Replacing an Air Tent Beam

The arrival of the inflatable tent over the last few years has been a complete revelation for many campers. For some people, part of the joy of camping is partly to do with piecing together fibreglass poles and if necessary dealing with the odd broken or fractured pole when the wind gets up or if a drunken festival reveller falls into the tent in the middle of the night. Depending on which type of camping you are into of course!

In recent years World of Camping have seen a massive increase in sales of Air Tents, Motorhome Air Awnings and Caravan Air Awnings from manufacturers such as Outwell, Vango and Outdoor Revolution.

Whereas a fibreglass pole can be replaced in full or by section there is a slightly different set of potential issues that may need to be dealt with in repairing an air tent. One of those will not be a large rip caused by a broken pole though! Although the technology in these tents and awnings has improved and been streamlined over a period of years, due to the nature of the product there is still the odd occasion where a beam may develop a leak or need replacing.

Although the beams differ slightly from one manufacturer to another, they are all pretty similar and the removal and replacement procedure is almost the same.

Your air tent will have sleeves sewn into the tent which the beams are zipped into. First of all,deflate the beam and undo the zip on the sleeve. Next, free both ends of your beam from the velcro on the groundsheet.

Now you are left with a beam in a thick tightly woven polyester casing. These themselves are very sturdy and difficult to penetrate. The zips on these are usually fastened with cable ties to stop tampering hands fiddling with them. Depending on the nature of the problem, you may have been give a replacement beam encased in this casing. If so simply pop it back in the zip of sleeve on the tent, pop the valve through the hole and you’re up and running.

If you’ve been sent the plastic air bladder itself then you’ll need to cut the cable ties and unzip the tube. Replace the bladder, then do up the zip with your FINGER INSIDE INBETWEEN THE ZIP AND THE BLADDER. This is very important as this is the stage when you can most easily damage the new beam. Once you’ve done this , replace it as above and reassemble the tube.

Outwell have made a helpful video on how to replace an air tube. The video shows the procedure being done on one of their Smart Air collection tents. These tents have interlinked tubes with one inflation point which make it a bit more tricky, but still straightforward. Your beam will more than likely be a simple beam with it’s individual inflation valve. Either way this video should help….