Introduction and Recap

The previous article began our discussion on tents and shelters. In it, we went over the ideas of Style and Type of tent.

This article will be on Materials and Designs for your tent or shelter. The next article will use the information from these first two articles to guide you through selecting your tent.

Same as last time I will be linking offsite throughout this article, none of these are endorsed.

Materials

The material used to make the tent obviously holds a significant bearing on the performance of the shelter. It needs to be waterproof enough to keep you dry, strong enough to hold up under wind or snow, durable enough to last you over time and ideally light for packing.

I will be discussing a few primary materials in the commercial and MYOG markets for tents and shelters. Nylon-based fabrics such as Sil-Nylon, PU-Nylon and dual coated. Polyester fabrics are pretty much all Sil-Poly, but there are different types to them and we will break them apart. Then lastly Dyneema Composite Fabric (DCF), a very technical fabric that offers extremely light strong materials that are completely waterproof, if you can afford them.

I will link to an example of each material on RipstopByTheRoll, a MYOG materials supplier that I often order my fabrics for projects. These links are in no way sponsored or endorsed. I just have had good experiences buying from them and their site shows good images of the materials.

Nylons

The nylons are the most common tent fabrics to encounter, and it has good reason. Nylon is more durable and stronger than Polyester. This makes it an obvious first choice for shelters but it has its drawbacks. Polyester is significantly more UV resistant over time lending it to better longevity if often out in the sun. Nylon also is a hydrophilic fibre, it absorbs moisture, and when it does it stretches out. This results in a loose shelter after the dew settles out or when it rains. Polyester does not suffer from this.

The nylons typically used for shelters are pretty much all a light ripstop fabric, usually in the 1.1-2.0 oz/yd² before coating range. Coatings commonly used to waterproof the nylon fabrics are Silicone and Poly-Urethane.

Sil-Nylon

Sil-Nylon is silicone impregnated to waterproof it, this results in a very light and durable waterproofing that slightly increases material strength. The impregnated silicone is very resistant to rubbing off and wearing out. It can be easily patched by glueing a small scrap of Sil-Nylon over a rip with a silicone adhesive. Unfortunately, the Sil coating is not as easily seam-sealed as a PU coating. This results in either an increased price or some labour on your part after purchase. Overall Sil fabrics are my favourite for shelters as I find them to be a great balance between function and cost.

PU-Nylon

PU-Nylon is a nylon fabric with a Poly-Urethane backing applied. This PU coating is a rubbery layer on the inside of the shelter. It is a cheaper process and lends itself easily to seam-sealing, from this it is the most common material for commercial tents. The PU coating will work well as waterproofing but is prone to flaking off with age and use. These shelters will reach the end of their service life earlier than Sil tents but are usually cheaper. The main benefits of PU over Sil are cost, ease of seam-sealing and waterproofing. PU creates a higher level of waterproofing than Sil, at least until it begins to degrade.

My experience with this increased waterproofing is that it is not generally necessary. I’ve personally only ever seen water leak through a Sil fabric when a very large pool of water sat for hours in a Sil-Nylon tarp or when used as the tent floor.

Polyesters

Within the shelter-relevant Polyesters, we are looking at really only Sil-Poly or Sil-PU Poly materials. Within polyesters, they will often change the fabric type to change the performance characteristics. The common types are ripstop polyester and plain weave fabric.

I already touched on the benefits of Polyester as a shelter material, but briefly recapping. Polyester is significantly more UV resistant than Nylon, does not absorb moisture as readily and does not suffer from stretch and sag when wet. Additionally, it generally has a softer feel that I find makes it easier to pack into a small stuff sack. I have a pair of Sil-Tarps, one 1.1 Sil-Nylon and one 1.1 Sil-Poly. They are the same size, layout and weight, but, the Sil-Poly fits into a sack about 60% the size of the Sil-Nylon.

The main drawback for Polyester as a shelter material is its reduced strength, shelters made of Sil-Poly will need more care in their use and should be reconsidered for more extreme conditions.

Ripstop Sil-Poly

Ripstop Sil-Poly adds a fine grid of thicker fibres to the weave to increase strength and reduce the ability of a tear to spread. Other than being polyester fibre they generally are the same as the Sil-Nylons. They come in both Sil-only coatings and Sil-PU coatings.

Some companies have begun to use dual-coated fabric, particularly for the floor of the tent. This is a great best of both worlds approach to the floor. The extra pressure of the weight of tent contents seems to ‘push’ water through the floor of a tent that is Sil when in wet conditions constantly. The Sil-PU combo treatment gives the increased waterproofing of the PU with the longer life of the Sil.

Plain Weave Sil-Poly

The lightweight plain weave Sil-Poly’s are a fairly new addition to the market, they represent the push for lighter and lighter materials at lower costs. Leaving out the ripstop grid the fabric weight is reduced to about 0.9 oz/yd², this brings the material close to the weight savings of DCF at a much more affordable price point. However, these extremely lightweight Poly fabrics are much more fragile than any of the other options on the market. Personally, I don’t think they represent a reasonable balance of weight to strength for a shelter.

Dyneema Composite Fabric

Dyneema Composite Fabric (DCF) is a very modern and technical fabric. It is a thin weave of Dyneema Fibres laminated between two layers of Mylar. It is extremely strong and completely waterproof, at a very low weight. Commonly used DCF’s for shelters range from 0.5-0.9 oz/yd². The main drawback to DCF is its high cost, generally running around 4-6x the cost as compared to Sil-Nylon or Sil-Poly. A couple of other concerns with it are its low puncture resistance and crinkly noise and feel.

I personally do not have any experience with DCF shelters due to the high cost but have used the material for some small stuff sacks. From this use, I can definitely see the concerns over noise under wind that some have. Despite this, I do consider it to be the best material on the market for shelters if only the cost were lower.

Designs

Tent design refers to the shape of the pitched shelter. I break this into three main types: Dome, Pyramid and Tube. Tarp Pitches are not specifically addressed by these categories but I prefer to think of them on their own since they can readily be changed in the field.

Dome

The dome-style tent is the most common design and what most think of. Often a pair of poles run across the shelter crossing in the middle. The simple dome created is reasonably strong, easy to make and pitch and gives a decent balance of usable space inside with decent wind shedding.

Overall a dome style is a fairly well-balanced design and there is good reason that it is so common. Personally, I do not use them much anymore as I have moved to lighter shelters. But if you are less concerned with weight or expect to need maximum usable space they are a good pick.

Pyramid

A pyramid tent is usually a non-freestanding design that uses a central pole to lift the peak of the pyramid and good staking to hold the shape open. This design provides better precipitation shedding and is usually a lighter design compared to a dome. Most of the pyramid designs on the market also give excellent wind shedding ability. The main drawback to the pyramid is a loss of usable interior space. Because the sides rise in a straight line from the ground to the peak, it creates an area around the edges where the walls are too low to the ground to sit under.

The pyramid design is my most commonly used closed shelter, I have a MLD Duomid XL with a bug liner that I use year-round when I want a closed shelter.

Tube

A tube tent is usually either semi- or non-freestanding. The long skinny design can be pointed into the wind to create an excellent wind shedding ability. Depending on the exact design they will provide either a good to excellent ability to shed precipitation. The semi-freestanding designs give decent usable interior space, the non-freestanding give more limited space. The main drawback to a tube shelter lies within its shape, the long skinny tent usually requires you to crawl in and out the door on the end. This can be very annoying to some but personally, I don’t find it to be an issue.

My most common open shelter is a non-freestanding tube or an a-frame shaped tarp. it gives me good cover and great ventilation at a very low weight.

Final Thoughts

We’ve covered most of the information you need to select your tent now. The next article will be tying these various factors together to help guide you to the right shelter for your uses.

For my use, I generally prefer to lean towards Sil-Poly over Sil-Nylon most of the time to eliminate the sag and stretch from moisture. I also generally lean towards either an open tube shelter, a closed pyramid shelter or a tarp for the majority of my trips. These options lead me to lightweight options with good to great weather cover. The main downside to these shelters is that none of them are freestanding. I need to place effective stakes to set up each of these three shelters.

This is something that seems benign at first. Until you spend a night in a site with poor staking conditions and it scares a newer user into using a freestanding shelter. However, with only a couple of skills and some practice, you can easily learn to set good stakes under nearly any condition. This will be a large part of the fourth article on skills for tent pitching.

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