How do you season a bell tent?

Before you start the seasoning process, pitch your new tent in your yard and check that you have all the parts listed in your tent manual. Set up the tent as per the instructions making sure there are no defects. This is important as generally tent warranties are limited and will only cover manufacturing mistakes – it might be difficult to prove a fault after you have been camping with your tent a while. A manufacturing warranty will usually cover broken parts or poor stitching, however, they will not cover ongoing wear and tear.

Seasoning (aka ‘weathering’) a canvas tent is an important process for getting your tent water-tight and ready for a long life of camping. Canvas tents are usually made from cotton or a cotton-poly blend. The canvas fabric is cut into panels and these panels are sewn together with thread leaving hundreds of tiny holes where the sewing needle has punctured the canvas. These holes are larger than the thread and so the first few times the tent is wet there is likely to be some leaking. Do not despair. This is completely normal and fix-able...

Cotton and thread expand and shrink after being wet and then dried, so seasoning canvas is simply a way of speeding up this natural process, thus reducing the hole size and any leaking in your tent. 

We recommend setting your tent up and then hosing it down, or even better using a sprinkler to wet it continuously for long periods (you may need to move the sprinkler around the tent). This is a good way to emulate rainfall.

Run your sprinkler as long as it takes to saturate the canvas thoroughly and then using the hose pay particular attention to the seams. After drying the tent out, you should repeat the process at least two more times. If you have a Homecamp Bell Tent or similar, then we advise zipping off the floor turning the tent inside out and seasoning it again. If your tent is a manageable size, you could potentially soak it in a bath for a few hours.

Once this has been done, your canvas tent is now seasoned and will be watertight and ready for camp!

Warning: make sure your tent is 100% dry inside and out before packing away as mildew can set in very quickly

Final notes: There may be slight ongoing issues with leaky seams, if the problem persists and you have seasoned your tent correctly then we suggest using a seam sealer. Check out the Homecamp range here.