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Re: Land Cruiser 'Sportsmobile'
The issues you mentioned with the Goretex are all good points. At this point I have already purchased the Goretex for the tent, and it really wasn't any more expensive per yard then any of the other fabrics I was considering. I too have spent a fair amount of time in a W/B tents (my primary tent at the moment is a Bibler made from Todd-Tex - biblers proprietary version of Goretex and I have a 3 layer goretex bivy) with at least OK results in wet weather in Alaska and NZ. I certainly don't expect this to work miracles, and we will definitely get condensation in rainy/saturated conditions. During the shakedown run this weekend we did get some condensation on some exposed metal framing members which have not been insulated yet. We did not get any condensation on the tyvek tent, which is less breathable than goretex. Under the same conditions, the non-breathable wildernest woud have been covered in frost on the inside in the morning.
Ventilation is also critical - I will install large close-able screened windows in both triangular sides of the fly, which will at least have some coverage from the lid overhang so they can be partially open, even in the rain. I am also considering putting a splitter on the cold air return to my propex heater, so I can set it to draw air from outside the vehicle to force ventilation, it does have a blower only mode.
There were two other considerations I had in my thought process about this issue. I did consider a breathable inner and a fly, but I decided against it as I thought it would be hard to get the fly to pitch tightly for windy conditions over the inner fabric with the required separation. Secondly, I don't want to have to make the call every evening on whether I think it will rain, and should I put the fly on. With the current set up, if we know it is going to rain (or be super windy) we can sleep on the lower couch, which converts to a bed, with the top down. If it does unexpectedly start raining during the night, the tent is entirely water proof so no need to get up and change anything beyond zipping up the windows. The last thing that really pushed me towards the goretex was the fact that it WILL dry even if it does get damp from condensation. I have a rear AC unit in the cruiser, which I chose to leave in place. The outlet used to go the ceiling via he right rear pillar, now it will blow it's output right into the poptop. If things do get damp I can switch on the rear AC for an hour or so and dry out the pop top with nice dehumidified air. This was the main issue with my previous camper - the tent folded onto the mattress/bedding and sealed up for transit. If it was wet, soon enough your bedding would be wet and there was no way to dry it out until you had a warm sunny day.
Sorry for the long winded response, and most importantly I will let you all know how the goretex tent works out in real world use!
PS for the bed frame I ended up using 13mm baltic birch, with 1/8" steel angle running along the edges of each panel. 3 panels make up the bed, and it worked well, no real flexing noticeable with the cushions on top.
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VivaLaVida
But it was probably about 8'-9'...
Linear Mode
