What's the best way to clean my tent?

This is a common question asked when a customer buys a new tent. Aside from never using your tent, one of the best methods of keeping it clean is by using a drop cloth whenever the tent is set up and taken down. Of course even when you use drop cloths your tent will still need to be washed. Unfortunately, there is a growing trend in the tent rental industry to use large commercial washers to clean tents. The companies that supply the fabrics used to manufacture our tents strongly discourages such a practice. Immersing vinyl tents in water to clean them will force water into the fabric. Once the water is in the fabric, it can cause mildew, staining, blistering or even delaminating.

When a tent is tumbled or agitated in a machine, abrasion from the inside of the machine or the tent hardware may cause hole in the vinyl.

SRT recommends that tents only be washed with a safe cleaning product such as our Big Top Cleanser. The best method is by laying the tent out on a clean hard surface (such as a parking lot). A drop cloth should be used to separate the tent from the surface you chose. If the tent is severely soiled, you should rinse it off first. The using an insecticide type sprayer, apply Big Top Cleanser to the tent (for large tents, work in small sections). Agitate the surface of the tent with a soft bristled brush. The tent may be simply rinsed off with a hose or we recommend the use of a low pressure washer (under 100 PSI). This method works especially well cleaning webbing and binding. allow the tent to dry thoroughly before returning it to storage.