Waterproofing Your Tent or Tent Trailer
I had a comment on one of my entries from Christine Swalgin:
One a side note: my bed end canvas never sees rain, I tarp the whole camper length wise and tether the ends down to the bumper and tongue. Seems that are canvas to vinyl leak no mater what and the ends pool. Still trying to engineer a better solution.
I was just going to email Christine and tell her about waterproofing options, but then I realized that other people might want to know about this.
Most tents and tent trailers have treated canvas or nylon to keep out water. Unfortunately, these treatments don’t last forever and need to be redone every few years, especially along the seams. There are lots of products on the market that can be used.
- Kiwi Camp Dry, Heavy Duty Water Repellent, 12oz
- TX Direct Spray On by Nikwax
- Scotchgard Outdoor Water Shield, 10.5-Ounce
- Starbrite Waterproofing & Fabric Treatment
You need to treat the tent outside and make sure you don’t inhale the fumes. Here is a video from one of the manufacturers about how to treat fabrics.
It helps to give the tent plenty of time to dry, so make sure you can leave your tent out and deployed for six hours or so.
Mike and I found out the hard way that our tent trailer was in desperate need of waterproofing in a huge storm last August. We haven’t camped in another storm since, but we are eager to see how the waterproofing will hold.