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Stayed out 4 nights in a cheap 3-season tent during a freak October storm
Last October I took a $60 tent up to the Olympic National Forest for a 4 night trip. First two nights were fine, but night 3 brought wind that had to be 40 mph and then rain straight from 9pm to 5am. The fly leaked at every seam and I woke up at midnight with a puddle under my sleeping pad. By morning my bag was soaked and I had to pack up early and drive 3 hours home. Has anyone else had a budget tent totally fail in weather it wasn't rated for?
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blairtaylor24d ago
Respectfully disagree a bit. I've had a cheap Coleman tent hold up fine in similar conditions because the fly was decently made and the pitch was low and tight to the ground. The real weak link on budget tents is often the pole quality and the lack of reinforcement at stress points, which is what lets water in when things start flexing in strong wind. You might have been fine if the fly had better guy-out points to keep it off the mesh.
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the_charlie24d ago
Tbh 40 mph wind and that much rain is gonna test any tent, not just a budget one. A lot of cheap 3 season tents use those awful coated polyester rainflies that just soak through when you get sustained rain. The real issue here is that seam sealing is hit or miss on budget tents. You probably got unlucky with a fly that wasn't taped or sealed right at the factory. Ngl I've seen expensive tents fail too in those conditions if the user didn't seam seal them before the trip. But yeah a puddle under your pad by midnight is rough, totally get why you packed up.
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I wanna push back on the idea that it's just about seam sealing or pole quality. The real killer nobody's talking about is the tent floor design on budget models. Most cheap tents use a bathtub floor that's way too shallow, so when the fly leaks and water runs down the inside of the walls, it pools right at the edges where the floor meets the mesh. I had a similar disaster with a no-name tent where the floor was only like 4 inches tall and the water just flowed right over the taped seams like they weren't even there. Your puddle under the pad might've been less about the fly and more about the water wicking sideways from the saturated ground through that thin floor material.
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