Ice fishing tent/shelter maintenance

[schleprock]

I am considering treating my shelters exterior and am looking at the Nikwax products. Are you guys applying anything to the exteriors of your shelters to extend their lifespans? TIA

[old dog]

Never have and never had any issues either. I just make sure the tent is dry and leave the bag open in the off season. My oldest tent is close to 20 year now

[HL_transplant]

Isn't most of the Nikwax stuff for waterproofing?? Ice shacks aren't water proof to begin with. Just need to dry them out before storage.

[58thecat]

After our first year with our Eskimo 450 I set it up and sprayed it down with a water proofing product, can’t remember the brand but soaked all the seems especially the roof and well we sat through two hours of a downpour two years ago in late February, yup February was warm and it poured on us but not a drop dropped in.
Won’t hurt.


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[-JR-]

My thoughts is water proofing on the out side might not be a wise thing to do because you want the tent to breathe so it drys out better as the inside is where it gets wet from frosting up

[ragweed]

I have treated some older tent equipment for UV protection. Seemed to help make the last longer. Don’t recall the stuff I used.


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[58thecat]

Originally Posted by -JR-

My thoughts is water proofing on the out side might not be a wise thing to do because you want the tent to breathe so it drys out better as the inside is where it gets wet from frosting up

I guess it depends on the tent, ours is black on top and dries real quick especially if the sun is out.
Keep vents open to prevent moisture building up from inside too.
So far no issues and it’s been two seasons. I spend three days a week out on the ice or more and have not had any issues but perhaps a different color tent might have moisture issues?
I know the uninsulated one I had would drip on us.


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[SamSteele]

I used Nikwax on my rain gear recently and I’m not sure if I got a bad batch or the application was done wrong (pretty sure I followed the directions exactly) but the gear ended up with zero water repellency, even less than it had before I treated it. I will try it again to see if I can salvage the gear, but I don’t think I would put it on my ice tent.

SS


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