How To Make A Grow Room Smell Proof: 4 Ways

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One issue which many people have with growing weed, and with people who grow weed, is the smell which the marijuana plant produces. If you have ever grown cannabis before, you know exactly what we are talking about. Sure, to use enthusiasts there is no better smell, but there are people who do not approve in the least. (it’s well worth picking up this FREE grow bible, it has some great information).

Today we want to talk about how to make a grow room smell proof, keep in mind that pot plants do smell strongly, so making a grow room 100% smell proof is virtually impossible, although you can get pretty close.

Closing off various openings and making sure you have a thick walls is a good start. Carbon filters and smell absorbing gels can help too, but at the end of the day, every and any grow room and grow tent needs to have proper ventilation, and therefore the smell cannot be fully contained inside of it.

Contents

Do Marijuana Plants Smell Strongly?


Some people might think that marijuana only smells when it has been dried and cured, or while it is being smoked, but this is simply not so. A pot plant in the middle of flowering is going to smell like nothing that has ever crossed your nose before.

Some people hate the smell, some people love, and everybody knows what it is. Of course, there are some weed strains that smell much stronger than others during growth, but they do all have a certain smell.

Generally speaking, the stronger and more potent the strain of weed is, the heavier the smell produced is going to be. A single pot plant, given the right conditions, can be smelled from a long distance.

If you have several plants growing in an enclosed space, indoors or out, given the right wind conditions, people could smell it from potentially hundreds of meters away.


When Do Pot Plants Start To Smell?

What is at least partially lucky if you are growing weed and are worried about the smell, is that weed plants do not smell the whole time. During the first few months of growth, during the vegetative state, pot plants do not really smell.

Well, at least they do not smile like that sweet, potent, kush smell which we are all familiar with. During the vegetative state, weed plants really smell no different from other greenery. However, it is when they start to flower that they will begin to get that potent and stinky marijuana plant smell.

The further along your weed plant gets, the more buds it has, the bigger those buds are, and the closer you get to harvest, the stronger those buds will begin to smell.
Just think of it this way, a rose bush does not smell like roses until the actual rose flowers start to bloom.

It’s the same thing here, but instead of roses we are talking about cannabis plants. Therefore, if you are worried about your pot plants stinking the place up, and they are in the veg state, you still have a bit of time to take some steps to minimize the smell coming out of your grow room or grow tent.

Good lighting is important too, we have covered a buyers guide on lights specifically for vegetative growth and you can find it here.


Are Grow Tents Smell Proof?

The easy answer to this question is no, grow tents are definitely not smell proof. To qualify as fully smell proof, a grow tent would have to hide 100% of the smell of your flowering marijuana plants.

Yes, grow tents are awesome for many reasons. They help provide a controlled environment for weed growth, one where you can easily regulate the temperature, humidity, and lighting.

They also come with reflective materials on the inside, holes for fans, ventilation systems, and carbon filters, and clips for hanging up lights and other items. So, while grow tents are very useful indeed, they do not qualify as being smell proof.

They come with a whole lot of benefits, but this is not one of them, or at least not a full benefit.


Do Grow Tents Hide Smell?

Ok, so above we did mention how grow tents are not smell proof and how this is not one of their full benefits. What we meant by a full benefit is that a grow tent does work to partially contain the smell, but the operational word there is “partially”.

Yes, grow tents are closed off and they have a door with a zipper, 4 walls, and a roof. So, to a certain extent, they do help to contain and hide the smell of your flowering marijuana plants. However, this only goes so far.

Flowering weed plants smell really strongly, and there is only so much that a thin layer of fabric and reflective material can do to hide this smell. A flowering weed plant is extremely potent and a grow tent, while it can hide some of the smell, it cannot hide all of it.

What you also need to consider here is that grow tents come complete with large holes, often several of them, which are used in order to provide your pot plants with ventilation systems, fans, carbon filters, and just airflow in general. Your pot plants need airflow, they need oxygen, and they need ways to get more air. You just cannot have a grow tent that is 100% sealed off, air proof, and smell proof.

This would not be good as the plants wouldn’t get the proper amount of air, airflow, oxygen, and ventilation, which would then make it exceedingly difficult to control temperature and humidity levels in the grow tent. So yes, a grow tent will hide the smell a bit, but not totally, especially because you will need ventilation.

Now, if you have a carbon filter or ventilation system in the grow tent, and you have the tubing coming straight out of the tent and leading outdoors, you can send the smell outside, so at least it is not inside, but somewhere along the line, somewhere is going to smell like a flowering pot plant.


How Do I Control The Smell In My Grow Room And/Or Grow Tent?

Yes, it is very hard to hide, mask, or totally control the smell of a large flowering pot plant that is close to harvest. As we mentioned above, creating an airtight space where the smell cannot escape is impossible.

The reason for this is of course because your pot plants need a bit of a breeze, fresh air, air circulation, and old air needs to be able to get out, both due to aeration issues as well as humidity and temperature control.

So, in terms of making your grow tent totally airtight and smell proof, or your grow room, this is simply not going to happen. However, there are a variety of steps you can take to minimize the odor coming out of the grow tent and grow room, to mask or partially eliminate the odor, and to direct the smell in a certain direction too.

Let’s talk about how you can go about controlling the smell in your grow room or grow tent so you don’t attract too much attention.

1. Get Smell Absorbing Gel

One of the ways to help control that stinky dank smell is to use odor absorbing gel, with “Ona Gel” usually being considered the best, most effective, and cost effective brand name to go with.

These guys make a variety of odor absorbing gels and they are specifically designed just for this. These gels release a neutralizing smell into the air which works pretty well to neutralize the smell of pot plants. However, they do not fully work. Yes, these gels work to a certain extent, but if you have a few plants that smell very strongly, these gels will only go so far.

We have had grow rooms before with 3 plants and twice the amount of absorption gel containers, and the smell of flowering weed plants was still very clear. However, this is better than nothing.

With that said, it is not recommended to keep the gels inside of the grow room, as the gel itself can actually absorb the smell of the marijuana, but this takes a while to occur. If you keep replacing old containers with new gel, this can still work.

However, for the most part, it is recommended to keep these odor absorbing gels directly outside of a grow space.

You can also get some good air fresheners to help get rid of the smell in your house, we have covered our favorite 8 here.

2. Get A Good Carbon Filter

Perhaps the most effective way of controlling that super potent pot smell in your grow tent or grow room is to get a good carbon filter in combination with an inline fan (we have covered fans on this article).

A carbon filter used blocks of specially activated carbon to absorb, trap, and neutralize smells. These actually have very many purposes and applications, but pot growers have come to love them, in part due to their odor control capabilities, and due to other grow room related benefits too.

The point here is that a good carbon filter can indeed absorb a whole lot of that weed smell. However, they only go so far as well. Even the best carbon filter can not remove that weed smell 100%, but they do a much better job than the gels we discussed above. (more on what Carbon filters do on this article).

Another tip here is to use a good inline fan, or some other kind of fan system which can suck large quantities of air into the carbon filter in a limited amount of time. The stronger and more efficient the fan is, and the larger the carbon filter, the better the odor control capabilities will be.

3. Temperature & Humidity Control

This really applies to everything. The hotter and more humid a space is, the more something will smell. There is a reason why piles of trash outdoors smell much worse during the summer than during the winter. It is because of the heat.

Now, controlling the temperature and the humidity in the grow room is something you should be doing anyway, for the health of the plant, but keeping the temperature and humidity from getting too high will help a little bit when it comes to controlling the smell of pot.

We have covered a good guide on the ideal temp and humidity for growing, you can check it out here.

4. Direct Ventilation Exhaust The Right Way & Seal Up Holes

The other thing to think about here is where you are directing the air. As mentioned a couple of times now, your weed plants need air and climate control, so totally sealing up a grow room is out of the question.

However, you can use that carbon filter, the fan, and your ventilation system as a whole in order to direct the exhaust in a direction which is least harmful to your needs. However, the obvious downfall here is that the air coming out of the grow room will still smell a little bit, or maybe a lot depending on the cannabis strain and number of plants you have.

Now, you can seal up small holes here and there, plug holes in the walls, use sealants to make sure that doors create an airtight fit, but the bottom line is that there will be air coming out of the grow room or grow tent no matter what.

A combination of a good carbon filter, direction ventilation the right way, and using odor absorbing gel is as good as it gets, and even this will not hide the smell 100%. This is true even with proper temperature and humidity control.

DO NOT USE OZONE GENERATORS!

Something people used to do in order to hide the smell of weed was to use ozone generators. Yes, these work well at hiding the smell of flowering pot plants, but ozone is actually very dangerous to people and animals, specifically to the lungs, and it can cause fatal diseases in the long run.

So, never use ozone filters to try and control the smell of weed.


Conclusion

Yeah, pot plants stink, they stink strong, and in all reality, there is not too much you can do about it. Yes, you can use odor absorbing gels, a good carbon filter, you can control the temperature and humidity, and direct ventilation exhaust in a specific direction, but even when all of these methods are combined, there will still be a weed smell.

No, it won’t be quite as potent or noticeable, but anyone who knows what a flowering weed plant smells like will know what it is. Having the smell of flowering cannabis around is just something you have to deal with when you want to grow weed. Bakers smell like bread and cookies, mechanics smell like grease and oil, and pot growers smell like pot. There’s just not all that much that can be done here.

Fabian

My passion for the sticky icky started nearly a decade ago, and it all began when I first laid my eyes on the beauty that is the marijuana plant.

I cover all aspects of growing from equipment recommendations to plant health/care tips to help both new and experienced growers.