Old tent floor feels tacky

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the tent floor coating is breaking down–pretty common in old urethane coated nylon gear. It's frequently accompanied by a sour odor.

There are various "fixes" that don't really work, such as the recoating goo sold at outdoor retailers, but the only permanent answer I'm aware of for this problem is replacing the floor, likely to cost more than the tent is worth (unless you're handy with scissors and a sewing machine).

You might contact Rainy Pass Repair for professional insight.

Thanks, Rick. That's what I was afraid of-it's into the trash with it. Anyway, I'm looking forward to a new Black Diamond Lighthouse. njb

I have similar problems with an otherwise perfectly good Salewa "Sierra Leone" 4 season tent.
So there are no fixes, but is there anything I can do to slow/minimise the demise of this tent?

Anything?

Anything!

once a recoating with a product that I bought from REI. It added a LOT of weight to the tent and the urine-like odor didn't completely go away. I also realized that the coating on the fly was also breaking down. I don't know if hanging the tent in the open would slow it down or not, but it seems to have happened to me (or I just discovered it) when I've taken a tent out of the bag that's not been used in a while…

Many of the Sierra Designs floors are easily replaced as there is a bound/taped seam around the floor perimeter (rather than a floor that runs continuous up the 'bath tub' side wall). The most time would be spent in carefully seam ripping the old floor out to get a pattern. Cutting and sewing a new floor would be pretty straight forward. Of course, if the polyurethane in the floor is undergoing reversion, the fly will likely be going too.

I have a 20 yr old clip flashlight that I am slowly rebuilding. So far I've rebuilt the fly in silnylon and dropped a 1/4 pound. At some point I'll replace the floor.

One other trick is to try baby powder or talc. This will reduce the stickyness, but not the smell. Or you could add about a 1/4 pound by sewing in a silnylon floor liner. That way you save the time of removing the old floor.

Thanks for the feedback. As the tent is still usable I'm going to drop it off an a local homeless encampment. njb