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I am having great difficulty in tracking down a carpet for my recently purchased Vango Columbia 600 and wondered if any of you know of any other carpets out there that would do the job instead?

I have been after one myself as it is more or less the same size as the living area in my trailer tent. I couldn't find one either, there was a couple of second hand ones on eBay and they went for a ridiculous price, almost £100, and one of them was well worn. They are 355cm x 455cm. I have looked all over but cannot find a carpet with these dimensions. The new Vango Samara is 440cm wide, but I'm not sure how long it is. I e-mailed Vango and they said it was 435cm in length. However someone on this forum said that it was 305cm in length, so which it is I don't know.

Good luck

Andy

They are as rare as hens teeth, but there are a few bigger tents out there that you may be able to cut down and add new edge binding to fit. Alternatively, sew two smaller tent carpets together. I bought a purpose made Gelert one (designed for the Nemesis) that was actually two lengths of carpet bound together - so even manufacturers are doing the same.

I have just had a quick search - the Kampa Studland 8 has a living area of 395 x 445, but I don't know if the carpet is cut around or goes under the separate sleeping pod (which would make it L shape) - worth a check.

Outwells Arkansas 7 also seems to have a larger living area.

Done a bit more hunting - Two Gelert Horizon 8 carpets (2010 blue/green check) around £40 each would give you more than enough, being supposedly 350cm x 280cm (350 is only 5cm shorter than the length of the tent), but you'll have to join the two (using binding) and cut off about 115cm from the other length to give you the 445cm for the width of the tent. That would probably give you sufficient width left over to make a couple of nice inner tent mats to go alongside a couple of single beds... (Gelert tend to combine lengths of carpet to make then fit some of their tents anyway - so you may want to check whether the Horizon 8 carpet is similarly put together - as you could have multiple joins if they have).

You could do the same with 2 x the EasyCamp Boston 600's carpets...

Anyway just a suggestion... worth browsing other 2009/2010 and current tent designs to see if a combination of carpets could be made to work or find one that could be cut down.

Helen

Another option - Kampa do the same carpets as their tents for caravan awnings:

They do one 240cm x 700cm for about £83 (cheaper than the RRP of the Columbia carpet). Here's is a link to one retailer (not necessarily the cheapest, but you tend not to get a lot of variation in the prices of Kampa products)

Cut the 700cm length in half to give 2 x 240cm by 350cm lengths and either re-edge with some binding tape and overlap on the floor OR trim and edge to give one carpet 350cm x 445cm. Tent carpets are usually 5cm to 10cm less than the dimensions of the tent anyway. The Columbia 600 one certainly is. You will find that the Kampa carpets also pack down smaller than the actual Columbia 600 carpet as have less padding within the carpet (which might help some people). We have the Kampa Bude 4 carpet and is rolls to the size of a standard picnic blanket.

Helen

FOUND SOME (if their stock system works - may be someone would like to ring and report back):

http://www.armynnavy.co.uk/acatalog/2010TentAdditions.html Their home page link is not correct - use http://www.armynnavy.co.uk/ for home page and follow contact link from there.

scroll down to Vango Tent Carpets - they supposedly have both the carpet for the Sungari 600DLX and the Salina 600 (both have the same living area as the Columbia 600) £85.00.

They also have footprint groundsheets too...

Helen