CAUTION – MUCH SMALLER THAT ADVERTISED
I bought one of these back in March thinking it would be a great shelter for storms in the fall, non-bug,season but it ended up being tiny. I returned it, notifying both REI and Nemo of what I was finding when I set it up. Here is Nemo’s reply. At the time they touted the shelter as having a 25 sq ft and 5 sq ft vestibule, They have changed that a little, but the big thing is they count the vestibule twice.
On 4/4/2017 10:46 AM, Journey NEMOEquipment wrote:
Hi George,
Thank you for your email and for your feedback regarding your recently purchased Spike 1P. We agree, as a frameless shelter the Spike series can be difficult to set up the first few times.  With practice it should become easier to erect and achieve proper tension. Regarding the measurements of your shelter, it does look like a few of our listed specs are incorrect. In many instances, the dimensions we list on our website and hangtags come from pre-production samples of a shelter so that our web teams and graphic teams can begin to build the web pages and accompanying tags for a shelter well before the release date. Occasionally, small changes will need to be made to a shelter after these measurements are taken. This has been the case with the Spike 1P as our product designers slightly tweaked the design, and the stated dimensions on our website are slightly incorrect.In most instances we are able to adjust the measurements for a shelter in the accompanying hang tags and web pages before it releases to the market, and it looks like this has been overlooked for the Spike 1P.  We will immediately work to update these measurements on our website and next round of printed materials, so thank you for bringing this to our attention.  Additionally, a similar situation presented itself with an included repair kit of patches. The Sil/Sil coated fabric of the Spike will not adhere well with our regularly included patch kit so one was not provided at this time, but I see that we still list it as an accessory on our website. I’ll bring this up with our web team as well. The true measurements for the Spike 1P are listed below:
Width at pole ends: 38″ (this includes the webbing used to hold the tensioning cord)
Width at next tensioning cord (halfway down the shelter towards the foot): 30″
Width at foot: 29″
Additionally, the vestibule area and floor area are measured differently for the Spike than many of the shelters in our line. We do refer to the area in front of the poles as the vestibule, but as this area is required to be used to fully lay down it is also included in the overall floor area measurement. The 5 sq. ft. vestibule is added to the remaining floor measurement, which can account for the difference in your measurement at home. This is unique in our line of shelters, although we used to use this system for many of our bivy style shelters. Reviewing the product info for the Spike, this measurement system isn’t clear and I’ll recommend a change of wording to our web team. Factoring the late changes into the floor area, the square footage measurements can be found below:
Total square footage: 22.7 sq. ft.
Vestibule square footage: unchanged (approx. 5 sq. ft.)
Thank you for your feedback regarding the Spike and for your patience while we investigated the differences in dimensions with our team. Please let us know if you have any questions so far, and I hope you can continue to enjoy your Spike. We understand that the error in dimensions was misleading, so if you would like to pursue a return with us we would be happy to do so. Thank you!
Kendall
Customer Service Team
NEMO Equipment
383 Central Ave. Suite 275
Dover, NH 03820
p.800.997.9301
f.603.881.9358
.
