Lowe's Storing their Liquid Chlorine Outdoors in Garden Center

[david8753]

Hey Folks,

The best deal that I could find on Chlorine in my area (Sacramento) is at Lowes ($14 for 2 gallons of Kem-Tek Liquid Chlorine 10%). I noticed that they have their pool center staged outside in the Garden Center where they have that as well as Muriatic Acid.

Temperatures in Sacramento, especially during the summer, average at around 95 degrees for a few months and can even hit as hot as 110+ on some days. My understanding is that heat + direct sunlight can have a significant and fast deprecation effect on the strength of the Sodium Hypochlorite. Now they do keep it in the shady area and the boxes for Kem-Tek do a pretty good job of sealing off direct sunlight but the heat would certainly get to them. The product seems to move fairly quickly as the manufacturing date stamps on them are usually 1 - 2 months old (Currently the ones I got just now are manufactured August 31).

Is this something I should be overly concerned about? Perhaps it makes sense to pay a little more if I can find a place that stores the liquid indoors?

 

[Newdude]

Is this something I should be overly concerned about?

At Walmart I can usually dig through the shelf to find newer stuff, but at HD and Lowes it's usually the same date on the whole pallet and it's probably 30 or 60 days old already. (In the heat, mostly outside, like yours). Plus, Walmart is out of stock almost everywhere so that doesn't help now.

But you'll know soon enough if you consistently get duds. You'll see it in the next days test as excessive loss because you really didn't hit the target you expected. An occasional dud is almost to be expected from anywhere. Any more than that and i'd find a new source.

 

[ajw22]

Breakdown of Bleach Over Time by Storage Temp - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Sn00py]

When I was using chlorine I got it at Walmart. You can find it on a shelf, it’s also cheaper than in HD/Lowes.

As far as heat goes…never had a problem with it.