I apologise now for the tirade of anger and frustration I am about to inflict on anybody reading this, but as I have days and days of sitting by my outwell harrier xl SATC 2014 WITH A BULGING BEAM and nowhere but Denmark or Scottish mountain gear, WHO ARE. CLOSED FOR THE WEEKEND, to help, I am stuck here letting pressure out every time the temperature rises in case the beam fails completely.
We have hit brickwall after brickwall trying to save our holiday that we saved up for all year, and hoping and wishing for lovely weather, NOW PRAYING FOR COLD WET WEATHER, how can a company of this size and expertise not have fitted these tents with valves that cost pennies to ensure that this doesn't ruin people's holidays as there is only one place in the UK to buy replacement beams from,
If you snapped me in half there would be outwell running through my veins, we had a bear lake 6 for years and years kitted with all outwell equipment as I thought they were the best and sold it reluctantly, 2 years ago, swapping it for an airbeam , going up in the world of camping WE THOUGHT, BUT NO here I sit in gorgeous St Agnes with a tent I am scared to leave, with beams we are checking every half an hour as it gets hotter because there is NO HELP AND NOWHERE TO GO AND GET HELP.
We have talked about going home as this is stressful, we have thankfully seen a post on this site about a similar problem and followed the instructions given about taping the beam, we have questioned ourselves now about being overly paranoid as the next few days are getting hotter, if I still had my bearlLake I would just go and buy a pole or a spare whatever, how can outwell firstly :
NOT FIT PRESSURE RELEASE VALVES THAT ONLY COST PENNIES
OR
HAVE STOCKIST AROUND THE COUNTRY STOCKING REPLACEMENT BEAMS, AS THEY HAVE A VIDEO ON HOW TO REPLACE THE BLOODY THINGS IF YOUR LUCKY ENOUGH TO GET ONE.
Anyway I feel better now, thank you for letting me rant, my tent is still broke, but I am little bit more sane now .
Hi, sad to hear of your issue, really not what you expect from a premium product.
The issue isn't so much to do with the air pressure changes as the quality of the sleeves used to constrain the bladders.
If you set the tent to 6psi at 20C it would have to be 70C to increase to 7psi and 120C to reach 8psi so temperature doesn't make all that much difference in the normal 20-50C range. You could never get a mass market valve to differentiate to the nearest 0.5psi cheaply hence why they don't fit them.
The trouble is the inner bladder is basically a poly bag, if it is allowed to expand then the material is stretched and it then fails just like a balloon. The outer is supposed to prevent that expansion, however as you've seen, it failed and allowed the inner to bulge.
Once it's in fail mode, lower pressures will help, but the only real fix to to replace the sheaths that constrain the tent as they are the weak point.
Thanks for the reply interesting to know about the pressures 👍🏻But if these valves are so expensive how can outdoor revolution fit them to all their air tents and give them a lifetime guarantee?? I’d think outwell is the bigger company (not sure) so would expect they would easily be able to match that promise !!
And so far so good with the beam but tomorrow (Monday) it’s straight back on the phone until I get a replacement sent out :)
Anybody have any idea how much these beams cost in general??
Swoop, my tent’s been fine for nearly two years on taped up beams. Just keep an eye out for bulges and do a proper inspection once a season / before a big trip.
Swoop1, I’m sorry to hear of your problems. From what I can tell a new air beam bladder will probably not help, the issue is the fabric of the beam starting to split and allowing the beam to herniate through.
I think Tim’s taping video is your only viable option.
As an absolute emergency you could also try what cyclists do when a split develops in the tyre, you fit a section of material/cardboard between the air tube and the outer wider than the damaged section before inflating. This stops the inner tube poking out and should allow you to inflate fully.
Well thank you for your replies I've just got off the phone with SMG and they tell me they emailed me back on Friday I have no email to my enquiry but I do have a reply for my repair request that's what they want me to send to them !! So I guess they are not very good at this sort of thing lol they said they will email me today with my price but I'm not sure I will get the mail so guess I will phone them back it's been an hour so far might wait another hour before calling I'm sure they have very important things to do :(
Unfortunately my wife wants to do stuff to that she thinks is important but I don't want to leave the tent as I'm paranoid yay great holiday !!
Today I had my price and it was better than expected:)
First beam door end harrier xl 2014 £115.20 plus £9 postage and a 3 week wait !!
The wait isn’t what I expected:( so relying on the duck tape for the duration of the hol but I’m pretty happy with it so far weather it last after take down and the put up when we get home we will see 😬
Thanks again to all that replied 👍🏻
Glad it’s working out for you. Good news that you can get individual beams. When it arrives, I’d be very interested to know whether it’s made with the new rubbery material or the old skool woven PE. Also, don’t forget to check the other beams! The ones with the inflation points get the most stress.
We had this happen with our Concorde M back in 2014. As previously mentioned, it wasn't the tube itself that went, but the stitching on the plastic inner sleeve. The main polycotton zipped sleeve was just a horrendous bulge. Tried Gorilla and Duck tape, but neither held.
When we bought our Harrier XL new in 2015, we did consider buying a set of spare beams, but as they are different sizes in the tent, we would have had to buy a whole set. Not at that price!!
We were told by Scottish Mountain Gear when we enquired about the spare beams, that we could also get a set of uprated sleeves (which they were fitting as standard at the time), but never bothered. Fortunately, we never had any issues.
If you are getting a spare beam, make sure they're including a new sleeve too.
Did you get hold off outwell thorough their help site? Only asking as I had the hornet xl 2015 and the front beam wasn't sitting right but outwell did send me an replacement free off charge but my tent was within the warranty at the time
Hi it was SMG that gave me the price I had to give them the barcode number off the bag and they then give you the price !! Hope you get it sorted I'd just pester outwell through the web shop chat or phone them to death lol if it's under warranty if not it's SMG for you to :(
Good luck
Did see it was smg you went through so thought you might be lucky with outwell as the had issues with the 2014/2015 range so they might offer a new beam as a goodwill gesture. The new beam didn't help the issue and the beams where still sitting funny lifting up the front off the tent and was lucky enough to have the whole tent replaced so now have the 2017 version with the upgraded beams
A slight change of tangent .
We are just back from our regular 5 weeks in France and it was exceptionally hot for this time of year.
We stopped at 5 sites for the holiday and it was at the fourth our Outwell started to deflate,I blamed the extremes of weather with 35c at mid day down to 15c after 5pm following a storm.
Instead of 9 strokes to blow up a beam it was taking 50, the tent was collapsing, being propped up by chairs.
It was the pump. I opened it up it was bone dry . I greased it with olive oil (wrong lubricant ) and it got the beams back up.Next day the piston seal in the pump popped through the shaft.
Went down to Decathlon, choice of 3 pumps, got the most expensive (e7.85) never looked back.
Sorry Outwell , you got some real bad vibes from me !
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Topic: Airbeam frustration
