You're welcome! Good luck! Incidentally, we had a bit of a suspicion when we were looking at buying our tent that Belltent.co.uk might be the UK supplier for CanvasCamp based on the similarity of their stock (I am prepared to be corrected on this if someone knows better). I am pretty sure that CanvasCamp who supply worldwide are manufacturing their tents so they may be more amenable to selling spares. We bought from them in the end as, buying from Norway, it made no real difference to order from the UK or Belgium, and we heard some less than favourable feedback about BelltentUK's customer service (though they were very good when we made some early enquiries). We have been impressed with CanvasCamp's customer service and quality so far so it might be worth enquiring if the canvas turns out to be irretrievable.
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Quote: Originally posted by Davey Lamp on 22/3/2018
In answer your some of your queries:
a Was I unreasonable to expect the tent to survive outdoors for a third of the time you state on your website. - The 60 weeks is referring to the amount of time the canvas is waterproof for, this is not to do with the mould. We have some more info on long term use found on our website: https://www.belltent.co.uk/terms_and_conditions
Professional and Long-Term Use
Even though some people put up our tents long-term, we sell Bell Tents as camping accommodation, not permanent structures. Our 12 month manufacturer's warranty does not cover "professional use" after the first month. If a professional user buys a tent and reports a manufacturing problem within the first month we will look at it under warranty. After 28 days use it becomes a permanent structure and it therefore not being used for the purpose it was sold for (i.e. a tent for camping).
If a private individual buys and then erects one of our tents semi-permanently we will cover manufacturing defects for the length of the warranty but this does not cover mould as we have no control over the conditions the tent is left up in. A Bell Tent is treated to be mould resistant, not mould proof as this is not possible. If the proofing has not been applied properly the tent will leak from its first use and there will be obvious patches of lighter material when the tent is wet. If your tent is waterproof then this means it has also been proofed for mould resistance, and any mildew or mould that develops is not due to a mould-proofing issue.
b Your care guidelines refer to not putting the tent away damp to avoid mould etc. This was not put away it was outside and in use all the time. – That is just one example as to why mould can develop on the canvas. Another is If your tent was left up it could be to do with ventilation, for example if the tent is zipped up on a hot day the air can get trapped inside and turn into condensation. We have some tips here: https://www.belltent.co.uk/caring_for_your_canvas
Fungus and stains
Due to insufficient ventilation, fungus can affect the canvas.
c) Is it impossible to ever get just the canvas section? – It depends on which tent. I don’t know of any suppliers selling it separately UK but if you have a ultimate version and happen to have a second hand canvas only version potentially the zips will match up and that would be a way to replace the canvas. But as you can imagine this is very circumstantial.
Are customers expected to just bin all the poles and groundsheets after a season? – It depends on which type of customer. If you’re referring to a business customer, who erect their tents seasonally for rental purposes? Most tents will be fine for many seasons but if not. Poles can be used as spares. Some people harvest the tents for spare canvas ground sheet, guy ropes and zips, for any repairs they may need to do, or you can always recycle the materials at a fabric bank.
If these are actually your design and they exclusively supply to you? Why can't you offer a replacement service by ordering separate canvas. It obviously is a different manufacturing process to the base and the poles? All elements to our tents are made and put together in the same factory. However as mentioned before we don’t make the tents here so don’t have access to the materials to sell separately. We also don’t have the demand.
I don't know if all this stuff was on the Belltent website when you purchased but it certainly is now.
Belltent sell the same tents as Obelink, who are not authorised to sell to the UK market because of that agreement. So,it seems unlikely you'll be able to source a new canvas
You've used the tent for 5 consecutive months as a storage facility, without checking things. It's a hard pill to swallow but, I reckon you've subsequently killed it. All credit to you for coming clean and telling Belltent the facts though (despite supporting any hopes you might have had regarding a warranty claim!).
If you can be bothered, and if you're prepared to throw good money after bad, try the cleaning route. Just be aware though that, if you re-proof, it's something you'll have to do periodically for ever more.
Did any of your contents get spoiled? Should have hired container storage... hindsight is a wonderful thing...
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Topic: Neglected Bell Tent Repairs
