Worn out tents

[squeezebox]

I read the current discussion about fly 1st set up. Of course the ever present ground cloth or not, came up. That made me think about the reality of tent wear w/o a ground cloth.
So how has your tent worn out? Broken zipper? Floor or fly delaminate? Tears? Please mention ground cloth or not, and how long it took to wear out.
Another point is I read was a about DIY silicone tarp somewhere a while back. You mix silicone and mineral spirits to the proper consistancy, then brush on a few light coats, Then supposedly you have a wonderful new waterproof coating, on a product where the material was still intact but the coating was blasted. Has anybody done this? What results?
Thanks!

[Feral Bill]

I have had tents die from UV light and bad zippers. Floors have had minor leaks but no major failures, and I only use underfloors at gravely front country campsites.

[nsherry61]

I have had tents die from UV light and bad zippers. Floors have had minor leaks but no major failures, and I only use underfloors at gravely front country campsites.

+1 on every single point. Although, I would call them worn out zippers, not bad zippers in my experience.

I've also had rodent induced floor and wall failure that required a simple patch. I've had PU coating disintegrate on flies that I treated with one or another re-waterproofing spray or brush-on that worked okay. Flies don't need all that much waterproofing to work as a waterproof cover, whereas floors with even small holes lead to wet tent floors. Keep your dry stuff up off the floor and on top of your pack or sleeping mat or in tent wall pockets or hanging from some inside clothesline.

The only wet floor problems I've had are when I end up sleeping in a big puddle (bad site choice) and that puddle soaks through my floor enough to get stuff wet that I didn't make sure was up off the floor including edges of my sleeping bag. BUT, it has never been catastrophic, just annoying and uncomfortable.

[evyck da fleet]

I’ve had a zipper fail or more accurately the fabric between the zipper and tent. I use a ground cloth. The only hole I’ve had to patch was in the top of the tent. I’m assuming a flying insect trapped inside the tent or between it and the fly caused it. A simple patch worked.

+1 to the wet floor due to poor site selection.

[Gambit McCrae]

I have had a TT stratospire 2 for 7 years and the majority of my trail miles listed in signature. Never once have used an under floor. The tent is wearing out from stitching becoming raveled, and the mesh just breaking down and tearing very easily. The bathtub floor is obviously well broken in, but not worn out or damaged. I do appreciate the aspect of the Stratospire of having an easily replaceable inner mesh, but after using it for 7+ years and the inner mesh being half the cost of the tent, it is a good reason for me to reany up and got he zpacks duplex as a replacement

[Slo-go'en]

I haven't worn out either of my SMD tents (Luna solo and Trekker), both of which have gotten a lot of use.

I use a Tyvak ground sheet more to keep the tent clean then to protect the floor and it does add another water barrier to the floor. Camping on wet/damp ground or grass is not uncommon along the AT.

UV isn't much of a problem on the AT, but it is out west if you leave a tent set up in the sun for long hours every day.

As for mixing silicon and mineral spirits, don't bother. Just getting the right consistency to make seam sealer is tough. You'd never get it thin enough to coat fabric with anything like a consistent coating. And it would likely peel off quickly too. And be careful of the fumes...

Silicon spray seems to be a waste of time and money too.

[HooKooDooKu]

The only tent I've had to retire was my original Kelty Vortex 2 purchased around 1995. After about 15 years of little use, the waterproof coating simply started to delaminate from the tent.

[blw2]

The only tent I've had to retire was my original Kelty Vortex 2 purchased around 1995. After about 15 years of little use, the waterproof coating simply started to delaminate from the tent.

Similar experience.
My old Kelty, a Quatro something... the coating turned gummy and sticky. Purchased around about the same timeframe, tossed it at about 20 years old with overall little use but always with a ground cloth. I thought about trying to rejuvenate the coating but decided the thing was too heavy, and I hated the pole sleeves.

Had a cabin tent from Gander Mountain. Also very light use, no ground cloth. Looked almost pristine but it just leaked a bit when I pulled it out after a long storage session. Never liked the tent anyway, hard to set up....

Both tents, I figure the biggest cause of death was storing them for long periods of time in garages and even some time in attics over the years.
Both might have been fixable...but I didn't like them anyway....

[Bronk]

I've never had a floor fail so I really don't see much point in using a ground cloth. Zippers and rain flies are usually what do tents in, at least the ones I've used. And if its a cheap Walmart tent you can add in the cheap fiberglass tent poles. Re-seal the rainfly and you might get another season or two out of it, but a broken zipper is a broken zipper.

How to refurbish a leaky rainfly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wARB...NaUEA&index=20

[Leo L.]

I have more worn out tents around here than I like to admit. All of them are pretty old, some were pretty cheap and you would not expect much from them.

The one tent I really used a lot is a Salewa Sierra Leone (first model from the 80ies). Used it for motorbike travelling, mountaineering and some hiking.
Groundcloth was unknown by me then.
Once I cracked a pole, and bought a new enhanced set.
Sometimes had some problems with the zippers, mainly due to poor overall design, but they did not really fail.
After several years of heavy use most of the sealing tapes came off from the seams.
The rainfly near the bottom (I have the full-size winter fly) and the corners of the bathtub floor start to break and tear, maybe due to too much UV exposure.
Tried to use this old tent recently during a family car camping event and it failed miserably during a downpour, I was completely soaked, from above and from the floor.
On close inspection it turned out that the floor has numerouse tiny holes, as I never took any care about it.

For my new MSR I'm always using a groundcloth.

[theinfamousj]

I have a few worn out tents. Well, not really anymore because I fixed them all.

The first wore out due to direct deet spray at the tent walls. It was a single wall tent. So needless to say it was no longer water tight until I rewaterproofed it with marine fabric waterproofing. So now it is good.

The next wore out due to an abrasion in the wall fabric so it was no longer bug tight. It was a double wall tent with ripstop nylon inner walls (and mesh) so it wasn't leaking water, just bugs. A few pieces of ripstop repair tape (in green on my white tent, so very obvious) and we are back in business.

The next one had a clear porthole on its fly that delaminated as it was just glued in. I replaced the clear porthole with silnylon, sewed it in, and then seam sealed my stitches.

And the final one couldn't hold up to the gusts of wind it had to endure. Two broken tent pole sections and 3 out of the 4 rings-and-pins were unbent. Someone splinted and duct taped the pole sections and I bought new, and replaced the rings-and-pins and we are in business once again.

All these tents look a bit weird, but they are all functional.

So far, zero worn out floors, two worn out side walls, one fly, and one wind damage. Perhaps I am unusually kind to my floors? I do not use a footprint with any tent but my The One and it isn't one of the ones referenced in the above stories.

Sent from my SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

[peakbagger]

I have chucked one tent when the coating went. I took care of it but one year I rolled it out and it stunk the very distinctive smell of bad coating.

[camper10469]

my tent droped dead because of the seam sealer peeling. i took very good care of my tent, used a space blanket ground cloth. sealed tge seams as recomended by the manufacturer.

it lasted about 5 years of use, out in the catskills fall to spring at least 3 trips a month, 3 days at a time.

[garlic08]

My Tarptent Contrail failed after nearly 8000 trail miles and 5000 bike touring miles from 2007 to 2012. The guyline attachment points to the canopy were starting to fray and the zipper finally broke. The floor was still pristine, though I'd never used a ground cloth and the tent had seen the Arizona Trail and the CDT, lots of rocks and cactus.

Henry at TT told me about the silicone treatment for my aging canopy, but I never did it because it never bothered me and I didn't want to add the weight of the extra product. (He was also amazed at the mileage I got out of the zipper on that Contrail. It failed on the last night of a 4400 mile XC bike trip. At that point it wasn't worth fixing.)

[Turtle-2013]

Ditto, except mine was a Eureka Timberline that I bought in the mid 70's and retired in the early 2000's ...
The fabric started breaking down so that it would easily tear and the waterproof coating started pealing away on both the floor and the fly.

The only tent I've had to retire was my original Kelty Vortex 2 purchased around 1995. After about 15 years of little use, the waterproof coating simply started to delaminate from the tent.

[Shutterbug]

I read the current discussion about fly 1st set up. Of course the ever present ground cloth or not, came up. That made me think about the reality of tent wear w/o a ground cloth.
So how has your tent worn out? Broken zipper? Floor or fly delaminate? Tears? Please mention ground cloth or not, and how long it took to wear out.
Another point is I read was a about DIY silicone tarp somewhere a while back. You mix silicone and mineral spirits to the proper consistancy, then brush on a few light coats, Then supposedly you have a wonderful new waterproof coating, on a product where the material was still intact but the coating was blasted. Has anybody done this? What results?
Thanks!

I have worn out several tents over the years. It is always the zipper that wears out first. I don't use a ground cloth. I have patched a floor or two, but have never had a floor failure that caused me to stop using a tent.