CORE Equipment Wall Tent Review
Typically, I use a wall tent maybe three times a year. Mostly for ham radio gatherings with the ham club I belong to. At last years ARRL Field Day I used an old, donated wall tent that leaked and took forever to assemble. It leaked so bad that I slept in my one person
Army TCOP tent set-up next to the wall tent with the electronics inside covered with a tarp. I vowed at that time to find a better alternative.
After a fall and early winter of reading tent reviews I had narrowed my selection down to the
lighted 9-man CORE Equipment tent for $299.00. As a side note, I ordered the tent in January and it was delivered the same month a week later. In March they had a 15% off sale. I guess I should have waited but who knew. This review is about that tent.
With a 21-inch snow base until mid- March and then the mud season upon us as the snow melted, I did not get a chance to pitch the tent till last week. I was happy to set it up on a relatively calm sunny day as there was rain in the forecast scheduled for that night into the next morning. I alone had the tent set-up in 20-minutes without taking the time to read the instructions attached to the tents carry bag. Then I added the fly which took another 20-minutes to deploy as an afternoon breeze had come up. Add to the above setup time to staking the tent and fly, the whole process took one hour. Now that I have done the process once, I could do the whole process going forward in about 30-minutes. If I had a helper, probably 15 to 20-minutes.
My first impression of the tent was it was well made. There were few loose threads, and all the seams under stress points were taped. Although I did put down a tent "footprint" which I bought at the time of the purchase. I liked the extra safety for rogue rocks and sticks that could penetrate the ?bathtub" floor. After camping in my TCOP tent in many downpours I like the idea of that type of floor. The stakes that came with the tent where in my opinion wholly inadequate. I threw those aside and grabbed a dozen manly tent stakes to do the job proper.
Tent Stakes - CORE vs. MineSince we were to have rain that night, I decided to sleep in the tent to monitor any leaking. Laid out my sleeping mat, sleeping bag, and blew up my pillow. As I left the tent to finish my chores, eat dinner and watch some television I turned on the string of LED lights that run along the ridge pole of the tent.
Yes, this tent comes with lights. The lights can be turned on or dimed with a waterproof outside/indoor switch. There are two levels of brightness you can choose from and a cool night light feature. The lights are powered by four 3D batteries. It was nice when it was time to head out to the tent to sleep to have the lights already on.
W3OOF Straddles the battery case for the lights. The tent has two side vents which really help with condensation. They are close to the ground and you basically take a stake to fully deploy the vents. There is an adjustment line inside the tent that enables you to adjust the size of the vent opening. Nice feature.
Starboard vent. There is one on the port side also.Strategically positioned in several locations within the tent, are mesh pockets for necessities. Nice feature.
Glock 27 in mesh pocket strategically placed around tentThe temperature at the time I scooched into my sleeping bag was 39-degrees F with a nice cloudy sky. No worries as I put on my night watch cap and snuggled down for a long nice quiet sleep outside.
At about 0200 hrs. the rain started. Pitter patter, pitter patter for a whopping 30-seconds then nothing. At about 0400 hrs. the rain started again and just like earlier for about 30-seconds.
I drifted off to nod-land again. Shortly after I drifted off to sleep my neighbors roosters started to crow which started my rooster to crow. With the tent being only about 20-yards from our chicken coup, it sounded like Foghorn Leghorn was right next to my ears. Then if the dang crowing was not bad enough two hoot owls started in with, hoot-hoot followed by the second raptor with his/her hoot-hoot.
As I lay there thinking that this sucks one of my outside cats realized that I was in the tent and came over letting me know that she wanted inside the tent too. That continued till she went under the aforementioned vent and tried to claw her way through the mesh screen. That resulted in a quick slap from me and a shout out for everybody to shut up. Annoyed that there was no rain, at about 0600 hrs. I went back into the house to hopefully get at least one hour of sleep before the alarm clock radio went off.
With no rain in the future predicted I kept the tent up. It weathered the sunny days well especially when the windows were unzipped. It also handled some windy days in the 8 to 12-MPH afternoon breezes and some 20-MPH gusts in the late afternoons. Then the promised rain arrived Sunday morning at 0900 hrs.
The rain was a nice soaking rain with no down pours. During the rain there was a minimal breeze in the 0 to 5-MPH range. At the six-hour mark of the rainstorm I went out to check the inside of the tent for leakage. By this point we had received .15-inch of rain as reported by my
Davis Instrument II Weather Station.
Unfortunately, there was some minor leakage in four spots all from wall seams. These seams were not taped as I assume the manufacturer did not feel a need as they were not under stress. The seam above both side vents was leaking along with the seam at the bottom of the port side window and one along the starboard half of the front door. Now with that written I wiped up all the water with a half a piece of paper towel. When I squeezed the paper towel, I got about 3-tablespoons of water.
At the twelve-hour mark, the total rain that had fallen since the weather event started was .28 inches. I went out to the tent, turned on the overhead LED lights and the water leakage had dwindled to just a few drips from the seam over both side vents. Nothing was under the port side window and the leakage at the front starboard side of the tent door was the same. For kicks and giggles I closed the side ground vents to see what may happen overnight as the rain is supposed to continue through tonight and tomorrow.
I reached out to
CORE Equipment about the leakage and they responded quickly with,
Thank you for reaching out to Core Customer Service and I apologize about your tent leaking. When it comes to the leaking issues, We typically suggest seam sealant and water resistant spray to help with water when it rains. Some of the brands we typically suggest are Scotch Gard and Nik Wax. I would suggest trying this option and if you continue to have problems with leaking, please reach back out to our customer service team and we would be happy to look into further warranty options.
I left the tent up for another 24-hours as it was raining and I did not want to put it away wet. Last night after I put the hens to bed, I checked for leakage again. The seams over the two vents showed no leakage. The port window seam had no leakage. The front starboard door seam leaked. I wiped the water up with a paper towel and rung the towel out in a empty Solo cup to measure later. When I poured the water into a measuring cup, the level came in just a fraction over 1/4-cup.
Even with the leaking which was minimal, my overall impression and experience has been good. Here are the Pros & Cons
Pro's> Easy to put up even with one person doing the job. Two people would be better.
> You can deploy this tent in a rainstorm with out the interior receiving water if the tent was stored with windows
closed.
> Cost of the lighted version of the tent is fair. Unlighted versions are even less expensive, but the colors offered
are hideous (See cons)
> A nine-man tent that weighs in at around 35-pounds is not bad. The old Coleman I just threw out, weighed at
least 10-pounds heavier.
> The boxing of the tent for shipping purposes was outstanding as it was double boxed.
> All the zippers worked flawlessly. It has been in my experience not the case with a new tent.
> Buy the ground cover that is offered for the tent. It fits the footprint nicely and is nice and beefy. Save your
investment.
> The rain awning above the starboard side entrance was nice. The awning allowed you to unzip the door and not
allow rain to enter the tent.
> The tent was made with quality in mind. No sticking zippers or loose threads. The poles that hold up the tent
were beefy as well as the other tent hardware.
> Although not a half gale, the tent weathered wind up to 20-MPH gusts with no issues.
> The tent had webbed pockets for necessities, located in strategic points around the inside of the tent.
> Not mentioned earlier, there is a covered opening located under the outside light switch that allows cables
(extension cords, coax, etc) to enter the tent. Perfect for field day.
Con's> I am not partial to the color of the tent. Sky blue for me at least is a bit hard on the eyes. I would have liked a
more muted color like forest green, coyote, or even a camo design. This is a minor gripe though.
> The 20 stakes that accompany the tent are inadequate for a good ground securing for the tent floor. I did use the
stakes the tent came with for the fly's tie off and two side vents though.
> I was a bit less than enamored with the response from
CORE Equipment customer service team. Being
employed by several retail companies over my working career, I would have expected a bit more concern. I know
my employees would have jumped at the chance to be a heroine or hero.
Overall, I think the tent was an excellent purchase apart from the four leaking seams. I am kind of a funny guy that expects a new item purchased to work without me fiddling with the purchase - Oh well, such as life. I will do an addendum to this review to see if the leaking seams stop leaking with the addition of some seam goop after I put it up again later in the spring.
Addendum November 2023June 23, 2023, I was set up for the ham radio ARRL Field Day contest and I finally took the time to waterproof the seams that leaked before on tis tent. I used Luke's method of doing this task and it worked out flawlessly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sv2Hhrn1Vg&t=8s To be honest, the tent had stopped leaking soon after I set it up for the first time. With that written, I had the supplies and the day was beautiful and the setup was done so I knocked it out in short order.
During the October PA QSO contest, as usual I set up my core tent. We ended up with torrential rain which was awful. Other folks who had set up for the event had tents that leaked... Well not mine.
Temps ran in the 40's during the day and close to freezing at night. When I set up the tent and before the fly was attached, I had covered the ceiling mesh screen with several solar blankets. Then applied the fly. Kept the tent warm using a butane
Kovea Cupid Heater.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5_PI4KDSOw&t=30sAll n' all I am still happy with my purchase.
