5/18/2021 Bring on the Elements
Just finished up renewing the waterproofing elements on our tent! We've been using this tent for about 15 months now, and about 6 or so months ago, I noticed the factory-applied Durable Water Repellent (DWR) wasn't as effective anymore. Instead of beading up and rolling off, some of the water would soak into the fabric. About 3 months ago, I started noticing the Polyurethane (PU) coating on the inside was starting to flake off in some places.
So we placed an order for, among other things, a bottle of DWR and a bottle of PU coating. I'm not sure if the PU coating is actually PU, but it's labelled for renewing sticky or peeling PU coatings.
Here are the materials. The egg carton functioned as a measuring tool, being about a foot long. The volume guide on the DWR bottle suggests about 50 ml per 10 square feet of fabric, so I used the egg carton to estimate the area of various portions of the tent so I could appropriately distribute the spray. Also to aid in the even distribution, I marked off approximate 50 ml increments. It involved a little math, but it wasn't too difficult. The hardest part was angling the bottle just right so that the sunlight would penetrate and I could judge the remaining volume of liquid.
If you're going to do this, I would recommend pitching the tent. That way all the surfaces are relatively taught, exposed, and easy to work with. It was breezy when I did it, but I would just wait for a break in the breeze before spraying, and it seems to have turned out just fine.
First, I poured some water in the bucket and used a clean sock/rag to rinse the tent. The bottle recommends, of course, their own brand of tent wash. I thought about using soap as I have a variety of soaps, but ultimately, I didn't want to risk messing with the existing waterproofing treatments.
Plenty of dirt came off with just the water, then I went at it with some rubbing alcohol and the yellow side of sponge to make sure it was thoroughly cleaned and de-greased. I did find a couple small spots of pine sap that the alcohol made short work of. I used up about 12 ounces of rubbing alcohol for this. We have a 2-person backpacking tent: the Stormbreak 2 by North Face. We're really happy with it.
Next, it was time to hit it with the DWR. I found that holding the bottle about 5-6" away from the fabric was a good distance. Also key was moving the bottle in broad strokes as I sprayed, overlapping the strokes ever so slightly. This assured an even distribution of liquid over the fabric. The bottle says to let it sit for two minutes then wipe off excess liquid with a damp cloth. That's the old shirt in the above picture that I just dampened with water.
I was sure to press pretty gently when removing the excess liquid. I didn't want to also wipe off the freshly applied DWR. Since then, it has only sprinkled a bit, but what little water did hit the tent beaded up and rolled off. Success! The bottle covered our whole tent plus the head and foot of the bathtub portion of the tent. There's another 50ml left, so I'll coat our pannier rain covers with what remains.
For the PU coating on the inside, it turns out there were only a couple areas on the rain fly doors that had degrading coating. There are plenty of other areas where it is starting to show its age, but not to the point where it needs to be renewed yet.
When I was researching how to do this, every article I read said to remove the old PU coating with rubbing alcohol and the rough side of the sponge. I started out at the bottom of one of the rain fly doors by pouring alcohol onto the sponge and scrubbing the PU side of the door. I immediately became aware that the alcohol seemed to seep right into the fabric and I wondered if it might be messing with the DWR coating I had just applied a few days prior. I certainly don't want to be messing with that, so I stopped, let the alcohol dry, and tested the DWR side by flicking a little water onto it. Sure enough, it still beaded up, but some of the water did indeed soak in. So I stopped using the alcohol right away and proceeded with a dry sponge. Before starting, I turned the rain fly inside out on the tent. Because there were only a few relatively small areas in need of refreshing, I ended up just taking the rain fly off and sitting near the tent so the rain fly was half on the tent, half in my lap, half on the ground (that's three halves, yes.), and I just worked the area in my lap.
Here is an area where the old coating is coming off really easily with medium-firm pressure from the sponge.
Here is that same area with more coating removed after several minutes of scrubbing, gradually moving around the area as old coating is removed. It occurred to me that I don't want to scuff the fabric too much, so I tried to be careful about that, but it still ended up a little scuffed. It will probably be fine.
To work the PU coating, you press the sponge down onto the fabric, and there's a little spring-loaded stopper underneath the sponge that opens when pressed. You squeeze the bottle to saturate the sponge, then brush the sponge over the fabric to distribute. Easy. I noticed that the areas to which I applied the coating seem rougher than the areas where there is factory-applied coating. I'm wondering if it's just because I scuffed up the fabric with the sponge. Who knows.
eIt seems like the DWR coating is the more important of the two, but having seen and felt the fabric both with and without the PU coating, it does seem like the PU coating adds some strength to the fabric overall. The only areas needing a new coating were the areas that see a lot of movement--folding/rolling/unrolling, etc. So the bottle of PU coating will probably last us several years, but I'm thinking we should probably be using a bottle of DWR about every 8 or so months if we want consistent rain repellency. One of the nice things about this DWR is that it claims to offer some UV protection too, which is good.
Our previous tent starting giving out after about 13 months of use. It was papery, and we hadn't been using tarps to protect if from sunlight. It started to tear if you just looked at it sideways. We survived the rest of that winter with it, then as soon as we could, we bought a couple tarps to rig over the tent for extra UV protection. It has made a really big difference to the lifespan of the tent. So between the tarps and the addition of fresh waterproofing, hopefully they will extend the life of the tent enough to offset their cost. So far, the tarps alone seem to have, so I've got a good feeling about the spray, but for the next tent, whenever that is, I will renew the DWR sooner, provided we have the money to buy the spray.
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