Wot makes a tent 4 season?

[horizon]

Quote from Warmlite (interesting website):

Perfect for all types of outdoor use, from arctic expeditions to casual weekend camping.
Standard Warmlite tents can resist up to 95 mph winds. This tent can withstand winds of up to 160 miles per hour!

My bold.

[Sweep]

A winter tent might be stronger or it could be warmer. AFAIK, no attention is paid to the latter

There's a premium US tent brand called Warmlite... clue in the name!

And while less specific about it, Hille's "4 season" designs very specifically have flys down to the ground while the 3 season ones very specifically don't, in the latter case so they're cooler. So by reverse implication part of the 4 season design is to be warmer.

Pete.

quite - the skorpion2 has flys right down to the ground - my Lodge2, while a good tent, doesn't. hence I'll be using the skorpion in winter, particularly if snow, as was the other night. Condensation will live with.

[pjclinch]

Quote from Warmlite (interesting website)

Not as, umm, "interesting" as it used to be... With keen naturists in the company it used to have nude models in a lot of the pictures, with a warning on the home page, but I guess someone decided a bit of relative corporate blandness might be the thing!

Pete.

[pete75]

Wot makes a tent 4 season ? This does "This extremely robust expedition 4 season tent was used during a 45 day crossing of Antarctica & handled the extreme cold and high winds with ease."

From an Ebay advert selling a Hilleberg Nammatj 3GT.

[horizon]

"This extremely robust expedition 4 season tent was used during a 45 day crossing of Antarctica & handled the extreme cold and high winds with ease."

From an Ebay advert selling a Hilleberg Nammatj 3GT.

I would be interested to know in what ways it handled the extreme cold.

[pete75]

"This extremely robust expedition 4 season tent was used during a 45 day crossing of Antarctica & handled the extreme cold and high winds with ease."

From an Ebay advert selling a Hilleberg Nammatj 3GT.

I would be interested to know in what ways it handled the extreme cold.

I suspect they mean the effect of extreme cold on the various materials used to make it, fabric, cord, plastic and metals. for example in my experience of extremeish cold, down to -67 °C, some plastics get very brittle and shatter easily. Some aluminium alloys and even some types of stainless steel can break easily in very low temperatures too.

[horizon]

That's interesting. It wasn't clear whether the tent handled the cold (components, material etc) or whether the tent enabled the occupants to handle the cold (e.g. down to earth flysheet or some such thing). I'm not sure whether Hilleberg claim to use cold-resistant components in their tents. It also isn't clear where they crossed or in what season - Antarctica can actually be quite warm (0 deg C) or, yes, extremely cold (- 90 deg C apparently).

Some manufacturers use larger zip pulls for example in order to make using an item easier with gloves on. Again I don't know if the person was referrring to such things.

BTW, I'm not doubting that consideration may need to be and was given to the tent for extreme cold usage but it would be nice to know what exactly. Wind and snow are of course entirely different matters - but cold?

[pete75]

That's interesting. It wasn't clear whether the tent handled the cold (components, material etc) or whether the tent enabled the occupants to handle the cold (e.g. down to earth flysheet or some such thing). I'm not sure whether Hilleberg claim to use cold-resistant components in their tents. It also isn't clear where they crossed or in what season - Antarctica can actually be quite warm (0 deg C) or, yes, extremely cold (- 90 deg C apparently).

Some manufacturers use larger zip pulls for example in order to make using an item easier with gloves on. Again I don't know if the person was referrring to such things.

BTW, I'm not doubting that consideration may need to be and was given to the tent for extreme cold usage but it would be nice to know what exactly. Wind and snow are of course entirely different matters - but cold?

No idea about temps or conditions in the Antarctic as I've never been there. The chap selling the tent has and he talks about extreme cold so I guess he doesn't just mean zero degrees. He also said in the advert that he'd ordered it with snow skirts.

Hilleberg claim "Black Label tents offer the strength, reliability, and durability for any trip in any condition.", so I'd guess they won't use stuff that shatters in the cold.

[pjclinch]

Another thing about Hillies and cold that also applies in the much-colder-feeling-than-it-ought damp cold of the UK is that they're designed to be put up by one person in a gale wearing mittens.
If you ever find yourself pitching in our delightful mix of sleet/rain/wind and temperatures the Met say "feels like" a couple of degrees at best this is a welcome feature, and I would argue a useful in considering a design's "seasonness"

Pete.

[Sweep]

By the by, this seems to get some rather enthusiastic reviews from some 4 season campers.

https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/15980946/o ... t-15980946

£109 plus an extra 10 per cent off if you move fast.
(£5 customer card needed)

[pjclinch]

By the by, this seems to get some rather enthusiastic reviews from some 4 season campers.

https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/15980946/o ... t-15980946

£109 plus an extra 10 per cent off if you move fast.
(£5 customer card needed)

As we've seen "4 season" is a somewhat vague definition, but one of the things that may be an issue is it typically means "conditions I'd rather not be sat outside in", and that's from pitching onwards rather than just sleeping.
And that in turn makes more living space (and sitting height volume, not just surface area) arguably a "4 season" feature, and for me at least that would rule this one out.

Pete.

[Sweep]

By the by, this seems to get some rather enthusiastic reviews from some 4 season campers.

https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/15980946/o ... t-15980946

£109 plus an extra 10 per cent off if you move fast.
(£5 customer card needed)

As we've seen "4 season" is a somewhat vague definition, but one of the things that may be an issue is it typically means "conditions I'd rather not be sat outside in", and that's from pitching onwards rather than just sleeping.
And that in turn makes more living space (and sitting height volume, not just surface area) arguably a "4 season" feature, and for me at least that would rule this one out.

Pete.

Personal thing I suppose - we are all different - but wonder what you want to get up to in the tent.
Personally if there's room for me to lie down/sleep-read with the basics/odd snack to hand if needed am happy

[pjclinch]

Personal thing I suppose - we are all different - but wonder what you want to get up to in the tent.
Personally if there's room for me to lie down/sleep-read with the basics/odd snack to hand if needed am happy

In my case sharing it with someone else who likes their space too, so a design where the only sitting points are right next to one another across a rather narrow inner doesn't cut it, but using this solo that's less of an issue of course.

But if it's howling 4 season nastiness outside and I want a hot dinner I want well vented sheltered porch space with lots of clearance for safety, and this doesn't have it.

I also want plenty of storage for mucky bags and wet rain gear out of the inner, and preferably porch space enough to get in and out of wet gear while the inner stays dry. Once the inner starts getting puddles it all tends to get a bit unpleasant in winter.

Pete.

[Tangled Metal]

Oex go outdoors own brand isn't likely to be a good choice in really iffy winter weather. Apart from my snobbiness the dimensions of that tent doesn't inspire confidence, I'm tall so pretty much any tent that's light enough to carry and tough enough for winter use simply won't be big enough for me to sit in. So that's not an issue. What is an issue is sloping walls. You will lose useable internal space with sloping sides like this cheap tent.

Other issues include materials. Poles don't come cheap if they're good. Good pegs aren't cheap. Good fabrics aren't cheap. I've experienced cheap tent poles on a tent double that price. One pole simply snapped without warning on a no wind day 15 plus minutes after pitching with no external stresses applied such as tightening guys or tripping over guys. It just failed.

BTW Hilleberg tents suitable for Arctic use all use very high strength fabric and they're designed for double poling. Imagine two poles used in each pole sleeve. Over engineered in so many ways. From the double poling, a lot stronger fabric than most brands and seams made to be water without sealing.

[pjclinch]

... Good pegs aren't cheap.

While I'm generally onside with what you say, interestingly the case that my Spacepacker, which has taken a lot of flack over its long life, came with what would generally be seen as very poor quality pegs. I read somewhere that Robert Saunders only added pages to tents as otherwise it was like getting a battery operated toy for Christmas with no batteries, and felt people would be better off choosing their own according to their particular needs.

And so there are these rather bendy cheap alloy skewers that seem about as rigid as a ripe bit of Camembert... but they've never let me down. They bend, and I bend them back, and they keep on doing their job.

While I wouldn't particularly recommend these to anyone, they do show that it's not Rocket Engineering and outside of specialist applications (e.g. hammering in to very rocky ground, or broad/long for very soft ground) pegs don't need to be anything out of the ordinary.

Pete.