leaking swag

[joshy]

slept in the swag on friday nite in the rain...its a burke n wills and i was told they were waterproof after u drench em to fix up the stitching around the zippers which i did...but i still got soaked...the bottem of the mattress was full of water and wen i moved my arm in the morning water just poured straight in on the side..water got in over the easter break too but it wasnt completely zipped up that nite so i put it down to that..this time i made sure it was. wtf is going on?

[utedriver]

you slept in a puddle!! My swag used to be water proof but I think age is catching up with it, but being new Im surprised that yours leaks!! I dont think that drenching it was the best idea I think its better if you just hosed it down then leave it then repeat, set up in the elements for a few days to let the stitching contract.

[Troopy93]

You believed the advertising blurb, another one for the marketing dept.....

[brooksy]

you slept in a puddle!! My swag used to be water proof but I think age is catching up with it, but being new Im surprised that yours leaks!! I dont think that drenching it was the best idea I think its better if you just hosed it down then leave it then repeat, set up in the elements for a few days to let the stitching contract.


This is the correct method. You only need to hose it down in a strong mist, let it sit in the sun for 2 hrs then repeat. I then left mine set-up overnight & it copped the heavy dew morning & I rolled it up around lunchtime.


brooksy

[hoyks]

If it still leaks after that, rub some bees wax in along the stitching

[joshy]

well i hosed it and let it dry and hosed it the next day. wouldnt think how wet you got it would matter would it? yeah ill prob rub the bees wax in but i cant see why i should have to..should have that stuff on it already shouldnt it? ill give the place i got it from a call tomorrow n c wat they say

[Baldricks_Mate]

I used Bradmill canvas treatment to re do my swag after about 7 years. It comes in a bottle, its a white liquid, doesn't pong. Paint the swag according to the instructions. When dry, do the seams and base a second time. Dont think its too hard and easier to buy a spray can of something, sometimes they can react with existing treatments and they can pong. The bottle will be heaps, put it away for next time, it doesn't go off.

Also canvas works better when its taut, swags are no different to a tarp in that regard.

If yours is new, often the seams are the water entry point, so ya often got to re waterproof them, right from new.

[et4wd]

Did you have a ground sheet under it when it was raining?
If so pull it out! they trap water between the swag and the sheet and that soaks through you're swag!
learnt that the hard way!

Steve.

[Peter @ Aawen4x4]

Use a section of shade cloth instead of tarp or plastic for a ground sheet, they won't hold the water in, letting it pass right thru, but still keep the sharp bits from doing any damage and aid in keeping the whole lot warmer by reducing heat loss into the ground!

When you got soaked in your swag joshy, could it possibly have been condensation from inside? I see a lot of new swags get zipped up tight at night and then the occupant can't work out why they are so wet in the morning. Condensation is even worse if it is wet outside, 'cos your warm breath inside condenses on the inside of the swag due to the outside being cooled so much by the rain. It often looks like it's been raining INSIDE rather than outside, even when I KNOW that it was the other way around! Most modern swags these days are pretty waterproof, and I see FAR more people soaked from lack of ventilation than I do from leaky swags!

You've got to have adequate ventilation in a swag, and even more so the greater and more effective the waterproofing on your canvas is or the thicker it is. With lots of waterproof agents that get used on swags, they stop most of the moisture going either way, in OR out, and then the couple of litres of moisture that the average adult breathes out overnight ends up trapped INSIDE the swag!! Try using the mosquito net only on one end (the highest end), leaving the canvas cover entirely off that bit, or at least making sure that you have full ventilation or even cross flow ventilation. It does make a massive difference, and you'd be surprised at how little condensation it takes to leave you swimming in a puddle that you breathed out that is now trapped inside the swag!

[dazzah]

2 more points...
-when you originally hosed the swag to waterproof seams, you did all the seams, yeh? not just the ones around zippers, also when you hose it don't set up swag pulled as tight as you would when camping, all this is dooing is putting strain on the seams and stretching them, defeating the purpose of hosing them and letting the stitching fill the stitch holes.

-I wouldn't use wax on seams, once you have applied wax it's hard to get any other waterproofing compound to be used properly as the wax will make it harder to penetrate canvas e.g the bradmill waterproofing won't take to the canvas covered in wax...i would you use the bradmill waterproofing only and forget about the wax.

[Peter @ Aawen4x4]

When you are talking about quality canvas tents, they need to have the equivalent of about 9 hours solid rain, followed by a couple of days in the bright sunlight to dry for the pre-use watering to work. Hosing doesn't work too well unless it emulates that soaking rain.

When you do all this, the tent/swag needs to be a little looser than normal, exactly as dazzah says, and it is actually the extended duration of the watering followed by the duration of the sunlight drying that makes the canvas and thread swell and stop up the holes. Failure to get the required duration of either will make the whole lot fail!! And that means if it gets wet outside, you get wet inside!!

And again like dazzah says, the wax on the seams and zippers is a solution of last resort and it WILL stop the normal waterproofing from ever working again on the section of canvas that gets waxed! It might take a few goes to get the watering bit working properly, but persist, it is worth it, but it does take time to do properly! Take the time and do it once, or break the time up and spread it over a few days, weeks, or even months and do it a few times to get the desired effect. Just don't use the wax until you are absolutely sure that nothing else will work.

Cheers, you will enjoy the swag..... eventually!

[joshy]

Thanks for all the replies. Nah there was no ground sheet, and both times it wasnt 100% done up. if you just have the mosquito net and not the canvas done up wont the rain just come in through there? and when i hosed it i made sure i did all of it, wasnt set up tight. i didnt hose it for 9 hours but the first time it got soaked it was out for more then 9 hours in the rain and then sunlight for a couple days, didnt stop it from leaking the second time. i took the swag back to anaconda n they got in contact with burke n wills n sent it down to victoria for them to do tests on it...so im swagless for a while :(

[4runner4]

mine does the same thing i done all the steps he did Ive Evan got ventilation at the top and rear

[Gazzathe Chippy]

Iv'e a southern cross and it leaked on me too, up at fraser, queens bday long weekend last year and more rain on it and me than you can poke a stick at. All I can say is if you have to soak it for 9 hours, mines been done now and I shouldn't have any more probs I hope. Gazza!