I have a 6 year old Vango Banshee 200 that has probably only been used a handful of times. I test-pitched it in heavy rain in my garden for 2 days and it didn't leak a drop. Then I camped in the lake district and forgot to put 2 of roughly 10 pegs out which may be the reason the inner got stuck to the huge amount of condensation on the outer and leaked a very little bit.
1) does this mean I have to waterproof it or something - or do I just dry it out and jobs-a-goodun'?
2) what can I do to prevent condensation? - I pitched it in the morning before going for a hike and when I got back it was already very condensationy- without even a person breathing in it! - And this was after no rain in the day.
You can't stop condensation, but as you already said you need to pitch carefully and avoid touching the sides, or the inner touching the outer. Sometimes opening the doors a little to get a breeze through helps.
Yeah I think a combination of rushed pitching, missing two pegs by accident and me tossing and turning all night caused the inner to stick to the outer and once that had happened it wouldn't unstick. It was like two sheets of laminated paper with water between them. Like magnetised together! All dry now though, and I didn't get wet which is the important thing!!!
In reply to elliot.baker: I had a Banshee a while ago, and one of the particular quirks of it was that if you didn't separately peg the air vent at both ends (and turn round the spacer things) it resulted in a *lot* of condensation. Quite possibly that.
I think you'll find it will - I really disliked it until I worked out how to solve the condensation issue. Then I was very happy with it until a pole snapped (which isn't a criticism as that will happen eventually on any tent that uses bendy ally poles if you use it often enough - metal fatigue sets in).
I have a similar age Banshee 200, ditto above, condensation is a massive issue, in Spain one summer we resorted to sleeping with the door open. We've used ours a fair bit (10-20 nights/year) and have never reproofed it. Try and avoid pitching on wet ground, open as much as weather allows. Try and allow a draft under the outer tent.
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