Drying a tent

[Cudzoziemiec]

What methods have you used for drying a tent at home when there's persistent rain and limited space at home? You get home, your tent is wet because it was raining when you struck camp that morning. If you have a garden and a washing line, you can put it out there in the wind and sun – if there is wind and sun. But maybe you have no garden. So you can use the airing cupboard. Or spread it out over some furniture. But maybe you have no airing cupboard and limited indoor space, and other people have claims to that space as well. What do you do to get your tent dry (and possibly even cleanish)?

I have been tempted to think about a tumble dryer. I've never actually dared to use it and don't think I would. Even if nothing melted, there's too much possibility of guy lines getting caught in things. What I have actually used, to limited effect, is a hairdryer. While this is probably hotter than a tumble dryer, it's also more controllable and, importantly, observable as you use it.

But what tips and techniques have you used?

[Kim]

I drape it over the bikes in the front room and come back the next day.  But I'm sure this is the sort of thing a baby elephant could help out with...

[Cudzoziemiec]

How long do you find that takes? Obviously it will depend on weather conditions, heating and so on...

[Paul H]

Depends how big your tent is.  The fly of mine hangs over the shower rail, one side spread out the other bunched up, then move it along as it dries, even if it's soaking wet it'll dry in half a day. The inner never gets really wet and is free standing, so that gets put up in the middle of the living room for a couple of hours.
Unless I'm going to be using it the following week, I do this even when I think it's been packed dry.

[Goldcrank]

I erected a canvas bell tent in the dining room. Put an electric radiator and a fan inside. It took nearly a week to fully dry. It also illustrated how massive these things are when they are not in a field.

Small tents - hang over the bath until dryish then hang over the banister until I can be bothered to pack them away.

[fimm]

Small tents can be hung over the thing we hang clothes on to dry.
The real problem was when our 4-person car camping tent got absolutely soaked. We couldn't get it hung up well enough to even drain the water out. In the end we hung it over the bannisters in the stairwell for a couple of hours (we're in a 3rd floor tenement flat) with some buckets on the ground floor to catch the worst of the drips. Thankfully no one complained!

[tom_e]

We used to churn it around when there wasn't enough space to dry.  So, put it in the bath in a jumble, and turn it over and about every morning and evening until it's "not wet".  Then move it onto a spare bit of floor or other space and carry on turning it about every so often until it all appears properly dry.

Can take a week or more because a "jumble" isn't the best formation for drying.

[nikki]

Just drape everything over the four poster bed and go and get a curry!




I usually wash the groundsheet and anything else that needs cleaning in the shower, then hang it up on the shower head and screen as best I can until the worst of the water has run off. Maybe some periodic shaking too.

After that it gets moved to the bike shaped drying rack or, in the case of the Birmingham attic flat, hung over the banister. Flat horizontal spaces are harder to come by so, whilst it doesn't take long for things to dry, it might take an obscene amount of time for me to get around to folding things up and packing them away!

[Kim]

One thing about drying your tent indoors is that it's a fantastic equaliser of materials.  Whatever that stuff Hilleberg use that the heat from the sun passes uselessly straight through dries as quickly as other tents when you take radiant heat out out of the equation.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Next step: buying or making a four-poster bed! (probably not)

[Wowbagger]

@nikki