marine plywood odor - anyone else have it?

[BobCT]

I've been chasing an odor on my mid cabin since I bought it last year. I noticed it in varying degrees on other mid cabins I looked at as well. I changed all of the sanitation hoses/vent line, scrubbed the bilges, used an ozone machine for a day, etc., etc.

Basically, I've been doing "something" for the past six months and nothing has really had an impact. I never had that "ah hah" moment where I knew I found the source.

I bumped into a guy at the boat show who works for Ranger Tugs but owned a similar year Tiara ('88). I described the problem as I had to dozens of people before and he knew exactly what it was. Without a beat he said "kind of sour smell that goes away if you open the boat up"?

Yep, that's it. He told me it is some type of a fungus in the plywood and there's really nothing you can do about it.

Yesterday, I removed one of my hatch panels, flipped it over to smell it - BINGO. He's right, that's the source of the smell.

In the mid cabin, the underside of the plywood is bare as are some of the center sections (where the vacu-flush pump is located).

I brought home the panel and painted a 1/4 of it with Bin white pigmented shellac primer. It's supposed to stop odors and really soaks into the wood.

Has anyone else had this problem and been able to fix it?

Bob

[foofer b]

I grew up with woooden boats many with plywood. Is it kind of a musty smell? Most boats have kind of a moldy/mildewy smell. Puts a smile on my face.

[BobCT]

this is a very unpleasant odor, you couldn't sleep on the boat with it all closed up.

I'm not expecting it to smell like my house (odorless) but this is definately more than a regular boat smell, which I like as well.


Bob

[prowlersfish]

Sure you don't have a pocket of stagnate water some where ? or some wood that is rotting ?

[rickalan35]

Hi Bob,
My wife does mould testing. She says that the mould spores are everywhere and will come again after cleaning .... but will not grow unless there is over 60% humidity in the bilge.

Clean it best with javex or any type of a chlorox bleach. If you don't like that stuff then use a biodegradable green product. Be somewhat careful about inhaling mould spores while cleaning. they won't do you any good. Wear a mask, use a rag and rubber gloves.

If the wood is punky then it should be replaced because the mould spores will be growing inside the wood. If the wood is still quite hard then the mould will be on the surface although still feeding off the wood. She thinks that if there is enough mould present to actually give off such an odor, then it's a pretty developed colony and you still may want to replace the wood... your call.

After you javex the wood and dry it out, then she suggests a permanent dehumidifier be installed somewhere in the bilge. It's not the bilge water but rather, it's the bilge air that incurs mould growth. You must somehow get more outside air ventilation down into the bilge in order to equalize the humidity with the outside air. We use a small circulating fan that sucks in outside air while we're away. I'ts almost silent and I flick it on when we leave. You might try the same.

Mould will grow back onto that hatch cover again no matter what you do if you allow the 60% plus humidity to continue.

Hope this helps.

[prowlersfish]

rickalan35
Long time no see , Welcome back Hope all is well

[BobCT]

This is exactly what the smell is and what the Tiara guy described as well. I have bleached every surface but I suppose I could try it again.

I will try bleaching the other hatch, I just finished the other one with the BIN primer, the small area I did seemed promising.

Either way, I might have to replace the plywood but your venting idea is a good one. The smell is definately a building effect. Once I open it all up, it's gone. Maybe with some permanent ventilation I can keep up with it.


Bob


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vomit-Like Odor of Bacterially Infected Wood

When cabinets or wood smell like vomit, a likely culprit is bacterial infections in the trees the wood was made from. Unfortunately, there is no known fix. April 20, 2008

Question
We have 45 armoires at a job site that have a strong dead animal smell inside the case. They were shipped by container with other goods and none of the other cases have this odor. Is it possible that casein glue or urea formaldehyde glue is the cause?

Forum Responses
(Adhesive Forum)
From Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor:
It is much more likely that the problem is caused by bacterially infected wood.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From contributor H:
Were the other armoires that do not smell made from the same sheets? We once bought some Brazilian plywood for a garage storage unit and did not notice any odor in the shop, but after installation in a small area it was so bad that the client passed out from the smell when he got out of his car in the garage.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor:
The anaerobic bacteria are often found in veneer from outside the USA, as oftentimes such veneer logs are ponded for a while before use. They produce fatty acids that then turn rancid. The odor is tremendously unpleasant, smelling somewhat like vomit indeed. Humidity seems to bring it out. There is no coating that can be applied. The infected wood must be replaced. I have worked with this problem quite a few times and wish there was better news.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From contributor C:
We took an offer on a whole semi load of Virola plywood with different thicknesses and got it for approximately half the price of what it should have been. They said it was a little wet. It wasn't wet, just smelly.
All the things Gene said are true. You can't cover it up by coating it, humid weather makes it worse. Fortunately we had a company who liked it for crating because of the solid core. They never noticed the smell from the smell of cutting oils in the factory.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the original questioner:
Thanks for the great responses. I now have a couple other options to look at for the source, but they all point at the materials or process used by the factory.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From contributor W:
All of the posts ahead of me are right in line with my experience. These cabinets may be a big problem. The few positive items I can throw in are that the smell does eventually minimize and fade away. We tried washing the wood with bleach (which only treated the surface) as a first step then tried sealing over the bleached surface. This was a failure, the cabinets still stunk. Opening the doors to the tightly closed armoire is a real treat I bet. I did get decent results by putting mothballs in the cabinets. The caustic fumes from the mothballs seemed to slowly kill the smell.
Wood that has sat around the shop for a year or more doesn't smell when you pick it up and sniff but if you cut it the smell is still there. This manufacturer knew what he was working with and shipped you something he thought he could get away with. I find it hard to believe that these didn't stink at the factory.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor:
Whenever the humidity increases, the odor will return even with some fairly good finishes. I am not aware of any that can seal the odor, but maybe there is one. The main test is to get the RH high and see what happens.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From contributor C:
If you lived in a low RH zone, would not be that much of a problem, as Gene states. That is what we experienced. On the low humidity days of June, low odor, high humidity of July bad odor. A chemical engineer related to me the story of animal urine on carpet. You clean it and the smell is gone until high humidity days come back. It’s probably the same science happening.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the original questioner:
I guess it is time to cross our fingers. The site is climate controlled which should be a help and they have already been through the high humidity time of the year. If the smell does increase again it is good to know why.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[gardnersf]

Bob,
When I totally replaced the sanitation system, I used the opportunity to paint the bilge areas under the tank and the hath areas. I also painted the underside fo the hatches but did not reach in and paint the underside fo the deck. I may go back and do that.

However, the odors I had almost vanished after doing this. I still get a bit of a smell if the boat is closed off for a long time but nothing liek before. I also have some water getting into the boat still. I will be rebedding all of the rail and deck fittinsg this spring. I'm slowly closing out the leaks and hope that will reduce the amount of water int he mid bilge.

The vent fan sounds like a good idea.

[BobCT]

I have been dreading this problem since I bought the boat. The Bin primer looks/ "smells" promising. I'm not getting the smell through the primer.

I think I'll do this and see how it works. If it knocks it down 75%, I could live with it. I'll probably get some sort of solar vent to help with the rest.

Bob