Grow tent emits toxic rubber smell

Zed2

Member
Hello,
My 6.5 feet x 6.5 feet grow tent emits this rubbery smell. Its the same smell as those inflatable rubber air mattress things you can float with on water when you got to beach. Being in the room with it makes my throat sore in no time. It has 400m3 fan with carbon filter in it but its not helping really.

Theres only one 600w inside and im wondering whats it going to be when im going to throw 4 of more of those.
I had planned to sleep on the same room but i cant even stay there for now. Slept one night and i had my head stuck the next morning,felt like something was wrong with my vision for awhile.

Thinking i might take the tent somewhere , heat it up with space heater or something and leave it outside for day or two. Maybe ozone machine could help? Perhaps the smell will go away in time?

If you have any ideas please reply , the tent is budda room but i cant give bad name to it. Its really well made , i actually like it even better than my smaller Swiss made Hortilab and it cost way less. The hortilab smells slightly too. Its not pvc it seems like mylar or something and the outside is some heavy black fabric.
 

AimAim

Well-Known Member
My 6.5 feet x 6.5 feet grow tent Theres only one 600w inside and im wondering whats it going to be when im going to throw 4 of more of those.
5 six hundreds in 42 square feet?

That's 8.5 sq feet per light.
 

Zed2

Member
Maybe i converted it wrong , its 2m x 2m x 2m , so it would be 5 x 600w lights in there. Thats going to be just great. But the shitty smell is stopping me for now.
 

Prince Albert

Active Member
You don't need a brand name vinyl tent to grow weed. I should've gotten into the tent business, I'd be a millionaire by now.
 

AimAim

Well-Known Member
Thinking i might take the tent somewhere , heat it up with space heater or something and leave it outside for day or two. Maybe ozone machine could help? Perhaps the smell will go away in time?
Leaving it outside, and time should fix your problem. The ozone might help with the smell, but if it's putting off vapors that are irritating you it might not help with that.

No, you did the math right. Just seemed like a lot of lights for that size of tent. It also works out to 72 Watts/square foot which is "plenty". As long as you can extract the heat more power to you. I'd have redundant fans running the extraction, i.e. somehow hook up two fans to your lights and ducting. If you had only one, and it went out, you'd cook your plants in no time, if not present a fire hazard.

Good luck
 

DemonTrich

Well-Known Member
your tent is out-gassing, and is normal. I have a top line secret jardin dr120 tents x 2 and an off brand 5x10x6.5 tent. all 3 has a minimal odor. open the tent up and let air out for a few days. it will go away.
 

The Gator

Well-Known Member
Ddemon Trich is absolutely correct - the smell is VOC "off gassing" from the tent. It should go away in few days to a week. If the plastic smell really bothers you, you can run your fan and filter outside the tent to reduce the odor until it fades.
 

Zed2

Member
Exactly what i wanted to hear , but i was not sure and couldnt go on guessing. Cheers everyone!
 

Zed2

Member
Leaving it outside, and time should fix your problem. The ozone might help with the smell, but if it's putting off vapors that are irritating you it might not help with that.

No, you did the math right. Just seemed like a lot of lights for that size of tent. It also works out to 72 Watts/square foot which is "plenty". As long as you can extract the heat more power to you. I'd have redundant fans running the extraction, i.e. somehow hook up two fans to your lights and ducting. If you had only one, and it went out, you'd cook your plants in no time, if not present a fire hazard.

Good luck

Maybe your right about the lights. I have one extra tent so ill set it up and have one of the lights there. I think the plants will easily fill everything on the main tent so extra 1x1m is welcome.

If this is of any interest:
I was thinking only one 400m3 inline fan outside the tent to keep negative pressure and run the smells out through carbon filter.
Inside the tent though basic fans and id open up the sides , trying to get the heat into the room that the tent is in. No cooltubes or such. Bigger fan would be of course great but im short on money and it would need silencing too. Not ideal setup but hoping this will keep the heat somewhat in bay and the smell from leaking outside the room.

Room is maybe 4 times the tent by size but gets colder if i turn off the heating so im pretty confident.


Edit : Now that i think , why wouldnt i just ditch the fcking tent thats causing me headache and propably hormonal changes in my balls. Some pandafilm to the tent frame and floor and done , problems solved.
 

Zed2

Member
I found this , its from 2012 and my tent is 2011 model. You know when i went inside the tent it really smelled like paint or something so i dont doubt it could be this ". With the off gassing issue only the budda rooms with silver reflective lining are the problem tents ,it's the glue they use to stick the foil on. But IMO this ain't off-gassing . "


 

kermit2692

Well-Known Member
Making plastics is a nasty process..when a product contains vocs and you can actually smell it, its very bad for you. Chinese crappy ass plastic and vinyl is responsible and I personally checked this first when I got my tent..if it smelled I would have brought it back but it did not. Vocs stick around for years and years they do not just go away and continue to emit long after you can't smell it..I would take it back if possible and get a different brand. Could definitely be detrimental to the plants also
 

DemonTrich

Well-Known Member
I started growing in may 3rd 2013 I my original 2 tents. both my tents no longer have any smell what so ever. shit my new 5x10x6.5 tent is only been in use for a month and the out-gassing smell is no longer. now I did open them up and let them air out for a week before using.
 

kermit2692

Well-Known Member
Like I said voc's were responsible for the smell and they are nasty and horrible for you..they off gas, not out gas, for years even after it doesn't smell. Who knows how bad this is of an environment for the plants, just because the smell is gone does not mean the voc's are gone...again I would never keep something in my controlled surroundings that smells toxic out of the box, id take it back for a better one
 

fir3dragon

Well-Known Member
I bought a cheap ass 3x3 for 100 bucks off eBay... Didn't smell one bit... Not sure what everyone else is talking about.
 

kermit2692

Well-Known Member
^ exactly why I would immediately have returned it if it smelled..if you get a smelly one its bad, a dud! Maybe made from bad material or bad processes i'm not saying all the cheap ones are no good just that the off brands can be hit or miss..alot of people just wait out the smell but having done the research I have on vocs I would not do that
 

bird mcbride

Well-Known Member
I would "think" that the most important thing is if the tent was manufacture with inflammable material. When using HID lighting it is a good practice to use inflammable materials. Hopefully it's not plastic.
 
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