I am looking at the Coleman Weathermaster tents for my camping adventures. Has anyone used these Coleman tents? If so, what do you like about or not like. Thanks!

Answers:

We have the Coleman Weathermaster

The first year, it was wonderful. However, since then I have had some problems with water leaking in, even with the rainfly on. I spent a good deal of time and money seam sealing it and recoating it and it did very well after I did all that work – we were in monsoons in Florida in December and I had very little water in the tent while another family who had the same Coleman tent had 4 BUCKETS of water in the tent.

Coleman Weathermaster Tent
Coleman Weathermaster Tent

If I had it to do all over again, I’d opt for something different.

  1. I’d get something with a bathtub floor.
  2. The minute it started leaking I would have called Coleman and demanded a replacement.

This tent was only 2 years old when we started having some problems with it. I’ve been told now that Coleman warranties it for a lot longer than that – I should not have had the problems. I always keep my ground tarp under the tent – not coming out the sides. However, one area where the seams wore fast is the triangles on the floor where the tabs are for the tent pegs. You can see the rubber-like sealer they used just peeling off of the flooring.

I would absolutely give Coleman a second chance. I just wish I’d known more about the warranty before I tried fixing it myself.

Latex-based sealers are susceptible to bacteria

I don’t know if this is what happened to your Coleman Weathermaster tent, but I do know that latex-based sealers (sometimes used on the inside surface of nylon to waterproof it) are susceptible to bacteria. A certain kind of bacteria can eat the latex away, causing it to peel and flake off the fabric underneath. I’ve had this happen to a backpack once already, and I’ve seen it happen to other items as well. the solution is just to make sure it stays clean and as dry as possible (just wash it when you’re done with it and dry it carefully before storing it).

I have a Weathermaster 16X10 Screenroom Tent

The actual tent is 10X10 with a 6-foot screen room with 2 exits. I personally love the size-our queen mattress fits inside with about 2-3 feet clearance on all sides. Hubby tends to slide while sleeping so we can stick the mattress in the middle of the tent and not worry about touching the sides.

We spent a weekend camping in West Virginia last year where we had almost a full half day of a steady downpour. We hadn’t sealed the tent or the rainfly, and spent about 4 hours or so in both the tent and screen area. We actually did not get any dripage until about 3 hours into the rain, and only 2 of the corners leaked a bit and the rainfly leaked slightly at the seams, but it dried up really quickly afterwards. Left only a small shoe-size puddle in one corner that we mopped up quickly.

I loved the Coleman Weathermaster tent. Was pretty happy that we didn’t get hardly any leaks without sealing the tent prior to use. We are going to seal it this year on our first outing the first weekend in April, though. Hopefully that will help.

I would really like to find a way to attach temporary removable flaps for the sides and doorway of the screen room though so if it does rain again, we can still sit in the screened area without getting wet from dripping/blowing rain. I thought of Velcro, but that would mean sewing I think. Also thought of magnets, but am not sure about the added weight. Also not sure of what type of fabric/plastic to get. Any ideas?

I would say Weathermaster tents are great. Also, after the first camping trip last year with the tent, one of the metal poles had the shock cord snap in it. I contacted Coleman, and the rep looked up my tent model (it was made specifically for KMart) and sent me an entire pole set, not just the one I needed. The shock cords are the braided metal ones, so replacing them would have been kind of tough. I had the replacement poles in like 4 days. Great customer service. Go for the tent!