My Thoughts on the GrowLab Tents...

• Ease of setup and take-down. This is probably the biggest selling point for me. Including lights, fans, and all equipment, I can assemble and disassemble my tent in 30-45 minutes at a leisurely pace. If I was really pressed, I could probably tear the whole thing down in ten minutes.
• Ease of storage. I can fit my entire tent (broken down) and all major equipment in a 55 gallon Rubbermaid tub, which doesn't take up much space.
• Clean install. The tent looks nice, the ports, light hanging, filter hanging, etc, are all well laid out. Nothing about it is "ghetto rigged."
• Rugged. At least as far as the GrowLabs are concerned, the zippers are solid, and the materials are tough enough to avoid reasonable abuse. It won't withstand a direct knife stab, but if you treat it well, I doubt there would be any issue with structural/material failure.
• Cost effective. I paid somewhere around $130ish for the GL-60, which is roughly on par with what it would cost me in materials to build up my own cab. That said, when you factor in the time, labor, and pain in the ass factor of building your own, the tent is a clear winner in this regard.

• Intakes aren't ideal. In my eyes, the biggest drawback are the intakes. The passive window flaps on the bottom are anything but lightproof (when open), and in my mind shouldn't be there at all. The duct ports are fine, but you pretty much have to use active intake with a damper or filter to get the right pressure with light proofing (trust me, I tried everything before buying another fan).
• Pressure sensitive. As might be obvious, the tents really require you to dial in the pressure. Again, with the way the intakes are setup, you pretty much have to use an active intake. Using active intake is probably a good thing anyway, but I still wish the tents were a bit more flexible in this regard. Without active intake, and just using the ports with a filter or some other light blocking material, the negative pressure is too much. The walls suck in too far, cutting into grow space and putting a strain on the fabric.
• Not 100% air tight. As I found, the tents aren't 100% air tight. Thus, you have to run at a slight negative pressure. Not too far into the negative, or you'll get the problems highlighted above. But then again, not positive, or you'll be blowing weed stink out of the gaps. It pretty much requires you to run a speed controller on at least one of the fans to get it dialed in. Tents are probably not the best idea if you plan to run CO2 (in my opinion).
• Not 100% light tight. This isn't really that big of an issue, and it's easy to work around, but worth mentioning. There are a few pinholes in the velcro seams/stiching, and the front zipper has a small gap at the very top and bottom. There are fabric flaps inside that cover these gaps for the most part, but something still needs to be done about them. My solution was to tape up the pinholes with duct (there weren't that many), and to drape a doubled-up sheet over the front of the tent, acting almost like a second door. At the end of the day, none of these light leaks would have amounted to anything (most likely), unless the tent was stored in direct sunlight...but better safe than sorry.

dunkybones said:

I have two 2x4 hydrohuts, they're pretty much the same thing as a Growlab. One has a blown zipper, the other doesn't. What I found is that you need to pull out on the zipper slightly when you use it. If you press in, as is natural, the zipper head binds on the piping, especially in the corners, and once it takes a bite, well, you're on the road to ruin.

Click to expand...