For cleaning your canvas bell tent, the good news is, there are there several methods & products that can help.


General Cleaning:

Firstly, avoid bleach at all cost! 

  • Initially let any dirt or debris dry & brush with a soft cloth, if that doesn’t remove it next stop is a clean sponge with just warm water.

Re-proofing:

Or a combined kit for both cleaning & re-proofing: https://www.fabsil.com/product-page/tent-care-kit

Mould & mildew 

Mould & Mildew are trickier to remove completely unfortunately, so you may find you don’t get back to perfection however there are a few things you can try:

Small areas: 
  • 10% dilute Milton solution used to spot clean when the mould starts.

Larger areas: 
  • use a canvas mildew remover such as Fenwicks Awning Cleaner or HLS Sail & Canvas Cleaner
  • A home remedy we have had good reports from if the mould is extensive is fully soaking the canvas (remove the groundsheet) overnight in a bath with a domestic product called Vanish Gold Stain Remover. 
Then you would need to dry and re-waterproof the whole canvas with a re-proofer like Fabsil Gold https://www.fabsil.com/product-page/fabsil-gold

 A couple of the more natural methods are listed below:

 • 1/4 teaspoon of oil of cloves per litre of water in a spray bottle for cleaning mould from hard surfaces. Lightly mist on, leave overnight and wipe off.
 • Mix one kilogram of uniodised salt in a nine-litre bucket of water. Paint onto the mould patch, leave until a salt crust forms then wipe off with a soft brush.

Whatever method you do use, try it on a small area first and watch out for staining. Depending on which option you choose, you will usually compromise the waterproofing in some way so we would definitely recommend reproofing any area of the tent that you have after you have tried cleaning it. 

Finally if this sounds a bit too labour intensive, a few companies do a wash and re-proofing service, one we recommend is https://thecanvascleaningcompany.co.uk/  if you mention our name they will offer a small discount.

Hope that helps, but please feel free to ask any other questions before you start.