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We got pretty wet inside our Vermont L this weekend and I need a bit of advice to (hopefully) prevent a repeat performance!

During persistent rain it looked like water was seeping through the tent roof and forming drips on the 'ceiling'. Gusts of wind shaking the tent turned the drips into rain inside the tent! It was a pretty grim experience I can tell you; in some places there were puddles of water on the carpet and I recon we mopped up almost half a washing-up bowl's worth of water from inside the tent the following morning.

Earlier in the week we were camping out in quite windy conditions, could this have degraded the tent's waterproofing or is polyester naturally water repellant? I noticed this morning there were 'wet' patches on the top of the tent. By that I mean patches where the material has absorbed the water sat on top of the tent and it was wet to the touch from inside.

Outwell mention maintaining the seams on this tent but not the overall fabric (as far as I can tell). The tent is about 11 months old and I'd guess has had 25 days/nights use. Am I supposed to douse the whole thing with something like Fabisil from time to time to keep it waterproof?

are you sure it was leaking? from what you describe it sounds like condensation to me

go outside on a cold day and blow into a plastic bag and see how much condensation one person can make muliply this by the number of people in the tent and in the morning it is raining inside the tent

condensation  

I'm always blaming water in the tent on condensation but my family are growing tired of hearing it from me, last weekend took the biscuit!

You make a fair point though, thanks. After camping in Vermonts occasionally over the past year, we've yet to camp in rainy conditions and have a tent that's dry inside the day after rain but I can live with that. Last weekend was nothing like we've experienced before, not even close!

Looks like I need to 'borrow' the village green and do a test run with the watering can!

Can't think it was the fabric - 25 days is nothing for this tent, even in sunlight (some hope!).

Faults with Outwell and other makes of tent are almost always poor construction i.e. the seams.

Could be condensation, but don't suffer this in my own Vermont M. Can I ask, how many of you where there, & did you keep all ventilation vents open? It's particularly important to do this in a tent with SIG.

the thing with condensation is that you are more likley to experience it when it is cold and damp outside

if the air inside your tent is warmer than the air outside the tent then when the warm air from breathing hits the cold fabric of the tent it will condense and form water droplets

also do you use any form of heat in the tent Ior do you cook or boil water inside the tent? as both of these will contribute towards condensation

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