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Hi

I have had my Vango Aspen 500 DLX now for a year and have been camping in it 3 times.

My question is do I need to start thinking about waterproofing it or not. People I ask give me mixed answers. It’s not leaking and I am more than happy with the tent. I was in it over the May bank holiday 2008 and the weather was really bad and I just got to thinking…….

No. You don't need to waterproof synthetic tents. The only exception to this is for high performance mountain tents, the sort that cost about £300 for a two-man. Ocassionally folk do waterproof their old (as in five/six year old) synthetic tents in order to get a final last year of use out of a crumbling flysheet, but given the amount of proofer you'd need for an Aspen you'd probably be able to buy a significant proportion of a new tent for the same money.

And apart from anything else, you need to be able to pitch the tent somewhere you can spend a few hours working on it and then leave it up for 24 hours to dry out. You can't do this on campsite because the proofer kills the grass and you can't sleep in the tent while it's drying because of the solvent fumes. So it's not a job you want to take on lightly.

Thanks for that info Val just what I was after.

Terry