Re: water seal for tents
- From: Cyli <cylise@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 12:45:04 -0500
On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:12:02 GMT, "gary" <gary@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>I usually go camping in my Aliner, but have two almost new tents which I
>have never used any seam sealer a Kelty 3 season, and a Equinox tent. Last
>week my grandson used the tent, and I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to
>seal the seams if he or I used them again. I don't like the sealer that
>came with the tent. It's like bottle which you have to rub along the seams.
>Don't they make a spray on sealer? Could one use Thompson's water seal? I
>t says it water proofs just about anything. I use the spray can of
>Thompson's on my dry fly's and it works well to keep them floating.
>
No they don't make a spray on for the tent body seams. For one thing
it would trap moisture inside the tent everywhere it touched, having
the same effect as if the tent had a leak. Seam sealer should go only
on the seams. The tent fly and the bathtub floor take care of keeping
direct water out of the tent. Use the fussy little bottle on the
seams and let it go at that.
That said, I've never sealed a seam on any of my tents and only once
had a leak. Wonderful combination of moving my tent off the good
drainage location because my husband was rolling into me in the night
and getting a campfire spark on the tent fly. I'd been camping
without sealing for years before I ever heard of seam sealers, so I
ignored them when I found out about them. No leaks at the seams in
about 20 years of camping, some years out 60 or more nights.
The kids are much more likely to get wet from pitching the tent in a
lousy location than through the seams. Or leaving the fly off because
they think they don't need it. Or not tightening up the fly enough.
And then there's always the "but it must leak. We had water all over
the floor and on the walls." Not so. If there's high humidity (there
is if it rains) and someone with wet or even damp clothing comes in
and if they breathe when they sleep, they're going to have a lot of
moisture in the tent without having a leak.
When the kids return the tents, make sure they set them up in the
sunshine to dry out completely (or you do it.), because putting away a
damp tent means mildew and the probable loss of the tent.
I consider seam sealers almost as over rated as ground cloths for
preventing tent wetness. The only use I've ever heard of that makes
the most remote sense to me for ground cloths is to keep the tent
clean (like I care. It's a tent. The dirt will eventually shake off)
and to keep it from getting holes in the floor from stuff on the
ground (I prefer to clear off the ground pretty well, but I don't live
in cactus country.).
Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.
http://www.visi.com/~cyli
email: cylise@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (strip the .invalid to email)
.
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