Since we left France, we’ve been carrying Kath’s tent across Asia so we don’t have to buy or rent one when we hike - such as last week on Mount Rinjani.
Her tent is a very good windproof 4-season tent, but 10 years old - therefore, it seemed important to make sure that the tent was waterproof again. Here is how you do it!

To re-waterproof the tent, you need to cover 4 areas:
- the seam seals
- waterproof the fly
- waterproof the floor
- water repellent on the fly

seam seal

The seals are the weakest point of any tent:

When they’re old, they may let water go through the stiching, even if it’s folded - so the first thing you do is seal the seaming all over the fly, using a special applicator that you can buy in any good outdoor store:

waterproof the fly

The next step consists of applying a thin layer of product that will make the fly waterproof:

You’ve got to use a brush to put it all over the inside surface of the fly, including the seams, so that the water does not go through:

We did that in Roland’s parents’ garage:

Make sure it dries for longer than indicated: when we used the tent on Mt Rinjani, some surfaces of the fly had stuck together:

waterproof the floor

Repeat the same operation with the floor of the tent - there again, make sure it’s really dry so the floor does not stick when folded:

water repellent on the fly

This is the last step: the fly is already waterproof, which means that water will not go through - but it’s even better if the water doesn’t even stick on the fly, and simply roll down to the ground. This is what you put water repellent for: the rain drop will stay on the surface of the fly, instead of penetrating it. And this is actually how you check if your tent is still waterproof: spray a bit of water on it and see whether it makes pearls on the surface, or if makes a wet stain on it.

You can buy the appropriate spray in any outdoor store:

And that’s it!

We can’t tell you yet whether this was all worth it, since it hasn’t rained on us when we used it, but we have to apply some more waterproofing product on the fly and the floor, because the thin layer of product was ripped off when we opened the surface that was stuck.

And hopefully we won’t have any bad surprises ;-)