I was just in Home Depot to buy a couple bags of potassium chloride (40 or 50lb bags). They rang up for $18.99 each! I said that must be a mistake. Last time they were about $9 each. The cashier checked again. Still $18.99. I told her she should inform a manager that the price has been misentered into their system. She got a hold of someone who was aware of the price change, and said it doubled at all the Home Depots. Has anyone else run into this?
potassium chloride price doubles
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jwstewar
Elite Member
I thought $12.99 at Tractor Supply was bad. Fortunately they had a wrong sign on it. I bought 6 bags at $8.99 each. Then went home and found out if I'm using the potassium the water softner only wants one bag at a time. Glad I bought the 6 bags.
jeffinsgf
Veteran Member
I've just recently heard about potassium chloride for water softeners. What's the advantage over NaCL?
Z-Michigan
Veteran Member
If you're supposed to limit sodium intake, KCl doesn't add sodium into your drinking water. I think that's it.
Why would the price rise so much?
Why would the price rise so much?
I checked another Home Depot, and it had the same $18.99 price. I then went to Ace Hardware and paid $10.99. Still not cheap, but $10.99 is about what I would expect at Ace since they would normally charge a 10% to 20% more than Home Depoit, and Home Depot used to charge $8.99 I believe.
jinman
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Z-Michigan said:
Actually, KCl is used as a table salt substitute and also part of the cocktail given as a lethal injection (I guess that's the two extremes...). If you eat too much of it, you will have some really bad effects.
It is used in fertilizer production and petroleum production as a substitute for NaCl. -- info thanks to Wikipedia
My guess is that Home Depot has a system-wide pricing glitch that they will correct when they discover they aren't moving much KCl. I hope that's the case and not that it is about to go up that much everywhere.
daedong
Veteran Member
Z-Michigan
Veteran Member
jinman said:
I was replying to the question of how it compares to NaCl for water softeners. I agree that it has the other uses you mention. I've tasted the table-salt-substitute with KCl and it's OK, but has kind of a sharp flavor. Fortunately I have no restrictions from using good ol NaCl!
How is it used in fertilizer production? My understanding was that potash is mined directly and requires little or no processing.
jinman
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Z-Michigan said:
Exactly, I should have made it more clear that I was just adding to your response. I'm in full agreement.
As to potash production, I really don't know the details of the process and I'm only adding what I found on Wikipedia. Here is a partial quote from their site.
"The majority of the potassium chloride produced is used for making fertilizer, since the growth of many plants is limited by their potassium intake. As a chemical feedstock it is used for the manufacture of potassium hydroxide and potassium metal. It is also used in medicine, scientific applications, food processing, and as a sodium-free substitute for table salt (sodium chloride). Potassium chloride is also used as the third of a three drug combination in judicial execution through lethal injection. It is sometimes used in water as a completion fluid in oil and gas operations. Also, as an alternative to sodium chloride in household water softener units."
Wikipedia
jwstewar said:
$12.99 was the price at the local TSC. The manager did not know if the price was recently increased. They had one pallet of it sitting unopened in the back of the store (not the public part), so it looks like they don't do much potassium chloride business. The manager had to pull one out and scan it just to get the price.
