Campfire Chatter Ground Cloths

[Ozark]

How do you use a ground cloth under or inside your tents?
Why this way?
Material of the ground cloth?
Do you make water channels outside the tent?
Insulated uninsulated?
Site prep?
What you look for as a site to place your ground cloth and tent?
Any other things I'ved missed?

 

[jdupre']

I put my ground cloth under the tent to protect against puncture and abrasion. I just use a cheap blue tarp and fold over the edges so they are six inches back from the tent perimeter so rain doesn't run down the sides of the tent and get between it and the tarp. I don't usually make a trench around the tent. Don't go camping when that much bad weather is approaching.

I find a high flat area and just kick the leaf litter aside and then cut or dig up any offending roots. I fill in any obviously low spots. I have gotten in the habit of digging a hip hole to ease the strain on my back.

In winter, I face the door of the tent southeast to catch the morning sun.

The aforementioned process can be abandoned for a really nice view. 8) :lol:

 

[bearridge]

Friend Paul,

If ya dig a trench round yer tent at the Lost Mines, Miz Ann will have one of yer nuts. Second offense, ya sing soprano fer life. It makes the soil wash away.

regards
bearridge

I had amnesia once -- or twice. unknown

 

[Ozark]

Glad to no that about Miz Ann. I can't sing now and Sorprano singin would be worse.

 

[oldsparkey]

This is my personal thought and no one else's as you will see....Ol Bear is having some fun with me since he and a lot of folks know my thoughts about what he is asking.... So here you go.......

Ground cloths are meant to be under the tent , they are the sacrificial goat used to save the bottom of your tent when camping , only idiots , greenhorns and folks that don't know better or have more money then brains use them inside the tent , especially tents with floors in them.

Lets see a tent is $$$$$ a lot of bucks , a ground cloth is pocket change ... which do you want to destroy during a camping trip... an expensive tent and it's floor or a cheep ground cloth. For me it is the ground cloth. So under the tent it goes. That might be why I still have tents with floors in them and the tents are quite old unlike the ground cloths which have been replaced. :roll:

NO... Ditching around the tent , the proper ground cloth tucked in under the tent will stop or cancel the need for that , besides it is destroying the environment when you do the ditching , a old way of camping when few folks camped.

Check the area where your tent will be , remove anything that will stab you in the back during the night and then set up your tent on top of the ground cloth , even if it is a simple piece of plastic , they call it a footprint for the tent. I guess the reason for that is because a foot print is under the foot , something some folks just can't understand.

Better yet....... Really be environmentally friendly and take the easy way out ....Use a hammock. You don't even squash the daises or weeds that way. Just swing above them , a lot less damage to the environment and a lot more comfort.

Chuck.
Yep... A ground cloth inside the tent .... That is as useless as tits on a boar hog. Leave the thing at home if you do it that way and DON'T ask to use one of my tents. Remember I said this is my personal thought and no one else's.

 

[bearridge]

I put a Campmor/Eureaka thin footprint on our tent floors 'n a cheap tarp underneath....but not outside the tent ta channel water back tween the tarp 'n the tent. So far I aint stuck a hole in my tent floor.

I dont set my tent up down in a hole. [Dang....look at the prepositions!]

regards
bearridge

Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem! Ronald Reagan

 

[rpecot]

Echoing most folks here...

Under. Never even heard of putting it inside the tent. Although, I might consider something like that (in addition to the one under) when car camping with the kids - they never seem to grasp the "no shoes in the tent" rule :roll:

Like Joey, I always make sure it's tucked under the tent so as not to collect rain or condensation.

For my latest REI tent, I bought the ground cloth that "fits" the tent. In my younger, more finacially aware days, I made one for my backpacking tent. I bought a few yards of ripstop nylon and used my mom's sewing machine to hem the edges. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.

As for site prep, I use the aforementioned kick-sweep method. I'll try not to bend over if at all possible :wink:

For site selection, I like something high, sandy, and no widowmakers overhead.

A friend of mine swears by the "hip hole" technique. He swears he invented it, so I'll leave that between him and Joey. It never really did anything for me.

A note about hammocks... I never laid in one until the Rendevous. Jack - was that yours that was set up? Anyway, it was damn comfortable. I may give one a try some time.

 

[Kayak Jack]

First off, I assume that the rain fly and all seams are protected with seam sealer (actually, brush on Thompson's or Behr Deck sealer at 1/10 the cost).

If material (whether it is a tent bottom or boat bottom) is spread upward by a sharp object (rock, stick, stump, etc.) and is bent upwards at a sharp angle, that material fractures on the top surface, in this case, a tent floor. (Bend a green stick and see the fracture on top.) Protecting it on the outside (bottom, in this case) will not prevent the fracture.

Putting a ground cloth (actually a piece of visqueen 12" longer and wider than the floor, rolled up with 6" high walls all around and taped at the corners) on the inside of a tent services to protect from those fabric fractures just as glassing the inside of a boat protects from fractures if it is hung up on a sharp rock.

Also, when rain comes in through zippers and seams, etc., it will run UNDER the visqueen across the tent floor. That may be the greatest reason to put the protection inside rather than outside. Old ideas die hard.

 

[dawallace45]

For the last 30 years I've used shade cloth as a ground sheet , it allows the bottom to breath to some small extent and keeps the bottom of the tent clean and unless there has been a hell of a down pour , dry , helps protect the bottom from sharp stones too , my tent is 9'x9' and the shade cloth is 12' x 12' , I use it as a door mat and keep the sand from the inside of the tent , works much better than a ground sheet for me

David

 

[hairymick]

I clean the ground of loose stones & sticks, Lay a cheap oly tarp and erect tent on top of it.

Then I hang a much larger tarp on a rope strung between two trees, over the whole structure. Sides can be pegged as desired. This keeps all rain off the tent and its fly and stops the water collecting on the groundsheet. It also keeps the tent in good shade making it cooler.

If it is raining while breaking camp, no problem. Tent and fly are still dry. They can be dismantled and packed under the tarp.

 

[oldyaker]

http://www.ehow.com/how_2024009_pitch-a-tent.html

http://www.scoutbase.org.uk/library/hqdocs/facts/pdfs/fs315085.pdf

 

[oldsparkey]

Oldyaker......

I like Mick's idea .... Same thing we did on the Odesso River , ground cloths ( I guess that is why they call them ground cloths and not inside the tents cloths) Then a tarp over them , sure worked good on that trip.

Heck we had the table and everything covered but lots of rain , wind , lighting , tornadoes , hail and wet weather will do that to you. Have to have a dry spot when camping. :lol:

If you look between the vehicles at the ground you will see we had a river there during the storms.

Chuck.

 

[oldyaker]

Yep Chuckles....and I agree with you. The tarp is number 1 or close to number one on most important pieces of my camping gear. Heck, we had us one hell of a time during that storm on the Edsisto. We stayed high and dry eat'n our supper and drink'n Dago Red. Swampys aluminum foil kept those pesky aliens away. Maybe we need aluminum foil tarps. :roll:

 

[bearridge]

Maybe we need aluminum foil tarps.

Friend oldyaker,

Dont talk like that! Aluminium foil tarps draw aliens like stink on turds. They dont come here ta make world peace. Gort! Klaatu barada nikto! They come here cruizin' fer love in all the wrong places.....like Larry Flynt on legs.

regards
bearridge

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is no of importance, it lasts so short a time. Dr. Samuel Johnson

 

[oldyaker]

Br'r Bear........Ya don't suppose those EPIRBS going off will attract them aliens....DO YA? :shock:

 

[bearridge]

Friend oldyaker,

We all seen that pichur of Swampy wearin' the aluminum foil blanket. That wuz the last pichur in near bout 2 years. I hope the big bug aliens didnt git him.....unless they changed so they looked like Sigorney Weaver when they grabbed him. I figger aliens dont have sex the reglar way. That iz likely what makes 'em look like big roaches, bug eyed pin heads 'er giant shrimp. If ya set off a MrPibb, it will likely be a race tween horny aliens 'n the rescue fellas. I think that iz how it will be in the remake of Deliverance. Ned Beatty sets off hiz MrPibb cuz he run outta latte.

This aint funny. Jest ask them two winos who wuz sippin' Sterno on the pier in Pascagoula a few years back. They tole the deputy a saucer come down, shined a lite on 'em 'n then they both fell out....fer 30 minutes 'er so. Hard ta tell time when the aliens shine a lite on ya, but that iz a long time fer a good probin'. [That aint what the aliens call it.]

The deputy jest laughed, but the space ship hunters come down 'n made videos 'n wrote it all down. I heard they had ta buy those each 'em a bottle of Ripple fer the right ta tell their tale on the History Channel 'er Dateline NBC. Cuz so many little pards watch tv, the guviment wont let 'em tell folks what the aliens really come here fer. They allow az how the "probes" iz some kinda science.....makin' the aliens out ta be like Mr. Wizard. I bet Eliot Spritzer wished he'd thought of that. :mrgreen:

na nu na nu
bearridge
bodine college of astroturf

ps If Swampy drops by, he will jest laugh it off. See.....after alien sex, they make ya fergit what they done ta ya. Back in college I woke up a few times......well, that aint fer the little pardners. :wink:

I haven't spoken to my wife in years. I didn't want to interrupt her. Rodney Dangerfield

 

[Tor]

We use a synthetic "rubber" mat under the tent (having scraped away loose stuff), we got it when we had a camper trailer (Jayco) and most of the sites we used would only allow a "breathable" ground sheet under the annex.

As the kids grow we are downsizing (camper trailer to 9 man dome to several 2/3 man tents) but the sheet still gets a workout it hasn't however protected us from the wear that the stretcher beds that the kids use putting small holes in the floor of the tent, an inner sheet may have prevented this

I can't use a hammock as my normal mattress is almost solid and the hammock doesn't give me the support causing real achy back.

We still drive to camp, not sure how we'll go trying to fit it in a canoe, s'pose that's why I'm building the QEII of canoes....

Tor