How to mitigate oil based primer smell?

[NetWareHead]

Im turning over a rental unit in a multi-family house. A room has fresh drywall up so when the building tenants left for the day, I started priming the walls with oil based primer. Even though it had been hours since the application, when the tenants came home I got some complaints about the oil smell.

Is there anything I can do to get rid of the smell sooner? I am keeping the heat on to dry the primer. I have another room that needs to be done in the future so thinking about putting a window fan and exhausting the air outwards.

Are there any sort of air cleaners or purifiers that are specifically designed to reduce the VOCs that oil based primer puts out? Something that I can rent would be optimal, dont really want to buy another piece of equipment since I dont prime fresh drywall that often...

 

[3chordcharlie]

Ventilate the room with a fan out a window. Not great for winter depending on location, but I'm not sure what else you can really do.

 

[NetWareHead]

Yeah I can only ventilate to a certain extent because the then house will get cold and the primer needs certain temps to dry properly.

I called an equipment rental place around me (Sunbelt Rentals) and they mentioned that have an air scrubber that can run all day and cycles air past activated carbon filters. Would this work against reducing the smell?

 

[3chordcharlie]

I guess it depends what chemicals the scrubber can handle. Maybe worth a try though, I've gassed my own house with oil based primer before, it smelled awful for 3 days.

 

[NetWareHead]

The air scrubber with carbon filter worked. Primed the entire kitchen and used plastic sheeting to block off doors to contain the smell to the room. Ran the scrubber on high inside the kitchen for 24 hours and tenants reported the smell was minimal and lasted for far shorter than before.

At some point in the future, I will be polyurethaning the floors, also with oil base and the small air scrubber I just rented wont be able to handle the smell from every floor in the unit forcing me to use the whole house sized unit.

I was thinking I would offer my tenants a room at a nice hotel in our city downtown. It will be cheaper for me than to pay for the whole house scrubber and I'll deduct it as an expense.