I’ve had an ongoing problem with tent (and other) material becoming sticky and gooey in a short amount of time in the heat of Southeast Asia. I don’t really know what is going on, but I think modern tentmakers focus on using really thin material so the tent is as light as possible. And to make it waterproof or durable, they add a bunch of coatings. And it is these coatings that dissolve and turn into sticky goo in extreme heat and humidity.
This tent was almost unlivable because the floor of the tent was like sticky flypaper. Trying to move around inside this tent or move your sleeping pad, sleeping bag, and other gear was nearly impossible. Everything stuck to the floor like you used Super Glue to hold it in place. And then I read that you could remove this sticky residue with isopropyl alcohol. I talked about this in a video, and a friend of mine dropped by with a big bottle of the stuff. (Thank you, KY!)
I took my tent outside to a nearby open field a couple of days ago, and I settled in to clean the tent as best I could using this liquid. It was a brutally hard job in this heat, and I went through a bunch of sponges and rags and other material. And, to be honest, it didn’t seem to do any good. I went over the entire tent several times, thinking it would improve with each cleaning, but the material just got stickier and stickier. Nothing seemed to be coming off. All that happened was that my whole body got covered in the goo, and things got stickier.
HOWEVER, then I decided to go one step farther, and I washed my tent in a bucket with laundry detergent. I don’t think you’re supposed to put your tent into a washing machine or clean it in a bucket with laundry detergent. They say that it will damage the delicate waterproof coatings. But if the coatings have already dissolved into goo, what could be the harm? So I really went to town with the bucket and the laundry detergent approach. The washing was spread out over two entire days just to be sure, with my tent getting a solid 48-hour soak and multiple poundings and sloshings and rinsings.
And then, to my amazement, after drying the tent fully by setting it up inside my hotel room, I found that my hand would slide smoothly over the dry tent floor. The gluey stickiness appeared to be completely gone! I don’t know if it was the isopropyl alcohol that did it or the detergent that did it or a combination of both, but something appears to have worked. I’m not about to declare victory yet. This dry non-gluey feeling exists right now in the dry, cool comfort of my air-conditioned hotel room. It’s possible that once outside and re-introduced to the climates of Malaysia and Indonesia, the tent will suddenly be sticky again. Perhaps a brand new bout of sticky gluiness will emerge as more coatings dissolve and seep to the surface. But the way the tent floor and walls feel right now is a HUGE improvement over how it felt before.
It’s probably true that the tent floor and walls are no longer waterproof. But they were never truly waterproof to begin with. I think they were just vaguely water resistant at the best of times. Only the tent fly is supposed to have a true waterproofing effect. I don’t know how much I will actually need this tent in the near future, but it’s nice that I found a fix for the epic, sticky, gluey mess that the tent had turned into.