First outing with brand new leaky tent!

[kebuchan]

Hello,

I'm new to the forum and new to camping. We bought a Coleman Weathermaster 10 about 2 weeks ago from Amazon. Went out last Saturday afternoon to Kincaid Lake State Park here in Northern KY. We dropped a tarp down, pitched the tent, use all the stakes and rainfly with all the guy lines staked in the ground. Did all this exactly per directions. We have 4 little kids and they had a blast that day.
Sunday morning, 5:00AM it start thundering followed by rain and some funky light effects. No wind at all, just rain. I kept looking at the seams for water but all the water I could see was on the outside of the rainfly.
About 2 hours in droplets started appearing on the inside of the rainfly and running towards the edges. Soon, there was water puddling along the edges of the tent. I woke the kids up and carried them each into the van, we emptied the tent and left. Came back about 2 hours later when there was a break in the rain to pull down the tent.

All told there was about 3 cups of water in the tent.

Amazon is going to take the tent back for a refund or replace it.

Coleman customer service is nonexistent:
- I called about 6 times through the day Monday to get a busy signal, finally got to the hold queue and was on hold for 45 minutes.
- I emailed Coleman customer service. I got an automated receipt but I have not heard back from Coleman yet, it's day 3.
- I finally get on LiveChat on the Coleman website and chat with someone. She read my email and then came back with a suggestion. In order to ensure water does not get into your tent you need to tie down all guy lines, ensure the rainfly is on tight, you all the stakes and ensure all velcros on the rainfly are secured to the tent poles.

That's it! That's pathetic.

We really like the tent other than the leak. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Sealing the seams - would it help? Water seemed to soak through, not get in at the seams.
Is there a sealant for the whole rainfly, not just the seams?

We bought this tent for $165 on sale. I don't know if having amazon replace it is going to make a difference, we'll get another NEW coleman tent.

We would really like to go ou camping again next weekend but don't want to take a chance and get rained on!

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks,

Kevin

[pootats]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

I would seal the seams and also purchase a can or two of Camp Dry to spray on the fabric itself.

Sorry to hear about your first trip with the new tent being a leaky one!

[RIRider]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

Hey Kevin,
I'm sure that sealing your seams will make a big difference. Another popular choice is to fly a tarp over your tent to keep most of, if not all of the rain off your tent. The other option is to camp in the desert. :-)

[renodesertfox]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

For seam sealer I recommend: Coghlan's 703 Tent Seam Sealer Repair Kit and you can get it here:
http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/Pro...aspx?SKU=84949

[surmisez]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

We have a Coleman Instant 8 tent. We love the tent, however we *do not* trust that it's rain proof as advertisted. We always use a heavy duty tarp over the tent and have stayed bone dry.

[kebuchan]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all of the great information! This is our first tent since we were kids, so it's all kinda new to us. Noob question -> do we treat the seams and fabric of the tent and the rain fly?

Surmisez & RIRider - would one drape the tarp over the tent or have it over the tent standing independently?

Thanks again !

Kevin

[Johnny Test]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

Most higher end tents come with taped seams and a polyurethane waterproof coating already applied to the tent material and this drives the price of these tents up fairly high. With cheaper tents, you either have to waterproof them yourself, or like RIRider said, put a big tarp over your tent to keep the water off. Coleman tents are advertised as waterproof but they aren't, same as all the other cheap 'waterproof' tents sold at Walmart and other lower end stores.

Even the expensive tents eventually need to be re-waterproofed. I've had success with the McNett brand of seam sealer and I've use the McNett silicone waterproofing and also the Kiwi brand silicone waterproofing. Both the McNett and Kiwi stuff is on Amazon. Let me know if you need specific item links but they should be easy enough to find on Amazon.

Hogsnapper is so right! You just cannot expect great performance at that price. You can make it work. You just have to do what others have said.

[renodesertfox]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

My turn....yes, treat the tent seams and the fly seams both inside and out. Be sure to let the fabric dry completely. What we have done in the past many times is when we first pitch( at the campsite) the tent and it isn't raining we seam seal everything. During the course of the campout the tent is drying. There ya go. Don't havta do it again till next year. But one should seam seal everything once a year. As for your second question, I'll bug out and share the wind with someone else. Hey...campateers, thanks for making this forum one of the best on the internet!

[RIRider]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

Hey everyone,

Surmisez & RIRider - would one drape the tarp over the tent or have it over the tent standing independently?

Thanks again !

Kevin

Definitely have it independant of the tent. I will run a rope between two trees and hang the tarp over that and tie off the corners to other trees or stake them, and then I will pitch my tent under that.

[surmisez]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

We're going camping this week, so when we get back, I'll post the pics of our tent with the tarp on it.

[kebuchan]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

Thanks guys. I was looking at Flibitygiget's thread and there are quite a number of pictures with tarps a few feet above the top of the tent. Definitely the way to go, keeping the tent, dining area (picnic table) and possible the fire under cover!

Great info ! Thanks again!

Kevin

[sonworshiper]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

Hi!
I'm having issues with keeping tents dry as well. We've decided to tarp this year -- hang the tarp from trees, but the way RIRider described hanging a tarp, intrigues me. I've only ever seen tarps hung from trees, not draped over a rope. . . I'm thinking that would make the tarp more peaked? If possible, I'd love to see a pic of the tarp / tent system that RIRider uses!

At the moment, I'm drying out an ez up woods tent, to throw out, as it collapsed yet again in a rain storm yesterday. Today, I'm going to put up a Columbia Mt. Bachelor tent, checking it to see how it's weathered storage. So far, my little Ozark Trail seems to be hanging in the best after the storm yesterday.

I'm more than a bit frustrated with tents and rain at the moment. I'll be posting my intro soon.

Look forward to learning much here!

SonWorshiper.

[RIRider]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

Hi!
I'm having issues with keeping tents dry as well. We've decided to tarp this year -- hang the tarp from trees, but the way RIRider described hanging a tarp, intrigues me. I've only ever seen tarps hung from trees, not draped over a rope. . . I'm thinking that would make the tarp more peaked? If possible, I'd love to see a pic of the tarp / tent system that RIRider uses!

SonWorshiper.

I don't have any pictures right now. I'm going camping for the weekend and I'll take some pics then, if I remember to bring my camera this time. It's actually easy to explain. I throw a rope over a branch in a tree and tie it off. Take the other end of the rope and thread it over a corner eyelet on the tarp and run the rope under the tarp and back up thru the eyelet at the opposite corner. Then I throw the rope over a branch in a tree on the opposite side of the site, or where ever I deem appropriate, based on where I want to set my tent. Pull the rope tight and tie it off. Then I tie the remaining corners with their own rope to trees on the edge of the site. You can pitch the tarp any way you please and you have no rope staked to the ground or poles to worry about. Of course you can start with you first rope running along an edge as opposed to corner to corner and pitch the tarp like a lean-to if you want. The biggest thing for me is to keep the ground free of unnecessary ropes, stakes, and poles. Plus, it won't blow away on you. It'll flop around like crazy, but it's not going anywhere as long as you can tie a knot, and as my co-worker says, " if you can't tie a knot, tie a lot!" ......he's a lobsterman.........

[Denni2]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

Sorry to hear your trip was spoiled by a leaky tent. We bought a coleman tent last year, it rained hard for two days on our first trip out and not a leak. I guess we were lucky. I would love to be able to put a tarp over the tent for extra protection. What do you do if you can't tie to trees? The campgrounds here do not allow you to to tie even a clothes line to the trees.

[kebuchan]

Re: First outing with brand new leaky tent!

We didn't seam seal our tent or rainfly but we know better now :-) We're going out to a park this weekend and I wanted to try putting a tarp over the tent, if not for rain, at least it will help with shade. I have looked up a few sites with pictures of people setups but it's still not clear to me how I'd go about using just poles to set up a shelter.

What type of poles should be used? Where to get them from? I stopped by our local Dicks Sporting goods and Walmart and they didn't have anything that seemed like it would work.

I guess my two main concerns are (1) Strength of the pole and (2) How to anchor it into the ground.

If anyone has suggestions or can point me to a website with specifics that would really help!

Thanks,

Kevin