Mildew Removal on Tents

[RyanPont]

Here is the background: I let my girlfriends sister and her fiance borrow our tent for a weekend trip they had planned. I gave them our best/newest tent. We purchased it at the beginning of the spring.

Long story short it rained one night while they were away. The tent never had time to dry during the trip or laid out after, It was packed away, given to me a week later. My girfriend and I went for one last trip, pulled it out, it was still damp and now theres is mold/mildew on some areas.

What can I do to remove this? Tainted lysol solution ive read with some lemon juice and salt. Is there something off the shelf at my local outdoor store I could use.

Thanks in advance

 

[Capt Eddie]

Mildew remover for the tub and shower is what RVer use for canvas awnings. It worked on my tent.

 

[Topher Walters]

My suggestions: (you didn't say if the tent was made out of canvas or a typical tent material)

Typical tent material: Use Woolite or even a standard clothes detergent in a bath tub. Pretreat the areas with the most mildew with shout or some other pretreater and scrub by hand. In the bath tub let it soak and scrub by hand for several hours. To kill the smell of mildew I would use pinesol. Then rinse several times. Hang in the garage until its not dripping any more and then hang in the house for a week+ until bone dry. Don't forget to wash the bag that it lives in.

Canvas material: About the same as above but you will really have to scrub the areas that are mildewed. And be careful not to discolor the canvas.

On both you could use a small (very small) amount of bleach in the water but I would be very carful with this. I would rather do the wash in a tub or large wash basin rather than in the washing machine. Make sure it dries out throughly (week+) before you put it away.

 

[RyanPont]

Thank you both the replies were helpful

 

[RockyMtnFamily]

I have used a bleach, water and vinegar mixture that I found online to clean up the mildew stains on canvas and reapply water proofing spray after I am finished. If you do this make sure to have PLENTY of ventilation as the fumes can choke you out.

Kevin

 

[AxeAngel]

Don't use bleach. Depending on the fabric use woolite or soft scrub(no bleach).

-Sam