Leaking flysheet - any advice?

[Paul_B]

OK, a half decent Scandinavian brand of tent bought last year and used for our Dutch cycle tour last year then another tour this year. The last year we had one night of rain and never noticed a problem.

This year we were in France and had one really wet night but a few other nights that had rain too. Every time it rained the flysheet dripped inside. Without rain it has almost no condensation. With rain it was very bad and dripped on the porch especially. During rain condensation is worse but this was significantly worse.

My question is whether this really could be a fault in the flysheet or wear and tear? Bear in mind it's only been used for two lots of two weeks. None of them in areas of high uv or rain. Warranty is a good length I think so not an issue. I just wonder if this is possibly a faulty coating / fabric or wear and tear / misuse. Although I've been handling many tents in my life so misuse isn't likely to be the cause. I really do know how to use and look after tents.

If you think I should take it back or not if you let me know I'd appreciate the feedback. I don't want to take it back to the retailer of it's unlikely to be a fault. It's a very good retailer I like and really don't want to complain to without good reason.

 

[C_Claycomb]

Did auto-correct mess with that first sentence? I have no idea what the first half of it means.

Is the fly sheet nylon with a urethane coating, or something else? Have you been able to trace the leaks to the fabric in general, or to seams? If it is seams you might be able to seal them and never have another problem. If water is coming through the fabric I would take it back.

You can test waterproofness by spraying water on the tent, or by trying to make it a water filled bucket. Fabric should have a hydrystatic head of at least 1500mm, if you can't get the fabric to hold a bucket of water you know you are no where near this minimum performance.

Urethane coating does deteriorate with time, even if there is no UV present, but it usually takes 10 years.

Wear, could be, might there be any sand that adhered to the tent and rubbed it while it was packed? Only you, in possession of the tent, can say whether wear is a possible culprit. The rest of us can only say that, yes, wear can cause leaks, and you could have done something within a one week time that could cause a leak, but we can't begin to give odds of whether you did or not. I tend to think it unlikely to be wear and tear, but it could be that the fabric was below spec, fine for a while, but normal use quickly wore it out. That is still a failure of the fabric, not normal wear and tear.

 

[Paul_B]

Yes autocorrect mangled it completely. I think I've now corrected how I meant it to be originally.

It's a 40D nylon that's been coated with silicone on both sides to give a 3000mm HH. Added to that there are design features to create a more water tight flysheet.

For example the poles go into the outer, flysheet in pole tubes made by folding the fly into a loop with the open end of the loop downhill on the tent. Water resistant thread, finer thread and this type of folded seam reduce the risk of water leaking through the seam.

We chose this tent (part of Helsport's Pro range) because it had many of the design features of the highly rated Hilleberg tents but we could still afford them.

The leak is not through the seams but the fabric in patches. Those tend to be above or head in the porch. It could be my hair brushing on the inside if the flysheet has worn the coating off the inside but there's still the outside layer of silicone coating.

The Dutch holiday did have a couple of sandy campsites including the last. And this year a couple of sandy sites too. After one of those three next day it was pitched and still had a bit of sand in the flysheet.

However I've used a lot cheaper and less well designed tents on sandy sites before without issues like this so soon after use. Potentially sand could have been in the tent while it was packed away fit the year between holidays. Although we took it on a camp a month before this last tour to test pitch it and I didn't notice sand. We didn't pitch it though, because we left the poles behind.

Overall, it seems to me to be a fabric issue rather than wear and tear. Not least because if you read up on the Helsport's website about the fabric you'll read about how it's been designed to be more durable than other fabrics

For the rest of the PRO and X-TREM tents we have developed a solid outer tent fabric. It is over eight times more durable and tear resistant than normal fabrics, woven with the finest thread and coated on both sides with silicone. Naturally this fabric also features strong resistance to UV-rays and excellent fabric stability under changing weather and temperature conditions. It has a water column of minimum 3000 mm.

IMHO it should have lasted longer than 4 weeks even if a few days of those weeks it was in contact with sand. I've certainly never had problems like this before with so little use. Took 15 years for my old, old tent (pu coated polyester) to leak like this and the was on the groundsheet too.

 

[Billy-o]

Just a thought ... are you sure it’s not condensation? Maybe up the ventilation a bit when you are expecting the outside air to be suddenly cooler than the inside warm moist air

Otherwise it’s the Water Seal option and recoat the fly perhaps

 

[C_Claycomb]

If you bought it last year, have used it for just 4 weeks, and it is letting water in, don't do anything to fix anything. Send it back. What is the point of buying a premium brand new, with a premium service policy, having a failure and bodging a fix oneself? Might as well have bought cheap or second hand from a guy at a boot sale.

Helsport:

PRODUCT WARRANTY
We guarantee all our products for 5 years. The warranty does not include damage due to accident, improper use, alterations, other changes or natural breakdown of colors and materials over a long period of time and usage. Even if the warranty is expired or does not apply, we will always help if something happens to your product. ​

If it was me, I would do a test to see if I could get the fabric to leak in the area I had seen it wetting before. I would do this under conditions where condensation could be ruled out completely. If the fabric allowed water through the tent would be going back. Heck, I might even have set it up to be rained on this weekend in the back garden. If there is no one in the tent breathing, and it isn't up over night, the condensation would be reduced, but rain falling would have hours to wet through. Condensation should be fairly evenly distributed, leaks are not.

Best of luck.

Chris

 

[Paul_B]

The tent is designed to have good ventilation. There's huge vents to the side of the porch and at the rear of the tent. At the rear of the tent near the ground there's a quick release clip you undo to let the fly lift up for low down ventilation. At the front of the porch the fly is a little up from the ground across the front. The only place it's like this and it's to increase airflow fit ventilation. There is a good flow because it was warm at night and we only had the mesh part of the inner tent door zipped up and appreciated the airflow to cool us down.

Condensation is undoubtedly part of the dampness but I doubt it's the whole problem.

I've heard of something called misting. IIRC it's when sil-nylon waterproofing fails and the inside gets wet with fine beading of water.

There's a lot of amateur research into durability of sil-nylon fabrics on the American backpacking light website but behind a pay wall so I can't see it. Tests related to the life of sil-nylon. A tarp out in all weathers and samples taken over time and tested for water resistance and coating. Basically a 3000mm HH coating eventually ends up with 600mm HH and it can happen in something like a year of continuous exposure. Which equates to a few years of regular use. Certainly a 3000mm HH, two sided sil-nylon fabric should last 4 weeks use.

I've emailed Helsport directly. If I get no answer I'll go back to the retailer. Tamarack are a really helpful and good retailer and the UK importer too so I'm sure they'd help us sort this issue out.

BTW I don't want anything I'm not entitled to. If no failure then I don't want anything. Although I suspect that companies with a positive reputation get a warranty claim they tend to just replace the fly or tent. I'm not trying to get that only I do want to rule out faulty fabrics. If it's just ventilation issue i can't do anything about that so I'll probably just replace it with another brand tent and cut my losses. Perhaps hilleberg extended tunnel tent for over £1000!