Rain prep for Competitions

begolf25

begolf25

Knows what a fatty is.
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Last year was our first year competing and we lucked out, no rain at all. Doesn't look like we will be as lucky the next couple of weeks.

I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions for preparing for rain at a competition?

We have two 10' x 10' ez-ups. We were thinking of getting a large tarp to put over top of both to prevent rain from running down in between them. Anyone tried that or have another suggestion?

Thanks,

Bryan
 
We have rolled the two edges together and pinched them with clothes pins. Helps to keep the majority of the water away. you will also want to put on a couple sides to keep any driving rain out.
 
what you can do is just push the 2 EZ-Ups together.

Get some clamps.
Steel-Spring-Clamp-lg.jpg


Start in the center where the ez ups meet, and pull both pieces of fabric together, fold up and clamp as high up as possible, then going out from the center place the clamps a little lower and lower.

Kind of hard to explain but what your doing is basiscally making a rain gutter and all the water will flow off the sides and not into the EZ Up.

It's rained at every competition we've been at this year and this always works perfect.
 
Shotgun said:
We have rolled the two edges together and pinched them with clothes pins. Helps to keep the majority of the water away. you will also want to put on a couple sides to keep any driving rain out.
Click to expand...

Jay beat me to it. If I could only type faster.... both are the same idea though.
 
what they said, i have the rain gutter for my caravans, but i have seen the fold up and it worked just as good or better..... I had to have someone help me and show me how to attach the rain gutter better in ny, i tried to get it to flow the entire way but it really needs to be higher in the middle and drain to both sides....
 
Sides sides sides. At least be able to cover two sides completely, which should give you the ability to block the rain where ever it decides to come from. You don't have to buy fancy, expensive, made for whatever sides. The hardware store will have normal tarps that will fit pretty close and you just fold up the bottom, or roll up the end to set it to whatever length you need. Always fold inside so it doesn't catch the rain :grin:. For holding them on, ball bungies are nice, but more of those clamps shown above are quicker to put on and effective. If your hardware store doesn't have the tarps you want, check tarpsplus.com, they have a ton of lengths, widths, weights and colors.
 
When you pack your truck / trailer make sure that the first thing you can get out is your canopies, set one up right over the back of your truck / trailer so you can stay somewhat dry while unloading then set the other one up where you want your camp to be. Once you've unloaded, move the canopy from your truck / trailer into it's final position.
 
Pray that you don't have 50 mph wind along with that rain...or you won't have any canopies to worry about.
 
14 gallon food grade blue plastic barrels full of water are handy corner tie down weights. Get some ratchet straps from Home Despot and attach between barrel and metal EZ-Up frame.

645b3cb41d499f62c93a183c22cc891e.jpg


Helps your EZ-Up survive pretty high winds.
 
We bring with us 8 75 pound bags of sand (600 lbs) and put two on the corners of each legs with the ratchet strap down looped around the bags up to the corner. We also keep a truck on site and strap two legs down to two of the tires. If the wind kicks up we move the coolers to the center and use some long bunges to stabilize the middle of the tent.

If a storm rolls through we will quickly drop the top down so that the canopy is still up but it's not extended (think total height of about 4 feet) and retighten all the straps. We've rode out some pretty serious storms and survived watching other popups twisted, crushed and flown away. So that has worked for us pretty well. And by serious storms I mean tornado siren serious.
 
nthole said:
If it's going to be cold and rainy and you're doing a pop-up, four sides with a flap for the door is a must. When the temps dropped to the 40's on us this April during a comp we'd have died if we didn't have this with us.

10702120.jpg


http://www.target.com/p/Tank-Top-Po...NG=appliances&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=10702120

Cold and rainy outside...warm and dry inside. Kept a 12x12 above 70 inside when it was 40 outside.
Click to expand...

That is a good heater, but at the Jack last year we were able to heat a 20x15 area (2x 10x15 popups) with this:

http://www.homedepot.com/Building-M...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
 
I've used the propane heater that others have already posted. It was a life saver. Buy one. Yes the tarp ove the 10x10's will work. I have done this method. You'll definitely want tarps as sides or buy the sides to the tents to keep the driving rain out. Make sure you elevate anything not in a plastic container off the ground - i.e. charcoal. We use rubbermaid sealed bins for the most part and usually don't have a problem. Bring good boots. Remember ot tie down the tents either with stakes, or my personal chocie is five gallon buckets at each corner filled with water. If it's windy you'll thank me later. Make sure your power strips are elevated. Good Luck.
 
It poured at our first competition and the rain dripping in between wasn't what bothered us the most. It was the mud that came from the rain since we were on a field that didn't have much grass. Luckily we saw folks coming in with hay and we asked where they got it and then ran to the local hardware store. $4 for 2 bails of hay and best money ever spent. So now if we are going to a city we haven't been before we always do a google maps check of the local hardware stores and grocery too so we can see where we need to go.

Another big one that we did plan for was to always have 30gallon trash bags. You can pretty much put anything in there and keep it dry that may not be in a cooler or plastic tub. Multiple changes of clothes are nice too. Especially socks.
 
If you’re using some sort of draft system make sure you keep it as water tight as possible. Mine does not tolerate moisture AT ALL.

If you have the option (especially if you are on grass) get there early and stake out the high ground!

If you are on grass/mud you might need to plan for a little extra time to get your turn ins from your camp to the judges’ tent…the path to get there may be significantly longer than normal if you’re trying to stay out of the mud..Traffic seems to back up a little, too, since everyone is taking the same path.
 
Thanks everyone, looks like it will be pretty wet this weekend so all your suggestions will come in handy.

Bryan
 
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