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View Full Version : rent repair? possible seal issue?



stonedflea
02-08-2012, 10:12
hey y'all. :)

i know nothing about tent repair. what i THINK has happened is that i need to reseal my tent. but i don't know for sure.

i bought the MSR hubba hubba and took it with me on my hike last year. used it (just about) every day from april to september. i use it with the footprint, but even with two layers of protection, i set up my tent about a month or so ago in the backyard on a clear night. the next morning, i didn't immediately take the tent down and it rained that day. i figured i would wait the rain out and take the tent down once it had cleared up, but when i went to get my things out of the tent, the floor of the tent was completely wet. i'd read a book the night before, and all of its pages were wet.

is this normal for a tent that was used everyday for five months?

if it is, in fact, a seal issue, can someone recommend a good product and go into detail about how to do it? (do i need to do both sides of the footprint, and inside/outside the tent?)

thanks so much in advance. :)

leaftye
02-08-2012, 11:30
I bet it was just condensation. Lawns create a LOT of condensation.

stonedflea
02-08-2012, 11:38
ehh... maybe it was, but i've never seen condensation like that before. there wasn't any condensation overnight... just after it'd rained.

but even if it was, how do i fix it? that's kind of crazy to pay good money for a tent and then not be able to put it in your backyard after a little rainstorm, esp. after it had months of everyday use.

leaftye
02-08-2012, 12:12
It sounded like you weren't in it when it rained. Being inside of it would create a temperature differential, and that might drive the moisture to the area between the mesh and fly. I'd try sleeping in it when it rains to see if there's really a problem.

JAK
02-08-2012, 12:58
I had a rent on the west coast of Newfoundland in need of some repair, but no seal issues.

Feral Bill
02-08-2012, 13:05
I had a rent on the west coast of Newfoundland in need of some repair, but no seal issues. Groan......

Slo-go'en
02-08-2012, 13:26
It's possible you need to re-seal the seams, which isn't hard to do. It's also possible the water wicked up through the floor. Were any of the edges of the foot print sticking out beyond the floor of the tent? If so, water can drip down the side of the tent and then between the foot print and tent floor.

Set up the tent and get a garden sprinkler to simulate rain, get inside and look for leaks. That way you can determine if the water is coming in from above or below.

If you need to seal the floor, you can get Urethan (SP?) water proofing stuff in a can to paint on. Only do the inside of the tent, as it can wear off. Or make a new foot print out of some Tyvek.