Tent Showcase: Outwell Hartford XXL
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Yes
12 plus (more 12 berth tents)
39.10 KG
ฃ569.99
4
Fully Sewn-in
In one
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Average User Rating:8.87/10 from 30 reviews
Viewed: 41077 times
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30 Reviews of the Hartford XXL Showing 21 to 30 Page:
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By: Judebrowne Reason: I own(ed) one Made in: 2008 Rating:  Date: 12/08/2008
We used our tent for the first time a couple of weeks ago and we were not disappointed. Very easy to erect, but one word of advice - when the poles have been slotted it and it's time for one of you to push up from inside, it's easier if the doors are open so that air can get in - or is this obvious and we were just being thick?!
We camped at Penmarlam Park, Fowey in Cornwall and the pitch was ample for such a huge tent. Unfortunately when we were there, the weather was awful but the good old XXL withstood everything that was thrown at it, strong winds, torrential rain.
We also had the carpet which made it so comfy.
Really our only criticism would be the main doorway. Because it is on a slant, each time we unzipped it to get in or out, the rain just poured in soaking the groundsheet and anything else that was within 2 feet of the door. Apart from this, we are convinced we made the right choice.
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By: Startyres Reason: I own(ed) one Made in: 2009 Rating:  Date: 20/08/2009
Having owned many big tents (Suncamp Tourist XP+12, S.C Marathon 16b, am quite used to this style tent.
We purchased it after reading how spacious it was and I had a good deal with ground sheet and carpet, (liked the idea of carpet and wife wont camp unless ground sheet is sewn in.)
Found the tent very easy and straight forward to erect and the poles all nicely coded makes it no hassle at all.
We usually go with friends and share the tent (makes pitch fees less.)
TENT GREAT BUT.
Advertised as 12berth, We camp lazy and use ready beds. This makes a 12 berth into an 8 berth, not so good when you have 9 of you.
SC Tourist, 12 easily on airbeds, Marathon was just too big, it was like a marquee but sorry outwell, bedrooms need a little adjustment. Have just sold it and am going to try the new Sprayway canyon 8+2, See if it does as it says, each double room is supposed to accept a double airbed. But 100% to living space and extension, loads of room there, just lacking in the bedrooms.
Was a dry weekend so cant comment on other peoples finding on leaks
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By: Pj_andrew Reason: I own(ed) one Made in: 2009 Rating: Date: 23/08/2009
We are a family of four (two adults, four young children) and this tent appealed due to it's sheer size. We bought for the future and the kids won't be getting any smaller!
This tent is huge. The main living area easily accommodates a table, chairs and other camping kit. The standard porch has plenty of room for a stove and food boxes. We use three of the pods as bedrooms and they easily accommodate a double blow-up bed. The fourth pod is a storage room leaving the central area as a living area for any rainy days. Three people in a pod would need to be good friends, but two in a pod is more than comfortable.
I pitch the tent on my own apart from when the central area is lifted to get the three main poles into the pins. My wife does this using a broom the get the tent high enough. Apart from that it takes me 1.5 hours to get to fully pegged out. We also have the footprint groundsheet. This makes aligning the tent simple and keeps the main tent clean. However we've found, try as we might, it's very difficult to properly cover the footprint with the main tent. Therefore rain does get in between the main tent and the footprint. Not ideal however a quick brush with a broom inside the tent pushes out the water.
The external design of the pods is such that the pole holding the pod out, creating the internal space, slots into a plastic cup on an adjacent pole. While this does work it's a worry that this might be an over-strained point of weakness. Only time will tell but other tents use this technique so I'm not overly worried.
In high winds the tent certainly gets blown around. The pod facing the wind blows about quite considerably. We've survived all our trips so far with one visit gusting to 40mph. I use the provided pegs but have some storm pegs for the critical guy lines.
The height in the main area is excellent, more than enough. The porch height is ok although an extra inch or two would be useful. Pod height is fine and if you remove the pod inner the pod itself is huge. N.B. Pods can't be removed however the inner to each pod can. The inner is a zipped bedroom hung inside each pod.
Taking the tent down takes a while. It takes me roughly 3 hours. However I don't rush and fasten up all the guys lines and such like. In a high wind we've done it in less time!
The tent is larger than a lot of 'standard' pitches. However we just book a standard (or maxi if available) pitch and wing it. We've had no trouble so far.
This tent is excellent for those long family holidays.
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By: Micki Reason: I own(ed) one Made in: 2008 Rating: Date: 07/04/2011
I have camped 3 times in our Outwell Hartford XXL 2008. I bought the tent for the option of having 4 bedrooms & bags of space for 3 kids to run around. It withstood some shocking wet rain & wind first use & stood firm with no leaks.2nd time we found a few leaks but third time we used it the leaks were really bad from the top skylight windows. I also found a hole in one of the seams in the floor of the tent. We haven't camped in UK yet only Europe. People like to come & look at the size of the tent & I offer tours LOL! should charge!, but the tent does cause a stir when we pitch up! I also found that storage cupboards were hard to place around the tent keeping them free from door ways as there is no flat wall space to rest them against. Everything seems to gravitate to the middle of the tent. I have downsized this year to a Vango tigris 800 & am looking forward to going to south of France in the summer!
I am keeping hold of the tent in case the downsize doesn't work out! The tent is easy to put up (open doors before you put poles in)!
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By: Sara Hack Reason: I own(ed) one Made in: 2010 Rating: Date: 19/08/2011
We are a large family of six who have camped for several years and knew we wanted a tent that gave us plenty of room, a built in ground sheet, a porch and was sturdy - this tent ticked all those boxes except the bedroom pods were small (living area huge)and because of its shape it takes up lots of space on the pitch - it appeared that we had a lot of unusable space due to the way the pods came out from the main frame making it a huge circle. After one use we sold this tent on really because of the space it took up on the pitch and the fact that we wanted more room in the sleeping areas - however it was a sturdy tent that stood up to adverse weather conditions.
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By: Gavzinho Reason: I own(ed) one Made in: 2008 Rating:  Date: 07/03/2013
Bought the XXL a few years ago. Although only a family with 1 child at the time, we wanted space and room to grow.
The Good:
Lots of space and height (I'm 6ft 1) and length in sleep pods. Can sleep two in Pods comfortably, agree that three might be a bit friendly! Use one pod for storage, which we wouldn't want to do without. Porch is a godsend as it keeps the wet clothes and wellies out of living area. Goes up easy, so long as there are two people and one tall enough to lift centre.
The Bad:
Too big to dry in garden at home if brought home damp. Need to go to local park and pitch on a windy day - not ideal. Back door not really usable as becomes cooking area. For first time this year have been told too-big for a single pitch.
The Ugly:
Nothing really - gorgeous tent when pitched, love the luminous green guys and always have a gathering of children as spectators when pitching due to size (or maybe they are waiting to see if we struggle to pitch it!). One leak on first pitch, along seam between porch and main tent - but may have been our fault as first time pitching.
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By: Mammalman Reason: I own(ed) one Made in: 2007 Rating: Date: 11/05/2013
We are actually just about to put ours XXL into retirement after around 6 years of happy camping.
The pods really only sleep two people, even children, but the hug size of the tent is great. Not being able to stand at all in the bedroom pods is a bit of a pain but there is lots of room in the central area.
The porch we bought proved invaluable as it gave us space to put all our wet boots and cooking equipment.
The main downside is the time and number of people to put up the tent. It too two of us around and hour to get it erected and a similar time to take it down and try and cram it in the bag!
Pitching the inner tent first (on our older model) is poor design as we have now ended up with mould after a very wet camping weekend and no opportunity to dry out the tent at home for several weeks afterwards.
The living area is very large, although we found we did not use it that much as it is almost too big and cavernous, but great for storage.
As the family is getting older I am looking for a tent which I can pitch on my own so this tent will soon be up on ebay!
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By: Tcat Reason: I own(ed) one Made in: 2006 Rating: Date: 07/05/2008
We bought our Hartford XXL model in 2006, so it is not the current model. Whilst we are extremely happy with our version, there are some aspects that could do with improvement and it would seem Outwell have recognised this (perhaps through customer feedback) in their latest design improvements to the Hartford XXL. Even so, the 'old' Hartford XXL is still an excellent family tent for the following reasons:
1. It is easy and quick to put up. Initially, you need a second person to stand inside and hold the middle up (I don't know if the new design has alleviated this), but that takes just a minute or so, and then one person can be left to get on with it, whilst the other tends to impatient children (unless it's too windy). Usually, it takes us about 30 minutes to be fully pitched and chucking our kit inside. Within an hour, we're happily esconsed and sipping our first relaxing drink with the evening meal on the go.
2. The sewn-in groundsheet is an essential for us, and few tents of this size and quality offer that comfort. There are no drafts and the tent quickly warms up on a chilly evening.
3. The interior size is wonderful, and whilst it's weighty packed up it is still a convenient size for the car. The rooms are much better than the older Outwells which tended to be a bit saggy, and the interior middle area is enormous - on a cold night, we've regularly had a large group sitting comfortably chatting.
4. The fourth room does it for us - to have that additional room to put stuff in to avoid the tent being a pig-sty within a blink of an eye is invaluable.
5. It's light and bright - our biggest criticism of the older Outwells was the dark grey interior and dark green fly sheet, which made it feel dark and dingy. The new colours give it a much brighter feel.
6. Quality: pound for pound, we have found Outwell tents to be of the highest quality, in terms of poles (better than the originals, though) fly sheet materials, zips, etc.
There are some down sides to our model, some of which seem to have been attended to by Outwell:
- Inner-first pitching: this method of pitching makes pitching up and packing away in wet weather a bit of a nightmare. They are not exactly small, so drying them out at home is ardous, but essential to avoid mustiness or even mould. If you could at least ensure you don't spend the weekend with a damp inner and that it is packed away dry at the end, it would be a distinct improvement to only have to deal with a wet fly sheet. Thankfully, this flaw seems to have been resolved which I will look forward to when our current model needs replacing.
- The older Outwell's used to have double-lined inner doors, so you had a breathable mosquito door and then the thicker door. Outwell seemed to have improved the doors with the O-shape and better zips, but ditched the double-doors. I don't know if this has been rectified, but it should be! We might go to Scotland more often if they did!
- Windows: the XL had more side windows letting light and air into the inner sitting area. The XXL doesn't, just relying on bigger roof-lights.
- Porch area: I see that there is a slight improvement in the extension of the porch area. This would be good, as our version is a little cramped in the porch. This is generally where we put our stove and table, and when it rains you have to zip up as the design of the porch leaves you exposed, compared to other tents I've seen unless you spend extra for a porch extension/canapy.
- Whilst Outwell claims the rooms accomodate 3 people, I would say this is a little bit optimistic. Our double air bed fully covers the floor of one room, and we'd only get two of the kids' folding beds into one room. 3 in a room is only possible with rollmats, and let's face it if you are camping as a family in one of these who in the world is going to use rollmats to get 3 people in.
Overall, though, the Hartfords are a superb range of tent and last long enough to make them value for money. The quality is superb and the facilities are top notch for a dome tent. Outwell demonstrate their attention to detail by continually improving their designs in the right areas, and it looks from the description of the NEW Hartford XXL that they have addressed almost all of our criticisms. I would recommend this as my top choice to any family wanting to go camping in a tent in comfort.
There is one last thing to note for anyone considering a tent of this size: many campsites seem to have latched on to the size of these kind of tents, and are charging extra for the privilege of pitching them. Generally, we are finding the cost at around ฃ20-ฃ25 a night, sometimes more, but have not noticed an appreciable improvement in the quality of facilities at some sites that are doing this. Personally, I think this is a rip-off and we are moving to sites which make no distinction in size of tent, but rather just price it per pitch.
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By: Willig Reason: I own(ed) one Made in: 2008 Rating:  Date: 12/08/2009
What a great design. Easy to put up and so much space. This is ideal for the British holiday as there is plenty of space inside when the weather turns ugly.
Absolutely flawless on its first outing in July 2008.
This year however not so perfect. Pole snapped on erection (replaced with supplied spare) then during one of the many rain storms we noticed water seeping in through one of the main panels, on closer inspection we noticed several holes in the fabric, they seemed to be imperfections in the fabric as opposed to tears. Problem was solved with the use of Gelert fabric repair strips (a must have for any camper) these went on and stuck fast even in the rain.
The tent supplier Outdoor World have refused to help (the product was a week out of the one year warranty). Outwell seem not to be contactable
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By: Merlin1973 Reason: I own(ed) one Made in: 2008 Rating:  Date: 18/09/2009
All the comments about the tent size and ease of erection and quality of construction, mentioned in other posts is fair comment.
We seem to have a pole problem. We have broken 4 pole sections so far in four outings twice ripping the tent and it was not even in adverse weather conditions.
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30 User Reviews of the Hartford XXL - Showing 21 to 30 Page:
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Manufacturer's Description
The standing-height bedrooms in all side cabins made possible by the Outwell Extended Frame System (OEF System) are one of the major features in the Hartford XXL. Another popular feature is the outside pole construction which enables easy one-procedure pitching flysheet first, or all as one. This roomy and refined tent sleeps up to 12 persons, and offers amenities such as pre-attached inner tents with O-shaped stow-away doors, as well as handy mesh organiser pockets. Protected by a sewn-in groundsheet, the spacious living area is well-lit by large windows and two skylights, and complemented by the extended porch with a detachable groundsheet.
Specifications:
Flysheet: Outtexฎ 3000 with taped seams
Hydrostatic Head: 3000 mm
Floor: Double-coated polyethylene
Inner tent: Breathable polyester
Pack size: Tent: 43 x 75 cm / Poles: 25 x 63 cm
Weight: Tent: 25.0 kg / Poles: 14.5 kg
Poles: Duratec fibreglass 9.5/11.0/12.7 mm
Features:
Detachable groundsheet for porch area
Pre-attached inner tents
Stow-away O-shaped inner tent doors
Organiser pockets
Mesh pockets in the inner tents
Rear door
Fully seam-sealed flysheet for maximum protection
Reinforcement patch on all stress points
Lamp holder and light cable tidies
Adjustable pegging points
Pre-attached guy ropes
Luminous guy ropes
Heavy duty Outwell zips
Outwell doormat included
Optional Extras:
Carpet
Footprint
... there may be more info on their website
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