Morton softener salt quality getting worse? (2024)

I'm coming across an issue with Morton softener salt purchased from Home Depot where the pellets are no longer white, but now a greyish, brownish, dirty color. Hopefully this is visible in the photos that I attached. Earlier bags with this color salt pellet didn't leave any residue, but just made the water brownish in color. My current bags of salt are now leaving a visible residue, which you can hopefully see on the sides of my tank in the photos. I'm concerned that it's going to clog up my softener as it's recharging.

Are you finding this issue as a common one? Are there other brands of softener salt that I should consider? My local Home Depot only has Morton.

I'm debating on whether to empty out the remaining salt in my talk and clean up the residue. Not relishing that task.

The entire pellet is consistent (i.e. it is not just the surface of the pellet). I have reached out to Morton directly and waiting to hear back. I read a review on Home Depot's website of someone else coming across the same thing, and they showed it to Home Depot staff in the store. They examined every bag of Morton's Clean and Protect (yellow), and they were all the same brownish pellet. I have yet to do the same with my local Home Depot store.

Any suggested alternatives? Not sure who else produces softener salt of good quality.

Diamond should be good. Costco carries 50 lb bags, but smaller in the iron-treating verison.

I have not opened my latest Morton Clean and Protect Water Softener Pellets (44 lbs.) from, Sams.

dc4517 said:

The entire pellet is consistent (i.e. it is not just the surface of the pellet). I have reached out to Morton directly and waiting to hear back. I read a review on Home Depot's website of someone else coming across the same thing, and they showed it to Home Depot staff in the store. They examined every bag of Morton's Clean and Protect (yellow), and they were all the same brownish pellet. I have yet to do the same with my local Home Depot store.

Any suggested alternatives? Not sure who else produces softener salt of good quality.

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I have noticed the same thing. I was at a customer's house who had been buying that salt and the tank was really dirty. I cleaned out the tank and switched over to Diamond Crystal Bright water softener salt pellets. Seems to be cleaner and not leaving the black film in the brine tanks.

No salt is 100% pure. The brine tank should be cleaned out fully and sanitized every few years.

Loss of flow through a water softener is most often caused by damaged resin.

Any type of water softener resin will be damaged by constant chlorine exposure. Many softeners available from big box stores and online sellers are equipped with cheap resin with less than 8% crosslinking and so those system's resin will be subpar and the lifespan will be reduced, particularly when softening municipal (chlorinated) water. Standard water softener resin has 8% crosslinking but resin with premium 10% crosslinking will better tolerate constant chlorine exposure so suggest either rebedding your system with 10% CL resin, or better yet, install a backwashing carbon filtration system to remove chlorine before your softener equipped with either 8% or 10% CL resin.

Bannerman said:

No salt is 100% pure. The brine tank should be cleaned out fully and sanitized every few years.

Loss of flow through a water softener is most often caused by damaged resin.

Any type of water softener resin will be damaged by constant chlorine exposure. Many softeners available from big box stores and online sellers are equipped with cheap resin with less than 8% crosslinking and so those system's resin will be subpar and the lifespan will be reduced, particularly when softening municipal (chlorinated) water. Standard water softener resin has 8% crosslinking but resin with premium 10% crosslinking will better tolerate constant chlorine exposure so suggest either rebedding your system with 10% CL resin, or better yet, install a backwashing carbon filtration system to remove chlorine before your softener equipped with either 8% or 10% CL resin.

Click to expand...

Never knew that.. Really appreciate the insight.