diff --git a/pytorch_lightning/root_module/root_module.py b/pytorch_lightning/root_module/root_module.py
index 564efdf1a0..f56612b91a 100644
--- a/pytorch_lightning/root_module/root_module.py
+++ b/pytorch_lightning/root_module/root_module.py
@@ -40,8 +40,7 @@ class RootModule(GradInformation, ModelIO, OptimizerConfig, ModelHooks):
 
         if self.on_gpu:
             print('running on gpu...')
-            self.dtype = torch.cuda.FloatTensor
-            torch.set_default_tensor_type('torch.cuda.FloatTensor')
+            torch.set_default_tensor_type(hparams.default_tensor_type)
 
     def forward(self, *args, **kwargs):
         """
diff --git a/pytorch_lightning/utils/arg_parse.py b/pytorch_lightning/utils/arg_parse.py
index 5e41656522..5cbeb4f126 100644
--- a/pytorch_lightning/utils/arg_parse.py
+++ b/pytorch_lightning/utils/arg_parse.py
@@ -49,6 +49,7 @@ def add_default_args(parser, root_dir, rand_seed=None, possible_model_names=None
     parser.add_argument('--gpus', default='0', type=str)
     parser.add_argument('--single_run_gpu', dest='single_run_gpu', action='store_true')
     parser.add_argument('--disable_cuda', dest='disable_cuda', action='store_true')
+    parser.add_argument('--default_tensor_type', default='torch.cuda.FloatTensor', type=str)
 
     # run on hpc
     parser.add_argument('--on_cluster', dest='on_cluster', action='store_true')