How to prevent moisture in tents?

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saturnIII

Joined
Feb 7, 2009
Messages
57
Hi,

Went camping with the family a few weekends ago. Great time was had by all. Fished, canoed, practiced fire starting. All good. We live in south Florida hot and humid is the norm. During our weekend it did not rain but had a problem with excessive moisture in our tent in the morning? The tent walls were dripping wet. I did not set up the tent rain tarp so the upper part (mesh) of the tent was open and side windows for ventilation. Type of tent was a large dome style sleeps 6. What could I have done to prevent or lessen this in the future? Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
 
A waterproof ground cloth (I use tyvek) can provide some protection, but it isn't a complete cure for the problem. Where you set your tent can also be a factor. Setting up a tent on green, healthy grass can be an issue because the blades of grass will naturally release moisture that will accumulate. Setting up your tent on a bare spot near a big thirsty tree such as a pine can take care of that problem, although you will want to keep in mind that lightning loves the tall, moisture heavy trees. When weight is not a big issue, I use a battery operated fan to pull air in or out of the tent. That will take some moisture with it. I use the small Coleman fan that attaches to the tent mesh via a strong magnet and a metal plate. It's small, cheap, and, thus far, pretty effective.
 
A good deal of it is from all the breathing inside the tent. Some tent material lets the moisture through. Other materials hold it in. You did the right thing by opening up the vents to get some of the moisture out, but when you're in a high humidity environment, you're gonna get wet.

Like tenkara said, try a fan or a windy spot.

How many people were in the tent?
 
I use a piece of heavy black plastic for my groundcloth, nothing gets thru it. If you had 3 or 4 people in there the problem is most likely resperation, the small battery fan shold take care of most of it, probably not all.
 
I would suggest putting the rain fly up and keeping the ventilation mesh parts open. Since you live in a high humidity area, every morning condensation will collect on your tent. Having your rain fly up probably will take most of the water. Just be sure that it covers your entire tent but doesnt touch the tent. Otherwise I would suggest a tarp that would do the same.
 
If the night is cool, then take a large hot boulder from the fire, place the hot rock on top of something that will prevent the floor from melting/burning such as on top of other rocks.

We get cool nights around here, and it works wonders for heating the tent. I would pick out a rock for that purpose and get it really hot prior to bed time, and enjoy a nice warm tent for the night.
 
Primary cause of condensation on the inside of the tent is all those folks breathing inside it (stop breathing! yeah, right!), combined with the temperature differential between inside and out. The very humid air where you live makes it worse.

Solutions:

1. Use the fly - this will keep the inner tent fabric warmer and move the condensation onto the fly.

2. Increase air circulation. Keep all windows, doors, vents, etc., as open as possible - without letting in any flying biters!

3. Move your camping adventures to Arizona! :D
 
This may be to simple, but did you check to see if any sleeping bags/equipment were leaning against the tent walls? tent material is water resistant but still permeable, and if something is leaning against it moisture tends to get sucked through at the contact point. this will probably happen less with higherend equipment, and obviously doesn't apply to something like a goretex bivy.
 
I use a candle lantern from UCO to keep the condensation down inside the tent, unfortunately they also give off heat. It's great in the winter up north, but it might be to much in Florida.
 
All of these are great comments. Another solution is to pick areas where you get a good light breeze. After our first night in the glades, we picked the breeziest spots we could to control condensation. If you use a rainfly, use the guy outs to get the fly material as far away from the inside of the tent as possible to allow it to follow a dripline down to the bottom.
 
We had four in the tent. Two kids, mom and dad. Next camping trip who knows maybe we’ll pack up the Winnebago and dart out to Arizona to beat the Florida humidity. Thank you all for the suggestions and recommendations. Will be putting some of the recommendations into action next trip. Thank you all for the excellent advice.
 
I would add that you wouldn't want to set your tent in a depression or otherwise low-lying area. Mists and fog will surround you. I realize it's flat Florida though.
 
As an avid outdoorsman that spent a year living in Florida, the only way to beat it is to suffer. Or spend your life in the shower because by the time you dry off you're sweaty again... I saw the light, and moved. Some things that will help, dig a moisture traugh around your tent, a circle completely around your tent about 4 inches wide and 6 inches deep-that way any rain dew etc that runs off doesn't just sit there under your tent.
 
As an avid outdoorsman that spent a year living in Florida, the only way to beat it is to suffer. Or spend your life in the shower because by the time you dry off you're sweaty again... I saw the light, and moved. Some things that will help, dig a moisture traugh around your tent, a circle completely around your tent about 4 inches wide and 6 inches deep-that way any rain dew etc that runs off doesn't just sit there under your tent.
 
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