DIY tent upgrade - advice needed please
August 22, 2010 3:50 PM Subscribe
Our tent is OK but there's a gap between the sides and the groundsheet, which makes it rather chilly. How can I best make it more wind- and rain-proof? I think attaching a strip of some sort of waterproof material around the bottom of the sides, that could be tucked under the groundsheet, is the best option. But what sort of fabric? And how do I stop the water wicking up it from the ground and making the sides of the tent wet?
Further info, if relevant - The gap is about 2 inches. The design is a central dome with three pods sticking out from the sides, each of which houses a sleeping pod. The sleeping pods are separate pieces, hung from the inside of the main tent, and have their own built-in groundsheets. They're pretty snug, but the central area is cold and draughty and not nice to be in except in warm and dry weather. And we live in England, so there's precious little of that around!
Further info, if relevant - The gap is about 2 inches. The design is a central dome with three pods sticking out from the sides, each of which houses a sleeping pod. The sleeping pods are separate pieces, hung from the inside of the main tent, and have their own built-in groundsheets. They're pretty snug, but the central area is cold and draughty and not nice to be in except in warm and dry weather. And we live in England, so there's precious little of that around!
Pictures, a link to info about the particular tent model, or a better description of what pieces make up the tent would make it possible to answer this question without guessing.
Here is my guess: You have walls of some sort of waterproof nylon stretched over tent poles (the fly) and you have a groundsheet underneath. You don't have an actual tent inside the fly (i.e. it is single wall). It sounds like what you want is a tent with a fly, tent, and groundsheet (i.e. a double-wall tent).
If you add a strip of material around the bottom of your current fly, you are likely to run into some problems. Unless your fly has other ventilation, you are going to seal up your tent. You want fresh air to breathe and you want air exchange to prevent condensation (you don't want it to start raining inside your tent). The second problem is, yes, wicking and water intrusion. If you tuck the fly extension underneath the groundsheet, you'll probably get wicking moisture up from the ground. If you leave the fly extension loose on top of the groundsheet, water will pool there after running down the fly. Theoretically, you could extend the fly close to the ground, without touching it, but I'd be surprised if the design of your tent allowed you to keep the extension taut (otherwise it is going to flap around in the wind, spray water around, and generally make life unpleasant).
posted by ssg at 4:47 PM on August 22, 2010
Here is my guess: You have walls of some sort of waterproof nylon stretched over tent poles (the fly) and you have a groundsheet underneath. You don't have an actual tent inside the fly (i.e. it is single wall). It sounds like what you want is a tent with a fly, tent, and groundsheet (i.e. a double-wall tent).
If you add a strip of material around the bottom of your current fly, you are likely to run into some problems. Unless your fly has other ventilation, you are going to seal up your tent. You want fresh air to breathe and you want air exchange to prevent condensation (you don't want it to start raining inside your tent). The second problem is, yes, wicking and water intrusion. If you tuck the fly extension underneath the groundsheet, you'll probably get wicking moisture up from the ground. If you leave the fly extension loose on top of the groundsheet, water will pool there after running down the fly. Theoretically, you could extend the fly close to the ground, without touching it, but I'd be surprised if the design of your tent allowed you to keep the extension taut (otherwise it is going to flap around in the wind, spray water around, and generally make life unpleasant).
posted by ssg at 4:47 PM on August 22, 2010
I'm not sure I'm visualizing what you're saying. By groundsheet do you mean the bottom of the tent? If that's the case, get a tarp like slidell says and put that underneath the tent when you pitch it. Don't let it stick out around the edges or when it rains the water will pool between the tarp and the bottom of the tent.
posted by InsanePenguin at 4:48 PM on August 22, 2010
posted by InsanePenguin at 4:48 PM on August 22, 2010
What type of camping are you doing? If weight/space isn't an issue, I'd handle it differently than if you are doing backcountry, more serious camping.
More information please.
posted by TheBones at 5:58 PM on August 22, 2010
More information please.
posted by TheBones at 5:58 PM on August 22, 2010
The tent looks something like this, no? (For the folks that are confused this likely not a single skin tent, per se. The sleeping compartments are double skin arranged around a central area with a peg down groundsheet (like the porch on smaller tents) it's pretty common design in the UK).
So back in the day (when I was in Scouts) I used to camping in the old school canvas patrol tents with separate groundsheets. When the weather was bad you would fold the edge of ground sheet up on pegs in a kind of flat U shape so the edges were above the bottom of the tent..
If you can find a way to attach it (to both poles/inside and the tent) you might be better off adding a strip to the ground sheet (you can buy nylon like they use for tents) and then finding a way to attach it so there is a raised strip around the sides (you could also get a slightly larger ground sheet to do this -- you could buy a standard blue plastic tarp, cut to size & shape then seam/seal the edges and then add grommets for attachment points) .
It would then look a little like this.
posted by tallus at 6:15 PM on August 22, 2010
So back in the day (when I was in Scouts) I used to camping in the old school canvas patrol tents with separate groundsheets. When the weather was bad you would fold the edge of ground sheet up on pegs in a kind of flat U shape so the edges were above the bottom of the tent..
If you can find a way to attach it (to both poles/inside and the tent) you might be better off adding a strip to the ground sheet (you can buy nylon like they use for tents) and then finding a way to attach it so there is a raised strip around the sides (you could also get a slightly larger ground sheet to do this -- you could buy a standard blue plastic tarp, cut to size & shape then seam/seal the edges and then add grommets for attachment points) .
It would then look a little like this.
/
tent -----------/
/ \
/ \__________ groundsheet
posted by tallus at 6:15 PM on August 22, 2010
My camping setup is a ground sheet that is about three inches wider than the tent footprint. Then I put this groundsheet inside the tent. Much drier and more fool proof.
posted by Foam Pants at 6:58 PM on August 22, 2010
posted by Foam Pants at 6:58 PM on August 22, 2010
Response by poster: Slidell - yes the ceiling is higher in the middle and it's single skin in the middle bit, but when you sit in that part, you can FEEL the wind whistling past your legs, so it's clear (in my mind anyway) why it's so cold in there!
SSG - yes, that's absolutely how it's constructed. I just didn't have the language to describe it properly. We hired a campervan for a fun holiday earlier this summer and it had a tent-like awning on the side. That had a flappy bit all the way round the bottom of the fly and it tucked under the groundsheet. The weather was quite wet so I'm not sure whether it wicked water up from the ground. It was heavy plasticky material, so I'm guessing not. When we got it tucked underneath and something heavy on top of it, it was pretty cosy in there. But a flappy wet blowy mess when the heavy something was removed. Urgh.
Tallus - your link is spot-on, that's pretty much what the tent looks like. And adding a strip to the groundsheet would be a LOT easier than to the tent itself (which would be something of a nightmare because of all the zips, since all three sides that aren't sleeping compartments have doors). So what I need is clearly some not-too-flexible groundsheet material. This is what I'll do if no-one else has a better idea. Thanks for the suggestion! (By the way, how do I attach grommets? Do I need some sort of special tool? Or is there a simpler solution?)
TheBones - heh, you clearly haven't felt the weight of this tent! It's as much as I can do to lift ithe wretched thing from the car to a spot far enough away from the car to give me space to put it up! Very much NOT serious camping. What's the heavy / bulky solution you had in mind, please?
Thanks for all the ideas. If there's other info that would help, please let me know - could try to dig out photos from our last holiday when we used it, to show the gap.
Thanks again for all the advice. Any final additions?
posted by monster max at 3:32 PM on August 24, 2010
SSG - yes, that's absolutely how it's constructed. I just didn't have the language to describe it properly. We hired a campervan for a fun holiday earlier this summer and it had a tent-like awning on the side. That had a flappy bit all the way round the bottom of the fly and it tucked under the groundsheet. The weather was quite wet so I'm not sure whether it wicked water up from the ground. It was heavy plasticky material, so I'm guessing not. When we got it tucked underneath and something heavy on top of it, it was pretty cosy in there. But a flappy wet blowy mess when the heavy something was removed. Urgh.
Tallus - your link is spot-on, that's pretty much what the tent looks like. And adding a strip to the groundsheet would be a LOT easier than to the tent itself (which would be something of a nightmare because of all the zips, since all three sides that aren't sleeping compartments have doors). So what I need is clearly some not-too-flexible groundsheet material. This is what I'll do if no-one else has a better idea. Thanks for the suggestion! (By the way, how do I attach grommets? Do I need some sort of special tool? Or is there a simpler solution?)
TheBones - heh, you clearly haven't felt the weight of this tent! It's as much as I can do to lift ithe wretched thing from the car to a spot far enough away from the car to give me space to put it up! Very much NOT serious camping. What's the heavy / bulky solution you had in mind, please?
Thanks for all the ideas. If there's other info that would help, please let me know - could try to dig out photos from our last holiday when we used it, to show the gap.
Thanks again for all the advice. Any final additions?
posted by monster max at 3:32 PM on August 24, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
To better answer your question, it would help to see pictures. Could it be colder in the central area because the ceiling is higher?
posted by slidell at 4:09 PM on August 22, 2010