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Gosh, do you clean your tent.

You are good.

err, am I alone in this, we have a returned from camp with a mud splodged SIG... I'm just going to lay it out to dry on the drive and then brush it off?  this method works for my walking boots, so why not my SIG?

No washing malarky for me....Am I a camping housekeeping slut?

i think the hartford is an inner first tent though? the inner would be a bit too big to fit in the bath or in the washing machine? Seperate bedroom pods can be washed by hand or in the machine but I think this one may be huge

If we ever get a really good hot sunny breezy day, you could wash it with several  buckets of soapy water and hose it to rinse clean perhaps? then erect it to dry?

Quote: Originally posted by frizbomb on 25/8/2008

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err, am I alone in this, we have a returned from camp with a mud splodged SIG... I'm just going to lay it out to dry on the drive and then brush it off?  this method works for my walking boots, so why not my SIG?

No washing malarky for me....Am I a camping housekeeping slut?

 

Personally, I wouldn't put mine away even  with dried mud on it though, because it will still be smelly. i really don't like the thought of opening up the tent next time to find it smells even slightly musty or earthy. i would brush off the dried mud , then I would have to wash it properly and make sure it was properly dried , before storing. I always put a tarp under mine to keep the underneath of the sig clean, so I don't have to do this .

. i make sure that the inside is properly clean and dry before taking the tent down. i sweep out any mud or grass, and give the floor a good wipe over with a tea towel before I take the tent down.

i haven't spent hundreds of pounds on my tents to have them smell nasty because of not cleaning before storing them.

I wash the muddy tarp with soapy water and sweeping brush on the garden and hose it down, and dry on the line.

it may sound obsessive, but it really doesn't take long, and i know the tent will stay fresh smelling.

We make sure its dry and whatever mud is dried on comes back with us next year.

We always take a broom and a dustpan and brush and sweep the pods as they contain loads of beetles, earwigs and orrible stuff.

I spray the tent hourly with fly spray as I am afraid of buzzy things.

All you have to do is make sure that noting is damp. Then you can park your tent until next time.

Don't leave a wet undersheet in it.

Just make double sure your tent is dry.!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 If there are specific stains on the inners then they're best treated while the tent is up. If the outer has marks ie bird poo, mud etc then it's also best to treat these while the tent is up, also by brushing and sponging. I have a twenty minute cleaning session the day before we leave, including sweeping out the worst of the grass and dead bugs  and that seems to keep the muck mostly under control. If it's muddy the day you pack up then there's no help for it...you've got to hang it up to dry, so brush off the mud and sponge then.

Up till this summer the method above was quite sufficient to keep my tents smelling just fine. All canvas tents have that evocative whiff of sunwarmed canvas about them, of course, but that's a lovely smell and one of the nicest things about canvas tents. Synthetic tents might smell briefly stale when they come out the bag but that only lasts till you get the poles in and up. If you have dried the tent out 100% then there won't be a problem. Of course if you can leave the tent bag unzipped while in storage this will help too.

This summer though was The Year of the Slugs. We took our TT...cotton canvas, of course...and I could see when we took it down that it was covered with slime tracks and there was the ocassional deposit of snail poo on the inside. Slime tracks brush off when dry, poo sponges off, but I have to confess it's been an arduous job given the size and weight of a TT cabin canvas + awning + extension + sun canopy. Thank goodness it all splits up. Also for the first time in my life I have washed inners...the underbed inners were particularly badly marked from slug mank on the top and damp ground underneath, even with a sheet of plastic under them. I've washed them in the washing machine on my coolest wash, double rinsed them and dried them on the line. The upper inners would normally just go into store, but this year they'll be washed the same. Slug poo, ick!

Quote: Originally posted by sarah6151 on 26/8/2008

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I spray the tent hourly with fly spray as I am afraid of buzzy things.

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Got to say here that in the long term excessive use of aerosols inside the tent will probably affect the proofing, not to mention your lungs. You'll get away with the odd daily squirt, as long as you're projecting it downwards and not up to the canvas, but filling your tent with propellants and other chemicals is not a good idea on any count. A citronella candle outside the tent would be better, plus you can get tents with a flysheet over the outer door too, or you could make up one from lightweight curtain netting.