smell management/ how realistic

ScottNM

Active Member
Well my mother in law lives with us because of health issues. Even though this is a med grow, we do not want her know. She is old school. Anyway, I have a carbon filter and inline fan capable of exchanging air fine. The more I read about how stinky they get after 4-6weeks in flower I wonder the carbon filter will do the job. When I open the door I open up a can of Ona before even thought there just beginning flower. Is it possible to manage smell to where someone living in the house would not know?
 

Dogenzengi

Well-Known Member
I wait with baited breath for others to answer, I am on my first grow.

I have very little smell but I have a month of flowering left easy.

I understand from reading other similar threads that
smell is strongest at the end of
flower,
during trimming
and during drying.
Dont hold me to the above, I am just parroting another older thread.
 

hobby1980

Member
I'm only a few weeks into flowering and I can't smell my room standing right outside of it. Even during veg I had a pretty strong smell. I'm guessing it was just a plant smell that any kind of plant would've produced. I have an adequate carbon filter. I've been impressed with how well it keeps the smell down.
 

computergroove

Active Member
The smell is overwhelming. It goes through walls. Carbon filters are excellent. If she is living in the place then she should get used to the suttle smell increase but the real trick is sealing the walls ceilings and corners.
 

MD914

Well-Known Member
I wait with baited breath for others to answer, I am on my first grow.

I have very little smell but I have a month of flowering left easy.

I understand from reading other similar threads that
smell is strongest at the end of
flower,
during trimming
and during drying.
Dont hold me to the above, I am just parroting another older thread.
do you have a carbon scrubber? If not you may be desensitized to the smell...
My plants have been smelling my house up since about 3rd week of veg...I thought they didn't smell, then my friend came over...lol
 

MD914

Well-Known Member
Well my mother in law lives with us because of health issues. Even though this is a med grow, we do not want her know. She is old school. Anyway, I have a carbon filter and inline fan capable of exchanging air fine. The more I read about how stinky they get after 4-6weeks in flower I wonder the carbon filter will do the job. When I open the door I open up a can of Ona before even thought there just beginning flower. Is it possible to manage smell to where someone living in the house would not know?
Ona gel works great...carbon scrubber works better :)
 

stvitusdance

Well-Known Member
keep in mind some strains have very little smell. so next grow you might think about growing something low on the stink scale. skunks are probably not for you. my current grow never really smelled much at all and when i hooked up a cheap carbon filter no smell whatsoever. when i grew kiwi skunk i could smell it out in my backyard.
 

Rusty Trikes

Well-Known Member
google DIY carbon air scrubber. Choose a strain that doesn't have any skunk or chemdawg in it. Some strains don't smell as much as others and some don't really have that classic marijuana smell that older people are accustomed to. Ona gel, citrus magic and those glade air fresheners that spray every 15 minutes all work well when used in conjunction with the air scrubber.(outside of the growroom of course). DONT PUT ANY AIR FRESHENERS IN THE GROWROOM unless you want your nugs to taste like perfume.
 

redzi

Well-Known Member
I signed in to start a new thread because of what happened to a friend last night but since this thread covers the topic..... Its a tactic where the police switch your garbage out (usually on day trash is picked up). Verified that it did indeed happen which is good and bad....good because it is usually the first step they take when receiving a tip that someone is growing. He is growing a strain that has a very distinct smell..no reason to get specific other than to say that there have been no problems until he decided to cross a cat piss smelling plant with his fave. C99. The original stealth strain has to be Nothern Lights by Sensi seeds...this strain is also present in most strains out there because of its effect on structure (bushy). Most of the list I see concerning low odor strains have one common denominator: all or most strains have NL in them. The Pineapple pheno of C99 is my favorite low odor and favorite overall. Female seeds put out a strain called Grapefruit (also a 99) ...I have not flowered her yet but so far she shows all the attributes of both NL and C99...started 4 Female C99 and 4 Grapefruit and have pulled all except 2 of the Grape. Thing is that for some plants ...its almost like some switch has been flipped...one day little odor, the next day I'm turning the carbon scrubber on. If you have a situation where relatives are going to show up on short notice I suggest using Neem oil...it slows down the plants overall metabolism.
 

Rusty Trikes

Well-Known Member
For example, my DjShort's Blueberry don't smell that strongly and even when trimming and drying they produce a pleasant blueberry odor with hints of anise that is really easy to mask. My OGKush, however starts stinking so bad in the 4th week of flowering; it smells like someone spilled kerosene in my basement and tried to clean it up with lemon pine-sol and then smoked a couple joints afterward. So strain selection is quite important. Just thought I would add that. Im fucking stoned!
 

Twitch

Well-Known Member
Well my mother in law lives with us because of health issues. Even though this is a med grow, we do not want her know. She is old school. Anyway, I have a carbon filter and inline fan capable of exchanging air fine. The more I read about how stinky they get after 4-6weeks in flower I wonder the carbon filter will do the job. When I open the door I open up a can of Ona before even thought there just beginning flower. Is it possible to manage smell to where someone living in the house would not know?
yes...... how many lights you got going?
i use a 2x can100 with 10 inch max fans for scrubbing
you cant smell anything in the house
 

TRIBUNAL

Well-Known Member
by medium you mean what?
Are you using a grow tent?
or an entire room?

The key to no smell inside is keeping the "area" in negative pressure. Meaning you are pulling air out faster than it can enter which will create a tiny bit of negative pressure. This means any area or holes allowing air in can't leak air out of those places because air is coming in to fast. This may not be the best explanation but look into it if you don't get it.
..
Carbon Filtering!(How everyone should be doing this safely)
I have a tent measuring about 2'x4'x4'ft
For the longest time I vented right outside with a vent and no carbon filter. This was a bad idea even though neighbors were too far to really smell anything. Sometimes a neighbor or relative comes over, sometimes you need work done on the house, anyone could smell it then.
Something had to be done but I didn't want to spend shit-tons of money on serious fans and carbon filters.
I also didn't want to vent 250cfm out the window in the cold winter for reasons you can imagine.
I also didn't like having a vent leading outside for security reasons pointed out in "Barry Coop er's" youtube videos (Something all newbies should watch.)
..
I had a hard time believing carbon filters were good enough to vent it right into my room, but I had to find out because it was my only real option.
After much research I decided to find out using my existing system and some DIY Carbon filter.
Here is the template I found that gave me the basic idea: http://michiganmedicalmarijuana.org/topic/38644-tutorial-diy-5-gallon-carbon-air-filter/
I made a few alterations to this which works for me and saved money.
Been using a 6inch Suncourt Inline booster fan with 160CFM so I wanted to keep using that because the 4inch would just not move enough air for me to keep it cool.
This setup is actually better for these smaller cfm fans because you don't want the air to flow too fast past your carbon or it will not have time to absorb the "impurities."
Instead of drilling a load of small holes I drilled a bunch of large 2.5inch holes because it was easier and makes no difference in airflow.
Instead of the PvC pipe, a bad idea IMO, I used some tough aluminum screening from the local orange box store, like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/New-York-Wire-36-in-x-84-in-Aluminum-Screen-10105/100397106#.Ul37IqzLfEp
>It's nice and stiff so you just need to use wire cutters to cut a piece that gives you a nice 6in diameter cylinder which should extend maybe 1/8in above the top of the bucket.
>You can suture the screen together to make the cylinder with something like zip ties or those ties you get with trash bags.
>Personally I decided to use a 6inch hose clamp and glue it to the bottom of the bucket for the base of the cylinder to sit in. I suppose you could just glue the screen directly to the bottom without the clamp though.
>Instead of the blue fabric this guy uses, I used normal window screening to line the outer, interior of the bucket, preventing pellets from falling out. If you do use this be warned when you pour the carbon pellets in dust comes out and it can be dirty, other than that its great and promotes good airflow.
>Now for the one thing that is somewhat expensive, activate carbon.
You need a little under 20lbs of carbon for this setup.
I challenge anyone to find it cheaper (with shipping) than this place 52lbs for $40 and 5.99 shipping: http://www.thatpetplace.com/filter-carbon-pellets-52lb
I didn't know for sure how long a bucket would last me so this was great because it was so much cheaper then everywhere else I have looked and it gave enough for doing this twice with extra.
Now fill her up.
Place the top on
Put the fan directly into the top, inside the screening which should probably be bent outwards to fit the fan in.
What I also want to point out is the noise from the fan is dramatically reduced, this setup actually works like a muffler, something I consider a seriously positive addition.
2 weeks into 12/12 and no smell what-so-ever.
As a matter of fact the room has never smelt so pure before lol.
However I can not say if this will continue for the entire time, but I suspect it will.
 

ScottNM

Active Member
My room is small. It is approx 4'x4.5x4.5. I have a vortex 175 inline and 12" phat filter. It is sealed off pretty good with a 8" vent poc as fresh air inlet. It keeps a negative pressure until I open door and then i am sure I lose some obvoiusly. I have to service plants with door open because it is tight. I can only imagine GDP and cotton candy will smell strong in a few weeks. WHen I open that door to service plants.....K BOOM....Skunky pine etc. I guess I think my weak link is servicing the plants during mid flower to finish. Not sure I can manage that smell totally. I will use ona during servicing and hopefully that will work. I also got a small bottle of lemongrass oil. I just dont want to have strong cover smells either. Is this "mission impossible" or....... OH, almost forgot. I have a 600 watt MH light and lsting. I have four VERY bushy plants about 14" in height at 7 weeks veg. Just flipped today.
 

TRIBUNAL

Well-Known Member
Yea Scott I would recommend this setup for that grow.
At this price, if you need to move the airflow faster then I do which you probably do you could split your exhaust to two exhausts and put one of these on each. You can order Y splitters for that and that type of setup would probably be overkill, which is what we want.
$5 Bucket and top.
$8 Aluminum Screening
$8 Window screening
$2.00 6in Hose clamp
$45 Activated carbon pellets
All you would need for a second bucket is the bucket and top itself, there's enough extra of everything else for two setups easily.
 

TRIBUNAL

Well-Known Member
To be honest I bet I could upgrade my own fan to the 180CFM heavy duty one for more cooling and use the two buckets to really dominate.


Also I should mention that compared to the carbon filters you can buy already made, I can not see any advantage to them in design or quality over this product. I would even say, due to the size and amount of carbon most of them can hold I would call them inferior.
That said they do look better. :blsmoke:
Good luck.
 

tommy217xxx

Well-Known Member
I've got a phresh filter as a carbon scrubber and I haven't smelled a thing unless im right on top of them. I needed to have a pretty smell-less operation so I went with a 6x24 filter and a 450 cfm fan. The fan will scrub the air once per minute. You should figure out the cf of your room and then get a fan and filter that will scrub the air at least one per minute. From what I've read, the more times the air is scrubbed per minute the better. I would also invest in a good carbon filter if u dont already have one. I went with the phresh because its advertised as a 3 year filter for under $200.

Hope this helps.
 

ScottNM

Active Member
I have done alot of research and I cannot do anymore for exhaust. It cannot be any louder than what I have. I think with ona pro jell used everytime I service, I have enough negative pressure. It exhaust the air in that room probably every couple minutes. Its about 80cubic feet and 175 cfm exhaust fan is overkill compared to many set ups. I am just wondering the big question. Can you really grow without a co habitant knowing as far as smell. I do not have a great nose for smelling. How does it smell coming outside after filter? I realize it is ALOT better but is there a growing smell making it outside during mid flower to some degree? I guess I have alot of questions but just wanting confirmation.
 

TRIBUNAL

Well-Known Member
Yea your exhaust sounds good.

well again 2 weeks into it and I have a great nose for any smell... It stunk before and now I can lay next to the filter and smell nothing at all, no grow smell, nothing but clean air.
Being as there is no smell now at all I feel very confident that even if I had to upgrade to the two buckets when I'm 4-6 weeks in, it will work 100%
Even if you really needed to you can buy an air purifiers for like $40 for the room the tent is in to scrub the air more, but I seriously doubt it's needed.
 

paintmegone

New Member
yes.I have 12 plants under a 1000 watt lite almost ready to be chopped next week and 12 in another room under another 1000 watt at week 3.5 of bloom.At this time i am running my own version of a carbon scrubber using negitive air pressure in the room.Its a home made set-up but works well.one plant is a white lavender,1 white rino,1 bubblegummer,4 pineapple skunk,and 5 very fruity smelling white widow x bigbud.They all stink but the house is kept safe from smell.I am not worried about cops but more about rippers breaking in as these are legal grows.my filter is flat 20" x 12" with 2" of carbon.A 240 fan pulls out and a small house fan mounted in the duct work blows in.I do not have the air flow i am told i need but the plants did just fine for a 1st grow.
 
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