Tent Care

Do well unto your nylon structure lest it fall on top of you
By Douglas Gantenbein

Here's a simple formula: protect your tent, and your tent will protect you. But if you slip up on the care and feeding, your nylon structure will give out--perhaps when you can least afford it. Following are a few tips to keep a tent trustworthy.

• Clean and dry--then store. Stowing a tent that's dirty and damp encourages mildew, which makes it smell like a locker room and eats away at the tent's water-shedding coating. Because dirt supports mildew and abrades nylon, wash it out with warm water and a little mild soap. Hang the tent to dry and store it in a cool, dry place.
• Keep your zippers happy. Zippers should be kept free of debris. Don't use spray lubricants or oil to ease the zipping action--they'll trap dirt and may weaken the surrounding material. If the zipper gets stuck or jams frequently, try smoothing out the action with lip balm, bar soap, or candle wax.
• Ultraviolet light burns your tent. The sun harms your tent in the same way it harms your skin. It isn't practical to take your tent down every day on a weeklong camping trip, so leave the fly on: It's designed to take such abuse. Whenever possible, pick a shaded campsite.
• Treat shock-corded poles with kindness. Avoid putting your poles together with a snap of the shock cord--it could bend the tips. Also take care not to scratch the anodized coatings, since that promotes corrosion. Lightly lubricate the pole joints to minimize wear, and break poles down from the middle to reduce strain on the cords.
• Use a ground cover. Let a ground cover, not your tent floor, suffer from abrasion. If you don't have a ground cover, you can make one for next to nothing. Buy a roll of clear polyethylene sheeting at the hardware store and trim the material until it's slightly smaller than the footprint of your tent. If you make it too big, it'll catch rain--and the outdoors is no place for a waterbed.