Just got back from a weekend in the Dales and the Vango Diablo is overall dry, but the groundsheet was damp. As drying the thing is a nightmare for me with no garden as such, would it be ok to store as we are comping again in 2.5 weeks... I am hoping that the tent will be fine till then.... anyone offer any advise or experience ?
Many thanks.
ps.
Had a great weekend despite the weather... was rather fun try to drop 2 tents in the wind this morning.
Hi Flush glad you had a good time despite the weather. No, don't leave the tent in the bag for more than 2 days. .
get it out and spread it out as much as you can. air it until completely dry or it will soon go mouldy. It doesn't have to be put up, just open so the air can get at it. DO you have a stair bannister, you could hang it over that.
I have had to just leave mine opened out in the living room or draped it over the stairs overnight. keep turning it over so everything is really dry.
Hi flush.
Whatever you do do not put it away in its bag, mold/mildew can and will attack a tent within a few days, when you wrap wet material up it warms up and produces the perfect spawning ground for mold, If you have an attic put it up there until you go again, out of the bag spread around and move it about a bit every few days,
Regards
Rex.
------------- "Be the person your dog thinks you are" (BM)
i wouldn't risk it. tents cost too much to mess about with and i know from experience that they can go mouldy quick. we must have not noticed a damp patch on ours one year and when we got it out a couple of weeks later and it was growing black patches. glad that was before we started spending real money on tents.
we drape ours over the rotary washing line until it is dry, and then it sits open in our loft for a few days before we pack it. the small tent we can even drape over the dining table for a few days much to the annoyance of my OH
48 hours in the bag, absolute maximum. If you try leaving it in the bag damp for 2.5 weeks you might as well throw it out now and save yourself the storage space.
We just got back from Sedbergh (Dales/Cumbria way) and the weather was really, really bad, bad!. When we go there and unpacked our Monty 6 (used only twice this year!) it absolutely STANK and had random patches of mould! This was because we thought we had dried it out after our last camp about 2 weeks ago when we last went away but obviously hadn't!
So now, we are in the same situation, tent got really wet, the weather is still bad and nowhere to dry it....
It will have to go over the banister rail as we wont be wanting the same thing to happen..
We managed to scrape off most of the mould and the rain over the weekend did help, but any ideas how to get it all off, especially off the black fly screens? will this be permenantly damadged now ?
A solution of milton sterilising fluid, for babies bottles will kill the mould and stop it spreading, should be okay on the flyscreens or inner tents, but not sure about the flysheet. Try the search, this topic has come up loads of times.
Well the wind helped in the end. I got the tent out into the drive and just basically waved it around like a lunatic. The wind was so strong it just billowed the inner and outer sheets. Result...dry tent in 1 hour of frantic activity.
Well the wind helped in the end. I got the tent out into the drive and just basically waved it around like a lunatic. The wind was so strong it just billowed the inner and outer sheets. Result...dry tent in 1 hour of frantic activity.
Cheers all.
Well, at an hourly rate of whatever your tent cost you, I think that was time well spent.
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Topic: Damp tent... how long can you store them
