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So my husband decided to paint our smurf blue tub and shower with an epoxy white paint. He used two cans that came with the kit and it didn't cover. When the nearest Lowes was without another spray kit, he began to use an epoxy paint on it the following day. The packaging said you could combine their spray and paint kits.

However, we have had to spend the last two nights in a relative's home in order to prevent my young toddler from breathing in these fumes. We have left all windows open and fans going all day and the house still smells. It is just a tiny bathroom in the master bedroom. But I can smell the epoxy in the basement and garage below.

How do we get rid of the smell? I am almost afraid to let my son sleep in his bedroom across the hall. He has a heart condition so I am extremely careful about exposing him to anything.

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    Epoxy cures through a chemical reaction, and will continue to out-gas until completely cured. In the meantime, the only solutions are time and ventilation. Most epoxies will cure faster at higher temperatures so you might want to try turning off the A/C if you have it on (which will also limit the movement of the odor through the house) or try something like an IR lamp in the bathroom. Try not to heat it above about 200°, as the chemical reaction itself is exothermic.
    – Comintern
    Commented Jun 29, 2014 at 3:56

3 Answers 3

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I think you're going to need more airflow than just open windows. You can probably rent a large air mover from your local home improvement store in order to circulate lots of air around. Alternatively, try getting in touch with a local company that deals with cleaning up basement floods as they will have the same type of air movers.

You're looking for something like this:

Air Mover
(source: homedepot.ca)

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  • If there is a window in the bathroom specifically (the post doesn't say) you could also use a window mounted fan (Wal-mart sells them for like 20CAD).
    – J Crosby
    Commented Jul 10, 2019 at 16:25
  • I would suggest to increase the temperature inside at the same time.
    – Rohit Gupta
    Commented Apr 16, 2023 at 4:44
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Man I have done quite a few of these tubs and it is god awful. The whole process sucks. I did do it one my own home but was when rest of family was out of town for weekend. Did it Friday night. Left all windows in house open all weekend with three fans blowing air out of bathroom. By Monday the house was so-so. The bathroom still stank.

We just didn't use that bathroom for the next two weeks and I double sealed it with plastic on both sides of the door.

After two weeks it still smelled of fumes but not nearly as bad. Basically cleaned it with soap and water and ran the shower a lot. Probably was another 3-4 weeks after before we totally didn't notice it.

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I had similar fumes when we put moisture cure over hardwood floors. The company recommended that we should cut an onion open, place it at the ventilation points, on all window sills, and leave the windows open for one night. It worked amazingly. We didn't smell anything the next day. The onion absorbs the toxicity.

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  • Moisture cure urethane involves different chemicals than epoxy, so not really applicable to this question. Thanks for your efforts, though.
    – Armand
    Commented Apr 16, 2023 at 4:36
  • Welcome to H&I. I seriously doubt that the onion absorbs anything. One could argue that its stench overpowers other things. I can see a very remote possibility that Hydrogen Sulphide interacts with some chemicals to neutralize them, but I doubt it. Do have a citation for this?
    – Rohit Gupta
    Commented Apr 16, 2023 at 4:43

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