Just wondered if I could get some opinions, please.
Camped in brand new c£900 Outwell airbeam tent last week. Fairly experienced campers, but first airbeam tent. Wednesday night storm left us with airbeams constantly around our ears, so we slept in the car. Met Office suggested max gusts were 50mph.
On getting tent back up at home, one of the beams is trashed, bulged through the sleeve, stretched totally out of shape. Three more are in better shape, but still have noticeable bulges. Everything else in the tent survived without harm.
At we entitled to expect better from such a tent? Should we be pushing for free replacement airbeams? Or was it unrealistic to leave it pitched in such conditions - though we did check all was in good order, when the wind started getting up. TIA.
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Its not about whether you have an airbeam or not, a tent needs to perform to its value regardless of the construction. A good airbeam is better than a rubbish poled tent and a good poled tent is better than a rubbish airbeam.
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1/ To survive high winds better than fibreglass poles, as the air tube may well bend in half*, but spring back again, undamaged. That pole would/could potentially snap. Even steel/Alloy may bend (and not spring back, of course).
2/ Not to explode, blister, bulge, or lose it's shape, form, or air pressure, unless subjected to conditions beyond what would be acceptable to camp in... I'm thinking Tornadoes and the like, or being in the Sahara desert for at least two complete and continuous months!
3/ Not to leak air, or to form condensation puddles inside the tent/awning.
4/ Not to emulate the sounds of gurgling babies, gargling gin guzzlers, or farting grandfathers at any point during a camp, except when deliberately deflating.
*I wouldn't expect an air beam to be "constantly around our ears" during a night that experiences max gusts at no more than 50mph. If it happened just once, a quick re-jig of the guylines/pegs/air pressure should ensure it doesn't happen again on that particular night!
Thanks Mucker, that’s helpful. I suspect the gusts were more than the forecast said they would be, but we had 2 beams constantly dropping on in the sleeping pods, so we moved to the centre of the tent before the 3rd and 4th beams started caving too. Would it be about reducing the pressure? If so, hard to do without a slow release...
When you say "our new Outwell" Is it this years model or was it perhaps a last years model which had some problems leading to a recall.click here
Statement from Outwell that was posted on here when problem was identified
Thank you for your comments and we would like to take the opportunity to confirm that we have recently identified an issue with air tubes that affects a number of 2019 Outwell inflatable tents and motorhome awnings.
For more than 25 years we have worked hard to achieve and maintain high levels of product quality, service and trust so we are truly embarrassed to report this failure. Thankfully, these incidents are rare. But errors do occur, and we would like to assure you that we take these issues very seriously.
We would like to stress that this only affects 2019 models and apologise profusely to anyone who has already purchased one of these tents or motorhome awnings. We are currently implementing an action plan with our retail network and you will soon be contacted by either your supplying retailer or our team in order to rectify the problem.
We expect to start delivering back to the market in early May.
Please contact Outwell direct if you have any questions info at outwell.com
We camped this week in the 40+ mph (gusts) in an Outwell (air) Up & Away - at times I thought it might actually up and away ;) anyway wind and rain hammered it for hours, properly scary but it stood its ground solid - our tent is about 3 years old and cost around £550 - so your experience sound to me like there was a fault or if not it did not meet the satisfactory level of quality that was expected (as my tent proved from the same manufacture) -.
BTW - I was at about 6 PSI (sure that is what the instructions said) - in fact put up in garden today to dry out and really windy - could see it folding in - so put more air in to bring it up to 6 PSI - made sure guys were tight (ish) and back to normal.
Might we worth checking what your beam pressure should be - also if pump measuring correctly (especially as it think mine was PSI nor BAR).
Had no stretching, bulging or other issues (apart from pump not very good) - touch wood.
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Topic: Reasonable expectations of new airbeam t
via mobile 25/8/2020 at 12:18pm
