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went away this weekend, we had torrental rain, tent has been pitched for whole may, so on returning to the site i started setting up the bedrooms, upon walking in i felt underfoot what could only be discibed as a water bed effect, and water was coming up though the footprint and sig, anyway on close inspection of the tent i noticed that water had been trapped between the footprint and sig, so in torrential rain i had to take down the back end of the tent, and remove what was a river, then the footprint had to be cut (only way to get to the soil) i got a pitch fork and dug the soil and the water ran away.

re put the rest of the tent up and hey presto we were ok, and guess what that night, no condensation problems at all, (i had been suffering with bad condensation in the bedroom pods between the picnic mats on the floor, so i guess it was poor drainage).

i have decided not to use a footpriint anymore, its going to be a pain cleaning the sig, but itcan be done with old towels, kitchen roll.

does anyone else have this problem, the pitch isn't flat so i guess that is why the rain had run down and pooled by the bedroom end.

btw the tent is a idaho xl. 

Hi

We had that problem once.  We arrived at the campsite in brilliant sunshine, but by the time we had the bootlid open to start hauling the tent out, the heavens had opened biblical style.  Our groundsheet and SIG did exactly the same as yours.  We sort of fixed it by tucking the footprint in under the tent all the way round, and by scraping a mini-moat round the tent.  (Wonder if I could have claimed that on expenses?)

The fact that the campsite was littered with duckboards should have given us the clue that it was prone to flooding from time to time.  The next morning the whole site looked like the paddy fields of Vietnam.  Minus the waterbuffalo, of course.

Still.  It was good experience, I'm told.

Suggestion for a footprint for future similar trips would be to substitute some of that matting you buy in B&Q to cover the soil in the garden to stop the weeds growing.  More expensive and comes in strips, but can be rolled up and re-used as often as a tarpaulin.  Just a thought.

Z

Quote: Originally posted by sillylilly on 19/5/2009

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i'm going to make it a bit bigger so it sits up between the bedroom pod sig and the tent wall, in effect a making a bathtub ground sheet. .....

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Quote: Originally posted by Zorro01 on 18/5/2009

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Suggestion for a footprint for future similar trips would be to substitute some of that matting you buy in B&Q to cover the soil in the garden to stop the weeds growing.  More expensive and comes in strips, but can be rolled up and re-used as often as a tarpaulin.  Just a thought.

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Thanks Spudz,

thats a great item but a bit too much money for me........ i'll improvise...... what a challenge.