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 Topic: Feeling frustrated with new tent
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03/8/2015 at 8:13pm
Location: Leicestershire
Outfit: Karsten 380 Veranda
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This cropped up a few times last year with the Vango Eden inflatable. The cause was that the beams had been inserted at the factory scrunched up / folded over at the ends, in the beam sleeves. This meant the ends were not inflating and the tents were not sitting right.
To check / solve this. Let some air out 1 beam at a time. Enough that it is soft enough to unzip the outer beam sleeve at the bottom metre or so without the zip catching and cutting the inner beam sleeve. Lift the beam out at the bottom and unfold, untwist, reshape as necessary and put it back in. Whatever you do, do all this without unzipping the inner beam sleeve. If the actual beam inside is exposed with any air in the beam it will rip. If it feels like the actual beam is twisted up inside the inner sleeve, you will need to fully deflate that beam, fully unzip and remove the beam from the tent, unzip the inner beam and untangle it.
This all sounds a bit daunting, but it's not as long as you take your time with it.
I hope you manage to solve this
Jim
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03/8/2015 at 9:15pm
Location: Leicestershire
Outfit: Karsten 380 Veranda
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Betematty, I think it would be very unlikely for the actual tent fly sheet to have been made to the wrong size, and as you say you pulled it all tight and pegged the 4 corners first using the footprint as a template, so everything will be square on the ground. Assuming you are on a flat pitch and the air pressure in the beams is correct, the only cause I can see is the beams in their sleeves.
The Vango airbeams are not perfect semi circles when blown up (looking at the tent front on), they are shaped to be more vertical on the sides with a noticeable kink at head height before they curve into the middle. If they are not fully unrolled and sitting straight in their sleeves, they will pull the tent all out of shape. Not only will they be too short, but all the curved parts of the beam will not be sitting in their intended position.
The way the beams are constructed is that you have an outer sleeve, which is part of the Polycotton tent fabric and essentially this is holding the beam to the tent. Unzipping this is totally safe as long as you have let the beam down to be pretty soft for the reason mentioned above. You then have the inner beam sleeve. If you totally removed the beam from the tent it would be zipped into this sleeve still. This is normally grey polyester, like groundsheet material. It should have a plastic tag holding the zip shut so you cannot unzip it by mistake. That should only ever be unzipped with the beam out of the tent and fully deflated. Inside that sleeve is the plastic air bladder itself.
Totally understand your concern at attempting this in the field, and abroad to boot. I had a wonky beam in our Outwell Harrier and had to unzip the outer sleeve fully and man handle the beam into the correct shape so it was sitting happily in the sleeve. I was in our garden but did it with great trepidation! You could always just unzip 30 cm at the bottom of the beam and peep in and see if there are obvious folds at the bottom of it. You will then know you have found the cause and can fix at home if you can live with it for the rest of the trip.
As to quality, our Harrier XL was, like your tent, the best part of £2000 and for that price I needed to feel like it was going to last 10 years plus. I didn't get that feeling at all, and so sold it after a years use and bought a Karsten. It's full canvas and inflatable still. In terms of quality it really is a case of night and day.
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07/8/2015 at 10:22am
Location: South Wales
Outfit: Vango Eden V 600 XL
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As mentioned previously last years Eden suffered from this issue (Mine included), If the beams look like they have knees in the side or do not sit in the ground most likely twisted. Over the season last year the wife and I put up with it for the first two camps (too scared to try), but on one camp with uneven ground (this too will have an effect), we lost headroom so had to do something. If you work methodically one beam at a time it can be done quite easily - one person manning pump and valve and the other twisting /straightening the beam, it is a simple exercise as long as you are careful. Replacement cable ties are now part of my camping spares - but not needed to date this year. - Good luck.
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