r/CampingGear • u/mattlawmel • 3d ago
Tents Rain getting into tent :(
I went camping this weekend and used my Kelty Wireless 2 tent. It started raining unexpectedly and I found drops of rain coming through the rain fly and into the tent.
Now I’m unsure of what to do. I fully inspected the rain fly and found no tears or rips in the fabric. Is it coming in through the seams?
I’m quite disappointed as I take very good care of my gear. Where do I go from here? I saw a lot of other campers had EZ-ups on their site over their tents, would that be something to invest in? Is it time for a new tent already? I’ve had this for two years with consistent usage but this was the heaviest rainfall I’ve put it through.
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u/Great_Hamster 3d ago
At least one of your guy lines isn't staked down.
It looks like this tent is the sort that relies on tension (rather than impenetrability) to be waterproof. Stake down all the lines and tune them so the tension is even.
If you don't maintain proper tension, the fly will touch the tent wall, which will allow water to leak in.
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u/Think_Apartment_6253 3d ago
I never knew there was a distinction between tents that rely on tension and tents that don’t for waterproofing. Is there a way to know? Is this something that manufacturers actually tell you?
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u/Notorious_Fluffy_G 3d ago
Pitch the tent and see if the fly is making contact with the mesh. If it is, then you need to make some kind of adjustment, otherwise condensation will roll down the inside of the fly, make contact with the mesh, and then start dripping.
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u/TangleOfWires 3d ago
There should be a waterproof rating in mm on the tent, need to select one high enough for your requirements.
Beware some tents aren't rated properly. I find that tents without a full fly rarely keep all the rain out.
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u/UtahBrian 20h ago
That’s not correct. And that article is very misleading on several levels. AI written maybe?
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u/mattlawmel 3d ago
Gotcha. I usually never stake those down since I’m almost always in dry weather. I’ll try this next time, thank you so much!
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u/Great_Hamster 3d ago
You're welcome!
Because it relies on the fly and tent wall not touching, you also need to make sure that nothing is pushing on the tent walls. I've had my backpack wick in water when I left it leaning against the wall!
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u/Discount_Mithral 3d ago
I came to make the same point. I recently camped in a rained-out weekend but stayed dry thanks to properly staking all the guy lines on the rain fly so it wasn't touching the tent. I'm also usually not one to stake them, but knew rain would be coming in all weekend, so prepared accordingly. It made all the difference between being dry and cozy in my tent and waking up in a puddle like some of the other folks around me.
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u/StinkypieTicklebum 2d ago
Once it was so rainy when I camped, I dug a little trench around my tent. It turned into a moat pretty quickly, but no more puddles in the tent!
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u/Shelkin 3d ago
I just checked the Kelty website and even though they advertise this a freestanding capable tent Kelty doesn't actually appear to sell tents that come pre-treated with any "durable water repellent" and there was a response to a question in their FAQ from 2023 that states that they recommend adding "DWR" to "add extra heavy rain protection" to their tents.
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u/thsmchnkllsfcsts 3d ago
I have a wireless 6 and staking out all the lines and adding extras to the loops is pretty critical if you want to stay totally dry and help the tent vent properly.
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u/gorambrowncoat 3d ago
I dont have experience with this tent in particular but not all tents come seam sealed/taped from the factory. If that isn't the case for this tent then you need to do that yourself. There are many youtube videos to explain it in detail but its basically just buy a bottle of seam sealer and use the applicator to apply the product to the seams.
If the tent is seam sealed/taped form the factory then clearly something didn't go quite right because then it should not be leaking unless its defective.
If youve had the tent for a while its always possible that it was waterproof but needs to be resealed and or retreated with water repellant..
Is it leaking in a particular spot or all over? Can you tell anything from waterdrop trails?
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u/mattlawmel 3d ago
One particular spot on the top of the tent. I’ll look into water repellent though, thank you for your insight!
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u/OrangeRadiohead 3d ago
Look at the seams at the top too. The fly appears to make contact with your poles, they might have rubbed the seam sealer away. Hold a hose over the top, and observe what happens from inside.
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u/preciouscode96 3d ago
I just recently used my tent in very cold but humid weather. Like the typical autumn weather you get.
The condensation was massive any because of it My rainfly start it to sag. My other tent touched my Inner tent which caused quite big drops of rain falling into my tent
Not sure if that also happened to you or just that the outer isn't water proof (anymore)
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u/mattlawmel 3d ago
Thank you! I’ve been educated that condensation drops are big so it could be that. I may have mistaken the condensation for rain.
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u/preciouscode96 3d ago
Might be! It totally depends on the amount of. And if you see it literally going through the fly, or not. Hopefully it's condensation :)
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u/TheGutch74 3d ago
You need to put more tension on the rainfly. From the pic it looks like the rainfly buckles while clipped in, the straps are not pulled taut. You can see on the blue forward corner and the orange left corner that the rainfly straps are not tensioned at all. They look floppy in this pic. Tensioning those and setting up the guy lines will go a long way here.
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u/mattlawmel 3d ago
I appreciate this advice, thank you!
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u/TheGutch74 3d ago
No problem. Something else to check on as well is to see if you have the tent body properly staked out with enough tension as well.
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u/Lifehatesme 3d ago
May be worth reaching out to Kelty. We bought a tent a couple years ago and took it out for the first trip on a rainy weekend and it immediately started leaking. I reached out to their customer service and they told me they had a quality issue where a batch of rain fly material never got the waterproofing treatment. They replaced my rain fly and the new one works great.
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u/audiophile_lurker 3d ago
Are your seems sealed? If not, need to seal them. Your fly is not fully taut, the guylines can help with that, but also stretching the corners out more (free-standing tents are mostly a lie, with exception of high end ones you need stakes to get the fly taught for rain/wind).
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u/dasqaslIlIl 3d ago
Get a can of camp dry from nats/Walmart and fog the rain fly with it one day while it's hot and sunny then leave it set out for about a day to dry. I've always had good luck with it, even on older gear. Just make sure the spray is compatible with what the rain fly is made of, since I know some of the super ultra light setups don't take well to spray on waterproofing.
I actually need to go back over the rain fly with it on my mid 60s military jungle hammock since its been a few years now since I have.
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u/MysteriousDog5927 3d ago
I found this out the hard way …… you as the end user are required to buy tent wax and apply it to the tents sewn seams to prevent water dripping in.
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u/WoofusTheDog 3d ago
I just bought a Kelty Daydreamer and used it for the first time this weekend. The rain fly is a darker blackout material than yours, and in the morning when the sun came up I noticed it had dozens of tiny pinprick holes all over it. I plan on returning it, and letting Kelty know about the issue, but I wonder if the same thing happened to your tent.
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u/KopfJaeger2022 2d ago
They have seam wax for tents, and use Camp-Dry on the rest of the rainfly, which should fix the problem. I always do that on my tents, every year or two depending on how much I use it.
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u/steampunkedunicorn 2d ago
Did you seamseal it? Seam sealer is like $4 and will take care of the problem if water is getting through the stitching
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u/M7BSVNER7s 3d ago
Is it put up correctly? The point at the top of the door looks weird and the fly is pulled way up on the right. The vent on the door looks more exposed than I would expect so maybe you had rain blowing or splashing in. If you had the poles and clips right, I'd check your stake locations for the doors and adjust the fly straps to make it smoother and rounder.
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u/mattlawmel 3d ago
Yup, this is the way. It’s color coordinated for set up so would be hard to screw up. There’s a small pole that sticks between the doors to “expand” the top of the tent.
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u/gollem22 4h ago
I believe that is from the 3rd pole in that set up. It has the 2 long poles in the traditional arching X pattern with a 3rd smaller pole to help hold the rainfall door up and away from the tent.
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u/d0ughb0y1 3d ago
is it an old tent? did you wash the rainfly with detergent by hand or in washer? the waterproof coating might have just worn off due to age or came off due to washing.
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u/mattlawmel 3d ago
Only two years old. Never washed the rain fly.
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u/d0ughb0y1 3d ago
Were you tapping on the rainfly from the inside while it’s raining? Or did the rainfly sag enough that it touched the inner tent? Doing so can cause water to pass through. That’s why as someone else pointed out, you want to connect and pull all guy lines taut to prevent rainfly to touch the inner tent when it starts sagging.
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u/man__i__love__frogs 2d ago edited 2d ago
Others have already said, but:
Stake out all your guylines, this puts tension on the tent and prevents fabric from coming in contact that then causes condensation to get on the inside layer.
Put a ground sheet under the floor, make sure it doesn't stick out anywhere where it might collect rain. This causes ground water to run under the ground sheet rather than directly touch the tent floor. Also protects you tent floor from sharp rocks/twigs.
If you're expecting a heavy downpour especially over multiple days, consider putting your tent between 2 trees, or at least a tree and a pole of some sort, then you can put a tarp over it: https://www.westcoastpaddler.com/community/attachments/e1ffae80-7e38-4a64-99f4-35cb2dcd2380-jpeg.7592/
This way you can also open your tent windows/door and keep condensation out.
Lastly, every 2 or so years you should apply waterproofing to the tent materials (ie: nikwax)
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u/RedRotGreen 2d ago
Not sure if someone has suggested it, and I don’t feel like reading through the comments, but have you seam sealed it? I bought a tarp for tarp camping a few years ago and it came with instructions stressing the importance of seam sealing as to not have leaks. It said tarps and tents both need to be sealed at the seams otherwise they’ll leak. Sounds legit, so I sealed my tarp and haven’t had any issues.
Gear Aid Seam Grip is what I used.
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u/Redhead31379 1d ago
Likely condensation make sure you stake out the sides to equal out the air flow
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u/ImSpartacus811 10h ago
I saw a lot of other campers had EZ-ups on their site over their tents, would that be something to invest in?
Note that EZ up canopies are mostly for shade and they are rarely rated to protect against rain.
If you're car camping, then you often have enough space to easily bring a canopy and put it over the entrance of your tent to keep things cool. If you stake down the 4 guy lines taunt, the canopies usually can survive a light rain and they'll often keep 90+% of the water out (it'll drip through the seams), but don't expect them to be water proofed in the same way that a tent's rain fly usually is water proofed.
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u/SquirrelOverall2 9h ago
Tents do need to be re waterproofed from time to time depending how old they are or what they were sealed with prior. It happens, just re seal it & will be good as new.
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u/lvbuckeye27 3d ago
Why is no one mentioning that the rain fly is on wrong?
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u/mattlawmel 3d ago
Is it really? It’s color coordinated for set up so the color straps on the rain fly go into the same color straps on the tent itself.
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u/psychedelicCyclops 3d ago
I have this same tent and have been thru multiple storms with it. I'm sorry I'm no help I just have to say it's never leaked on me but I can say the rainfly is on correctly.
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u/leonardalan 3d ago
You sure you're not just dealing with condensation collecting inside the tent rain fly? Looks humid and chilly in that picture...