New wet tent - what to do?

[Jinglebellsarecoming]

We went camping at the weekend and our new tent got very wet. It has been raining non stop since we returned with no no let up in sight. How can we dry the tent, we have a small house and no garage?

Do you have a garden? can you put it up and leave it
They can stay out wet and be left until it dries but cannot be folded wet as they rot
We hang ours over the trampoline net

Can you hang it over bannisters?
On clothes airer?
Over dining table?

I sympathise, I have a 4m bell to dry out somewhere in my similarly small-with-no-garage house. Complicating factor is that the event site I was at turned into a swamp with 4 inches of standing mud all round, so the whole thing is covered in sticky sludge as well as soaking wet. It's going to have to go in the living room. Thankfully the carpet's awful in there anyway and a bit of mud won't actually make matters worse....

it is much better to let them dry out, "pitched".

That way they will not go mouldy, and will stay in shape.

If muddy, washing a tent down with water when it is pitched, and letting it dry, will prevent it getting mis-shapen or shrinking.

If you ever have to strike and pack a tent wet, pitch it to dry as soon as you get home.

I'm lucky enough to have a shower over my bath, so can hose down muddy things relatively easily. I put a sieve thing in the plughole to avoid blocking it.

Shake over bath to get the worst of the water off, then hang over internal doors until dry.

If canvas this can take ages, but assuming you have a modern nylon tent then the fabric will dry indoors very quickly, you just have to fold it a different way once an hour or so, so the bunched up bits all get some air. Three hours drying time or so will do it I reckon, that's not too bad.

I dry all my sheets etc over doors too cos there's nowhere else big enough in my small flat.

We currently have 2 pop up tents half popped up in the dining room for exactly that reason OP.

Ours were only wet from the dew on the bottom but we put them out to finish drying on Monday and it suddenly chucked it down

Thanks everyone. Can't pitch in the garden as too small and lots of concrete but I hear what you say so will do some kind of think inside but the tent is bigger than any of our rooms!

We peg ours over the washing line. Could you rig some lines across the garden?

If you get a dry day take it to the park and pitch it for a few hours :)

We take ours over to a nearby green and semi pitch it for a few hours (both ours are nylon), we keep an eye on it but no one's ever complained and no one's going to steal a tent with half the poles missing (hopefully). However it does need dry weather, it's supposed to be better this weekend.

We decided to machine wash our inner tents this week as they had got slightly mildewy, they have been flapping soggily on the line since Sunday :(.

A friend with a garden hose, a spacious attic and a dehumidifier has come to my rescue and is dealing with the muddy soggy bell for me. I intend to buy him many drinks in exchange.

All good ideas - I hope it survives until the weekend when I can take it to the park.

Naoko - you werent at Elderflower Fields by any chance? Lots of lovely bell tents and mud were there too!

I wasn't, and having just had a quick Google for pictures (looks lovely!) it seems that I was somewhere far, far muddier still...

Jinglebells - we were at Elderflower Fields, not in our bell tent though. We also now have a soaking wet tent to re-pitch tomorrow if it is dry. Did you enjoy it?

ahh the joys of festival mud!!!!

yes mummyP i did enjoy it - it was my first festival so a good gentle introduction. the loos were a bit of a shock and also the music going on so late both sat and sun wasnot very family friendly but other than that it was good - especially the elderflower mohitos (sp)!!!!!!! How about you?

We had a brilliant time. We were in the wild camping field with friends and hardly anyone else which was great. DD and her friends got to do loads of stuff like climbing and skate boarding, and we all enjoyed the music. i missed the elderflower mojitos though - not sure how they slipped through!