Compress a tent?

well with tent stuffing, I once emailed mountain hardwear if I would compress my tent safetly, and they said that the extreme folds and so on can cause delaminiation of fabrics. That is more of a problem with PU nylon than Sil Nylon I believe, so it probably isn't a good idea to use a compression sack, but it would not be as stressful to use a smaller stuff sack, which wouldn't have those straps exerting more pressure. I think that if you stuff it into something like a dry bag as far as it will go, and then roll it up, you wont have any problems.

Charles:

Lots of folks have had their tents for a decade or more — some store their tents folded, others stuffed.

Folding or stuffing/compressing makes no difference. There are just three things to watch out for:

1. store your tent clean
2. store your tent dry
3. store your tent in a cool and dry place — i.e. away from humidity and/or sunlight

Don't stress over stuffing or folding — either way will be just fine if the three are observed. But if not, you can expect a moldy or delaminated tent regardless of whether you store it folded or stuffed.

As for my own tents, one is shaped in a way that makes folding easy — and that's how I store it. My other tent is so irregularly shaped that stuffing is easier — and that's how I store that one. Again, makes no practical difference at all.

BTW, I assume your new BD tent passed your garden hose "rain" test with flying colors?

Ben is right.

Clean, Dry and Cool that is all that matters.

Besides you will not store it compressed whether you fold or stuff. No one should. I compress my tent when I put it in my pack and I really crank it down most of the time doing this. It has had not effect on any tent I have owned for the past 10 years.

When it is being stored, I won't compress it. But in the pack, I will compress it some.

I will observed those 3 rules for storage.

I haven't performed the sprinkler test–I will soon. I also want to perform the spend the night in the backyard while its raining test.

Does anyone else want to weigh in on their opinions with this? Using a lightweight REI compression sack I can get my SL2 to half it's stuff sack size (poles removed obviously).

Could this possibly damage the zippers in there? The fabric?

Thoughts?

At the very least the inner tent would be fine to compress. I've compressed my Hubba on hikes before. I've seen no degradation in waterproofness. It may depend on the tent, and the durability of the coatings, though. The Hubba's rainfly is silicone on one side.

If you carry the tent outside (keep the stuff sack upside down to avoid collecting water) the backpack compression straps will do the job for you. If inside the bag, the rest of you gear will do the compression, this should also help with eliminating empty spots .
Maybe I am missing something here….
Franco
To facilitate storing the tent into the sack, just fold the tent to the width of the poles and use the poles to roll the tent tightly. Hard to "compress" the fabric more than that.

All my tents came with stuff sacks. Several were of the compression variety. I stopped using the stuff sacks years ago. A couple of stout rubber bands worked for 20 years. I now use a LuxuryLite pack and fold them into a "Taco" shape. I open the "Taco", after inserting the tent into the LuxuryLite cylinder, and stuff my clothes and food bags into the cavity. The only compression is when i close the cylinder. I am careful not to stuff anything rough or sharp into the cylinder, so as not to damage the silnylon.

When stored at home, my tents are all carefully folded and gently rolled, then I use the rubber bands.