There is usually not a whole lot of water pressure on the salt tank. You photo almost looks like the tank froze and cracked.

Are you up north and is your dishwasher in front of an outside wall?
I've seen temps get pretty cold in cabinets attached to walls where the other side of the wall is outside.

But jakvis why is the salt brown? Is that a miele thing? The salt in my DW is white....

I also wonder why the salt is brown. What type of salt were you using in the unit? What were you quot d as the cost to repair?
Homepro01

I live in DC -- so far this fall nothing below freezing at all. The cost for a new salt tank is $190, plus, probably, $125 labor, vs. a new one at $1674 installed (incl. the loyalty discount). I think I'll go the repair route, though I'm still wondering why the tank burst in the first place.

As to the salt, I was using water softener salt I bought at Ace Hardware.

Here's a picture of the drain pan with all the granules.

Well if the salt isn't brown ...and this doesn't look like rust it means that something got into the salt tank and decomposed providing both the color and the gas....you should try to figure out the source of the contamination. Did you start washing something in the DW that you weren't washing some months ago? Is it possible that the lid to the salt was not completely tightened and dirty dishwasher got inside?

That's probably the resin beads in the softener mechanism ... not salt.

Yes, they are resin beads. The salt is in a linked container. They somehow mix and interact to soften the water.

you should only be using the Miele salt - is that what you are buying at Ace?

did you have any plumbing work done in your house at the same time? sometimes an air bubble in the water line (not flushed out) hits the water mixer that causes a big shot of air to break the part

Same as a whole-house water softener ... the incoming water flow to fill the dishwasher is passed through the resin beads, which chemically capture calcium ions (hardness) out of the water, exchanging them for sodium ions. When the resin is "saturated" with calcium and no longer functions to soften the water, the softener system regenerates the resin by flushing salt water through it and to the drain (salty water never contacts the dishware). The salt is used to make the salt water for regeneration when needed.

As stated the brown is the plastic resin beads. They are in one side of the tank and the salt is put into a separate compartment of the tank.
And what dadoes said on how it works.

This post was edited by jakvis on Thu, Dec 11, 14 at 20:46

Ok, it's the resin beads...I'm not clear on why this happened. Is there anything he can or should do to prevent it happening again in the future?

Kerbosch--

I have been using the Miele salt lately, but in the past I have also used generic softener salt sold in bags. Also, your comment about an air bubble is interesting-- I did have a plumber in that day. I was troubleshooting the intake/drain light and had removed the intake hose from the water supply and realized that no water was was coming out of the water supply even after I re-opened the valve under the sink. The plumber deduced that the valve was broken and replaced it. This required turning the water off at the main valve for the whole house. We turned the water back on and started the dishwasher and that was when the salt tank burst.

The air in the line caused the crack when it hit the wster mixer. The plumber should have bled the line by turning on the faucet first
Other salt can have impurities that will damage the resin causing it to fail It can have anti caking chemicals added to it that will coat the resin

same exact thing happened to me over the weekend after moving the dishwasher to replace the water heater. I'm thinking it is wise just to replace my ten year old appliance rather than repair it.

update: i did actually repair my appliance. it was a costly repair but still cheaper than replacing the unit. i just recently had some plumbing work done and was checking again to make sure that turning the water back on doesn't wind up causing the same problem again......definitely making a point to bleed the water line before i start the dishwasher again to avoid the air in the line from rupturing the tank again!

This just happened to me as well. The exact same thing! Very frustrating!

Do you have to reload the salt container with the resin beads again once replaced?