The Camping Forum

[gavinh]

Hi guys im Gavin im from stockport and im here to ask you for your thoughts, im setting up my own business cleaning, proofing and repairing tents and was wondering what the camping masses thought to a service where you can send your tent to be cleaned and proofed and have repair jobs done then have the whole thing delivered back to your front door? we are going to work on modern tents with nylon outers our facility is tempriture controled and well ventilated which will be ideal for people who have had to put thier tent away wet and have nowhere to air it out at home. so if anyone has any thoughts i would love to hear them ?

[Rob-merlin1973]

Hi
Welcome to the forum

ok so my hartford xxl is entering its 4th season and could probably do with a clean.........
The question would be ..... at the moment it is compleatly waterproof ... will it be when it has been cleaned .... and if so for how long.
The thinking is that once it is re-proofed it then has to keep being re done. is this true.

Also how do you do it and at what cost ????

[gavinh]

hi rob and thanks for the welcome.

ok so you have a hartford xxl thats a 12 man tent isnt it, im quitesupprised you have got 4 seasons out of your tent without any re proofing mate you must have looked after it very well, well acording to manufacturer guide lines you should clean and re proof your tent every season after the end of the second season, this is because the uv from the sun breaks down the coating on the skin of the tent which makes it porous. this can cause mildew and other fungal problems.so it is recomended that you clean it well with a non abrassive cleaning souoution and allow to dry thougherly for a couple of days then re apply a water and uv proof coating in several application in order to allow the fabric to absorb the water repelant. once this is done and allowed to cure your tent would be fully waterfroof again, and providing it is cared for propperly it would be fine again untill its next deep clean as long as it isnt put away wet or the material is allowed to be brushed by overhanging trees or other such things. our prices will vary depending on weight and size of the tent but i will draw up a standard price list with set sizes and costs and ofcourse how far the tent has to be shipped. once i have finalised my business i will mail you if you are still interested.
many thanks , Gav

[Gav]

Hi gav,
Our tent has been used for a few seasons in a lot of wind and rain. No leaks, but stitching is showing the strain.
There are a number of design faults with the tent, and with a growing family, I'm thinking of replacing instead of repairing, so cost would be a big factor.
Now if you could include professional alterations then that might be a different story. There are a few good threads on this forum where campers have suggested how they would do something different, but I suppose time and fear of ending up with a leaking tent puts us off.
Tents aren't cheap, but the cost of the service needs to be a significant percentage lower than the cost of a new one.

Cheers,
Gav

[nutgone]

I go into shock when I hear the words "Re-Proof" & I've never heard of manufacturers saying a tent should be re-proofed. the general advice on the help pages is not to re-proof unless absolutely necessary, but this may well be old fashioned advice from the days when tents were nearly all cotton canvas.

I wish you all the best, & think you'll get plenty of people who've had accidents & either caused stains or somehow damaged their water-proofing (it happens frequently with washing-up water, so I'm told), but I think you'll need to be careful. many people believe their tents need re-proofing when in fact they just need seam sealing or simply haven't been erected properly, then there's condensation, which also gets the blame. If this is the case, you may well end up with customers sending stuff back claiming it's still leaking.

Personally I prefer cotton canvas, I only own 2 plastic based tents, one of which I've never slept in, the other has many good memories. But since I switched to canvas last year, it's become something of an obsession. I'm just curious as to why you're not offering your services to canvas tents? There will be many people eager to revitalise an old canvas frame tent, & then there's all the caravan awnings which need cleaning. You could be missing out on a few quid there.

[Rob-merlin1973]

Yup the official reply from both outwell and vango is that the seams may need reproofing but the main tent should only be re proofed if it is leaking. Or if in this case you clean it.

[Regrach12]

Hi Gavin
I'm new to this site and just seen your post
I'm pretty new to camping as well and after a couple of trips we could do with our tent cleaning and a repair to the ground sheet it's a vango aspen 700 dlx with a separate fly sheet we need the inner pod cleaning and a small repair to the sewn in ground sheet(I it's possible)
I know your thinking of setting up or may have done so already if so hope it's going ok and could you contact me or your contact details I'm only in bury so if your up and running could run it up to you to
Thanks jim

[rachels1980]

Hi there, I've got a Kampa Filey 6 which I thought was completely dry when we packed it away but unfortunately, it must have been slightly damp somewhere and it's started developing a bit of mildew. Before we go away again this year, I was wanting to get it cleaned, the mildew dealt with and reproofing done. Have you set up your business and if so, how much would this be to do? Many thanks, Rachel.