, but last week (ish) when I converted my pool, I bought Diamond Crystal salt from Home Depot.

I was under the impression those were just fine to use, but I "feel" everyone is trying to use crystals, or avoiding the normal pellets. Am I missing something? I dumped them in, and 30 minutes later they were gone.

Pellets are fine- in some places, like where I live, water softener salt (pellets) are simply not as readily available or as cheap as pool salt. I haven’t seen the normal Morton’s pool salt (which was larger crystals/diamonds) available in my area in a couple years. Only the “professional” version which is smaller/finer. Perhaps they’re phasing it out?

 

[Saturn94]

Pellets are fine- in some places, like where I live, water softener salt (pellets) are simply not as readily available or as cheap as pool salt. I haven’t seen the normal Morton’s pool salt (which was larger crystals/diamonds) available in my area in a couple years. Only the “professional” version which is smaller/finer. Perhaps they’re phasing it out?

Do the pellets not have some kind of additive to form salt into pellets? There must be something sticking the salt together to form pellets, no?

I tried a couple bags of Mortons a few years ago when my favorite salt was no longer available here and was disappointed with how dirty it was (though nothing as bas as the OP experienced, yikes!), so I never bought it again.

 

[midlifecrisis]

Do the pellets not have some kind of additive to form salt into pellets? There must be something sticking the salt together to form pellets, no?

They are listed as 99.5% pure. I assume the .5 is organic material and/or inert. I think the pellets are actually pressure molded of some form with heat to evaporate the moisture. I’m guessing here, but you can see an edge on them where it looks like two molds came together.

 

[jmastron]

Off topic, to an extent, but last week (ish) when I converted my pool, I bought Diamond Crystal salt from Home Depot.

I was under the impression those were just fine to use, but I "feel" everyone is trying to use crystals, or avoiding the normal pellets. Am I missing something? I dumped them in, and 30 minutes later they were gone.

I use the same brand crystals in the blue bag: Diamond Crystal Solar Naturals Water Softener Salt Crystals 100012454 - The Home Depot. Same price and seem to be available in Austin HDs. The pellets are probably fine and you would have noticed any issues by now, but without knowing exactly whether/what additional coatings are used it seems safer to use the crystals. 2 bags of crystals were gone in ~10 minutes last time I put somein, but that was with brushing back and forth.

 

[ArtP]

Likely has iron stain inhibitor. Not something you want to add to the pool water.

Do you know what the stain inhibitor is? Likely something that's safe for drinking water if it's meant for softener salt, right? Would they list it on the bag?

I'm doing a saltwater conversion this summer so I'm going to need to source salt soon.

 

[mknauss]

I'm doing a saltwater conversion this summer so I'm going to need to source salt soon.

Salt - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com