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Side Tent Side Tent - How To Secure On Pavement

G

ghaynes

Novice
Love the side tent but what are others doing when you can't stake it into the ground? Ran into that tonight at a Colorado state campground. Totally on pavement.
 
Gary, the pvc works pretty good. We had to use it twice so far this week. Just put in the beer cooler and a couple of toiletry bags and that did the trick. And the beer was handy!
Mike
 
We have the pvc and it works well. We put it in before setting the tent up. It gives some weight to the bottom and keeps the shape so you can see what is what. We used it on a cement pad for 3 days. We put the rain fly on and it helped to keep the side tent stable. We did not have much wind and no rain.
 
Also, I noticed at the CampInn factory last week, their side tent on display has several heavy long bean bags holding the tent bottom down. I don't know how this set-up would fare in a real life camping application, but it gave a good shape in the showroom.
 
Jenn & Mike thats a cute idea for the TP,we just made the PVC frame for the sidetent.We used to use 4 gallons of water 1 in each corner of the sidetent it worked OK but I think the PVC frame will work better. :)
 
We need a video of Cary doing this. I think I do it Cary's way but would be nice to have a visual.
 
If it is that hard to set up that you need a video it seems maybee the tent or the way it attaches needs to be addressed.

It should not take a nuclear engineer to hook up the side tent.

Dave
 
It is not that hard to set up the tent. Just interested in how others do it. More efficient way to do it? I am a visual person so I like pictures instead of written instructions.
 
Dave, the reason we all bought teardrops is because we couldn't figure out how to set up tents. There's nothing wrong with the side tent - just, with this crew, we need very good instructions. :)
 
Dave

Sounds simple but there are many variations. 500/550 or 560? SUV or regular. Toss the straps for the top over and watch them land short or bang into the far side hoping the hook. Or nx lip them put the hook in place and toss the clip to the other side? What works on a calm day may not work on a windy day.

What to do if you can't stake the corners. What to put under the floor if you are on sharp rock gravel

Loving my adventure and learning more each day. This forum is great but a short home made video can always help fill in the gap between the instruction sheet and reality.

I had Craig on the phone today and asked if the side 'porch light' goes inside or outside the tent. Answer is typically outside but that wasn't covered in the instructions which show a 550.

Lots to learn and work into a natural flow of setup/tear down. Especially if you are moving every day or so.
 
Evan said:
Dave, the reason we all bought teardrops is because we couldn't figure out how to set up tents. There's nothing wrong with the side tent - just, with this crew, we need very good instructions. :)
Click to expand...

Evan, you are hilarious!
 
Evan, I tried to add a short video to the Photo Gallery but got an error msg about only accepting stills. Any chance we can get an upgrade so we can post some info videos of our own?
For forum info, I wanted to see if my coffee pot could travel in the sink without hitting the inside of the hatch. First I asked Carol to crawl in and check while I closed the hatch. Didn't get too far with that request...Then I took my iphone, started a video, and placed it inside the galley with the galley light on. When I closed the hatch I could see that the hatch spar just missed the pot. This could be done for any hatch closure questions.
Mike
 
Talking about side tents--if you were at the Camp Inn Camp Out you saw our leaning tower of pizza. I put it up with Caroline's help while Mike was off doing something. I was really proud of myself that I got it up--when Mike came back he said "you forgot to close the door". Oh dang!! So we fixed that and I thought we were good but we now couldn't open the door because the tent was covering a part of the door. We left it for the night which made for a lot of laughs because being from Florida I had about three layers of jackets on and when we got into the Camp Inn and started trying to take all that stuff off while sitting down all we could do was laugh!!! My head wound up where my feet should have been. Mike said I don't think that is right.

Terry came to our rescue the next day and showed Mike how to set it up correctly. We now have set it up three or four times with success. Our porch light however always ends up on the inside--we have a 560 and I don't know how you could get it to work being on the outside.
 
AJ had a great solution for the floor of the tent on gravel. It is a foam pad that he ordered from Rubber Cal. I just ordered one yesterday. He used the extra pieces he cut off to put under the clamps that go across the roof. It was the elephant rubber mat that was 1/4 x 48 x 54.

We were in a campground coming home where there was gravel and I could see where that was very beneficial.

Carol
 
Hey that idea of putting your iPhone in the galley is neat - Craig will be interested in this as he put a video camera I my galley to check for water drips.
 
Thanks everyone for the education. I had assumed it was the same for all models and thought maybee it slid into some kind of rail on the tear drop and then poles or stakes.

I will see for myself in two weeks.

Thanks again.

Dave
 
Looking forward to getting my td and learning everything. No Jenn I still work part time and need to get back to Oregon. Long trip and I am a bit worried about snow on the way back. Hope to come back to Wisconsin for the cico next year. Thanks for asking.

Dave
 
Jenn said:
Gary said:
I had Craig on the phone today and asked if the side 'porch light' goes inside or outside the tent. Answer is typically outside but that wasn't covered in the instructions which show a 550.
Click to expand...

Side porch light?
Click to expand...

Jenn, the 560s have an amber colored light at the top of our trailers, just to the front of the door, straight up from the indicator light, on the side. They call it our porch light. Not sure if the 550s have them.
 
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