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Humble Beginnings – March 2008
Hydrolab was established in October 2007 but it wasn't until March 2008 that our first grow tent rolled off the production line. As you can see from the photos above they were originally quite basic, featuring white piping, plastic zips, a white PVC interior, vent ports with string ties instead of locking pull cords and passive vent windows with flaps that didn't seal unless you taped them up. Admittedly our first tents were far from perfect.
Armed with lots of customer feedback, a bunch of new ideas and a list of issues we headed back to the drawing board.
Goodbye PVC, hello Mylar! (plus other stuff) – May 2009
As part of the newly revised tent (pictured above) we opted to drop the PVC interior in favour of a superior hammered silver Mylar finish. Not only did it offer better reflectivity but PVC was getting a lot of bad press at the time with some tent manufacturers having to recall tents due to off gassing. Other improvements included, black piping and zips all round to help minimise light leaks, larger vent ports with locking pull chords, Velcro sealable passive vent windows and the introduction of an internal utility pocket.
We continued to develop this style of grow tent with the introduction of more vent ports and other small tweaks, but despite our best efforts to tackle production issues with light proofing and zip reliability it soon became apparent that we needed to find a more capable production company.
Turning Point – September 2010
After months of talking to different companies and obtaining samples, we had finally found a new partner that was able to manufacture to the standard that we were looking for. So we set to work completely redesigning a new range of tents, taking everything we had learned from the past and applying it to the new design. The finished product (pictured above) ended up costing a lot more to produce than the previous tents, but we felt it was necessary to obtain the finish we were after. The tent offered far superior fabrics and zips, a vast improvement in light proofing, had heavy duty hanging bars that you could move into any position, more intake, extraction and cable entry ports, and depending on which model you opted for came with additional side or rear doors for better access to your plants.
September 2010 saw the launch of the new design and the discontinuation of the old style tent. The feedback from the new tents was extremely positive. In fact, we did not have a single return since its launch which was very encouraging. However, we did get reports from a couple of customers about fractured plastic corner connectors, so it was agreed for the next revision to replace them with all steel ones.
Fine Tuning - June 2011
The 2011 revision (pictured above) which built upon the 2010 model offered an all steel framework with strong steel corner connectors, even thicker 3-ply fabrics, colour coded logos, pull strings and zips for a great new look, and included a full 1 year no quibble guarantee.
History Repeats Itself - January 2012
The 2011 grow tents had such great reviews and sold faster than any other range we had produced to date, so we made the decision to increase production output and add an additional 5 sizes to the range to cater for a broader spectrum of hobbyist and commercial grower.
Production started in July 2011 and delivery was expected in September. Devastating news came in from the factory concerning production issues and factory staffing problems which turned into delay after delay, in fact things got so bad that in January 2012 we had no choice but to abandon hope of receiving the new stock and in turn we parted company with our production partner.
Rising from the Ashes - September 2012
After 6 long months of searching for the right production partner contracts were signed in June 2012 and production started shortly after. We opted to change the tent name from our company name of Hydrolab to GrowLife Plus, mainly to mark a new chapter in our history but also to give us a more flexible naming convention should we introduce new products in the future.
September 2012 saw the launch of our GrowLife Plus range of tents (pictured above) and the response from our resellers and growers has been overwhelming. More and more stockists have started to come on board thanks to growers walking into their shops and demanding Hydrolab which gives us a real buzz and a great sense of achievement.
Present Day
Since the launch of the GrowLife Plus range back in September 2012 this range has grown hugely in popularity and demand has gone from strength to strength. We continue to supply this fantastic range of grow tents at extremely competitively prices across the UK.
The Future
June 2013 will see the addition of extra large side and rear access doors right across the GrowLife Plus range. Beyond June we have plans to introduce some new sizes and hope to launch some new products in addition to the GrowLife range.
If you wish to be alerted about new product releases, please subscribe to our newsletter from the news section of our website here: www.hydrolab.co.uk
This post has been edited by Hydrolab: 18 April 2013 - 04:30 PM
