Bubbles and Canvas – Avoid This Expensive Mistake!

Whist this warning is intended for glampsite owners, individual bell tent owners should take note too.

Bubbles and canvas tents do not mix

Bubbles contain detergents and are the absolute enemy. Bubbles and Canvas should be kept very, very far apart! Here’s the problem…

Detergent Contamination

There are a number of different detergents to be found on a glampsite, some may be provided by you, some may be brought along by your guests. These can include (but are not limited to) washing up liquid, laundry cleaners and bubble mixture.

A detergent is a surfactant or a mixture of surfactants with cleansing properties when in dilute solutions.

Wikipedia

Detergents are terrible for canvas tents as they strip the canvas of its treatments and so cause water to ingress. Affected areas can be near impossible to spot clean and re-treat with a waterproofing agent such as Fabsil. even with repeated spot cleaning and treatment, the problem can, and often will persist.

When the bell tent is dry it’s pretty much impossible to spot any affected areas. However, when the bell tent becomes wet its possible to spot them. They are almost circular in shape and the canvas appears slightly translucent in these spots.

Occurrence & Avoidance

There are some simple steps you can take to help avoid detergent contamination: –

1. Don’t sell bubble mixture in your on-site shop.
2. Be that killjoy who asks their guests to refrain from blowing bubbles close to the tents. Each bubble is like a loaded missile. If a bubble bursts on the canvas of the tent, you will see evidence of this in the form of an oval shaped residue which will reveal itself when rained upon. The shape will become slightly translucent when wet.
3. Site the washing up facilities away from the tents.
4. Even products labelled as ‘mild detergent’ can be harmful to the canvas so don’t be fooled into thinking these will be ok.