Care and Maintenance

Follow these best practices to keep your shelter performing at its best.

All of our shelters are non-freestanding. That means that they require staking to remain standing. They are designed to utilize your trekking poles for support, but we offer optional tent poles for most of our shelters as an alternative.

General Practices

  • Avoid exposure to direct sunlight when possible.
  • Dry your shelter completely before storing.
  • Store loosely packed.
  • Avoid abrasion of the rain fly on the ground, especially with DCF.
  • Do not force zippers.

DCF Specific

  • Avoid applying pressure to a small area (such as with a thumb while stuffing a tent into its sack). Doing so may deform the material.
  • For shelters with floors, fold the shelter in on itself so the floor envelopes the rain fly. Fold and roll to fit into the stuff sack.
  • Do not step on the rain fly or use it as an impromptu groundsheet.
  • Store the shelter inside its stuff sack and inside your pack to minimize abrasion and exposure to UV.

SilNylon & SilPoly Specific

  • Before initial use, seams will need to be seam sealed. Find instructions here.
  • Infrequently, it may become necessary to reseal the seams or a portion of a seam if you use a thin application of sealer initially.
  • Minimize unnecessary exposure to the sun and damaging UV.

Zipper Care

  • Keep your zipper clean - in dusty environments, rinse the zipper periodically to remove dirt.
  • Lubricate the zipper periodically. We recommend using ZipCare from Gear Aid.
  • Do not force the zipper! If you've re-tensioned your tent while the door was open, you may need to loosen the lines.
  • Use the zipper pulls to open the zipper. Don't grab the unzipped portion and spread it to open.
  • If your zipper has failed, check here for a potentially easy fix!