Wet Camping and how to stay dry

I went camping this past summer  on Carolina Beach  in  North Carolina ,   I had an awesome time.   the only problem was every time the sun would go down everything got soaking wet even though there was never any rain.  

Sleeping bags and everything in the tent was wet  everything hanging out on the line was soaking wet  it was like someone poured water  over it all.       there was some major condensation going on.

My question is   how do you keep the inside of the tent dry  when everything including the clothing you are wearing gets wet? 

I didn't enounter this problem last summer..      I would like to avoid it next year.

I would appreciate any info and or advice on this.

What kind of tent?

The problem with being on or near a beach in summer is the  large amount of humidity/moisture in the air, and well with the sun out during the day it's not a big deal. But once the sun goes down and the temps drop and it reaches the dew point all of that moisture in the air turns into water and will settle on every availavle surface be it man made or not.

It is largely weather dependant by the sounds of what you describe.

Some kinds of tents have more condensation issues than others, but if I had to put money on it I would say it was just the dew point saying hi.

Keep items in a dry bag that need to stay dry. There are treatments that you can spray or wash onto garments and sleeping bags to help them be more water resistant, so that you can just shake off the moisture in the morning when you get up and be good to go.

There is no 100% effective solution to condensation dampness, but the following techniques will reduce the problem somewhat.

A significant part of the problem can be demonstrated with a ice cold soda on a hot, humid, day.  The hot air contacts the cold glass, and causes the air to cool.  Cooler air cannot hold as much moisture as warmer air. If the air cools sufficiently such that it can no longer keep the moisture vapor suspended in the air column, it will condense out, and collect on the surface of objects.  Cooler objects will produce more condensation; thus to reduce the amount of condensation, you need to keep select objects as warm as possible.  This, isn’t always possible, but even closing a tent will conserve some heat, making its interior and contents relatively warm compared to the evening air.  Another technique to combat condensation on articles is protecting them from contact with air during the period when the air is cooling.  Avoid unrolling sleeping bags until just before bed time.  Set your bed up in a tent, and reduce condensation inside by reducing air circulation to preclude cooling the tent interior and infusing the air inside with humid air from the outside , yet provide some circulation, preferably near the bottom of the tent, so expired air doesn’t create its own set of moisture problems.  A third solution entails covering articles with a covering that will absorb the lion's hare of the condesation, for example covering a sleeping bag with beach towels.

As for stuff on clothes lines, sometimes the only solution is taking these items down for the night, and resume drying them in the morning sun light.  You may, however, attempt to partily enclose these items, shielding them from draft.  Any such attempt must include an overhead cover.

Ed

I'm not sure if this is a legit solution, just an idea I had...maybe the use of a rain fly would help??

Open the vents to prevent over heating while in the tent, but before going in, keep everything zipped up tight to keep the warm in as Ed suggested. Then hopefully the condensation will collect on the rain fly instead of the outer wall of the actual tent, preventing it from seeping through as much?

Hey camperguy,

Can you tell us what kind of tent you were using, and what type of clothing you had (synthetic, cotton, etc.)?

It is very important that you wear clothing made of thin, quick drying materials during the summer with high humidity. Having two or even three sets can be necessary to keep one set reasonably dry in these conditions. As you already have learned leaving clothing hanging on a line as night falls exposes them to dew, and leaves them wetter than they were before hand. So clothes drying has to be done in the sunlight, and any breeze should be taken advantage of.

The use of plastic bags for storing extra clothing, and your sleeping bag when not in use, can greatly reduce the amount of moisture they are exposed to, to a point, once they start getting damp you will need to air them out during the day. With some experience you will learn when it is beneficial to store things in bags, or to leave them exposed to the sun and air, even though you may have high humidity.

I like to keep a micro fiber towel (Shamwow or equivalent) in my tent to keep any condensation dried up as much as possible, micro fiber towels can then be wrung out by hand and allowed to dry during the day. You can also roll your clothing in these transferring some of the moisture from your clothing into the micro fiber towel, enabling  the clothing to dry faster.

I don't know what kind of tent you had, but cheap single wall tents (Walmart, Kmart, Sears, or other big box stores) are notorious for allowing dew or rain to weep through the fabric if anything in your tent touches the tent fabric ( and sometimes even if it doesn't ) . During the night, clothing and sleeping bags touching a wet tent wall can absorb an amazing amount of water through the tent fabric while you are sleeping.

This can be true of the tent floor as well, and since the ground underneath the tent can stay damp all night and part of the day I would highly recommend getting some plastic to place under the tent, big enough to protect the whole tent floor, but it should not stick out from underneath the tent anywhere or it will funnel rain under the tent making things worse, plastic used this way is called a footprint. The higher quality single wall tents are coated with Urethane or impregnated with Silicone to prevent this, but they are really better suited to drier climates.

In hot humid conditions I prefer a quality double wall tent. The outer wall (rain fly) keeps rain or dew off the inner wall (tent body) and allows for better air circulation. There are times when you want more or less air circulating in the tent, and double wall tents allow you to control the air flow by opening doors,  windows, and vents as needed for air flow while being protected from dew or rain by the rain fly.

Keeping your sleeping bag, clothing, and tent interior dry is a maintenance issue, you have to manage things properly from the very beginning, if you wait until you have a big problem you may not be able to correct the problem, or catch up, without drying your stuff around a fire. Worst case is just wearing your clothes wet, which really stinks.

So having multiple sets of quick drying clothes, paying attention to condensation & dew point, storing items in a plastic bag or dry bag, and having a quality tent that can be closed or ventilated when appropriate, will go a long way towards helping you with this problem. I find that the more I ventilate my tent the less condensation it accumulates. The more you do this the more you will learn how to time things and manage moisture issues. When nearing dew point, or during a rain, you want your clothing & sleeping bag exposed as little as possible to the air. During the day, especially with sun & a breeze you want as much exposure as possible most of the time to dry your things out.

Let me CLarify

1.  I was at  Carolina Beach  NC    Freeman park.  Literally  50 feet from the High Tide    at the OCEAN...

  every night when the sun went down   everything got wet.  Even though It did not rain.    I had a towel hanging  on a line    that got wet    chairs got wet    the inside of the tent and out side of the tent got wet ,  my sleeping bag got wet.      This was over 4th of July weekend.      No clouds  No rain  Clear night skys   all 4 days  I was there.    it seemed like everything   had a vast amount of condensation.    

I would like to return to carolina beach this up comming summer  but I would like to stay dry this time.  

I also went  in the summer of 2009   and  did not experience this problem    

I was wondering if maybe one of those tent heaters might help   I remember  back in  July of  2010  a few short months ago   it did get considerably cooler  by  about  20 degrees at night.         I wonder if the temperature difference had anything to do with all the stuff getting wet.

2  the tent was a wal mart brand  Ozark trail.  

Hope this info helps...   

Camperguy,

A tent heater will help, since raising the temperature inside the tent will lower the relative humidity. It will not reduce the amount of water vapor in the air. That is, the humidity by measures other than relative humidity will not change - dew point, specific humidity, absolute humidity. As someone pointed out above, if you sit at your table inside the tent with an iced drink or bring a metal item in from outside after it has cooled off to outside temperature, it will still be coated with the condensation.

HOWEVER!!! - using a combustion heater inside the tent (such as the catalytic heaters that are so popular for the Big Box Store tents like the Ozark Trails) will deplete the oxygen concentration and increase the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide concentrations inside the tent - a definite health hazard that carries the strong possibility of death. The carbon monoxide problem is less with a catalytic heater than with a firebox such as is used in the northern climes mentioned by Tom above, though those tent stoves usually are intended to use a chimney that fits through a purpose-made, fireproof opening in the tent roof (your Ozark Trails tent does not have such a chimney hole, and they are not easily installed after market - you need a tent designed for them). Or you could use an electric heater (does the campground have electric hookups? Generators have their own problems with carbon monoxide).

Having lived in the Deep South for 10 years myself at one time (the REAL Deep South, not the almost Yankee territory of NC), and spent lots of time in summer in Virginia and Maryland, I am afraid that what you got was what you get. When you have the kind of high humidity weather you get next to the beach in summer, you will get lots of condensation. When you take measures like a tent heater, you end up with a sauna inside the tent in exchange for reducing the condensation inside (and on the tent roof and walls as well).

One other (partial) solution is to camp much farther from the water's edge (as in miles farther). But that means sacrificing the very purpose you sought in camping where you did.

Oh, yeah, one thing that does work somewhat is to get one of the AC units that the military uses in jungle climates and uses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Course, that means finding the electrical hookup. These do work, but they are really really noisey.

During the time I was in similar conditions, we just accepted the weather for what it was and lived with what Nature threw at us. Except, we used bug screens and repellent to keep the bugs that go with such high humidity somewhat at bay.

Hey  Camperguy,

I went out last week about a mile off the Oregon coast. No rain. It was the wettest weekend I have ever had. Ok maybe not, but my kelty noah 9 was driping from the underside every morning. Condensation was the worst I have ever seen.  Of course right before I hiked out of there it started to rain. Clear skys, loads of condensation on everything every night, and a very soggy hike out.  Sometimes conditions are what they are. It is what you make it. I realy enjoyed myself.

Might just be your tent. My rainfly was driping, but nothing got into my living area.

camperguy,

it doesn't matter if it is raining. The rainfly is simply a protective layer for the tent. The reason everything inside the tent got soaked was because the condensation soaked through the tent wall, dripped onto your tent floor, and got anything wet that was touching the tent walls.

A rainfly will take the condensation instead of the tent wall, meaning that it will drip down the rainfly and land on the ground, rather than seep through your tent wall and drip into your tent.

I think a rainfly will help you a great deal, as well as using other tips provided here by other users.

iClimb said:

...A rainfly will take the condensation instead of the tent wall, meaning that it will drip down the rainfly and land on the ground, rather than seep through your tent wall and drip into your tent.

 Only if the tent is pitched properly, which means that the fly is not touching the main body of the tent anywhere. All too often, when the fly is heavy with condensation it will stretch and sag onto the main tent. Temperature will also contribute to the sagging of the fly, as will the slight slippage through the guyline tighteners (including tautline hitches).

However, note that the OP said he has an Ozark Trails tent. The Big Box Store tents (and its siblings sold under a variety of other names - see the Trailspace FAQ) do not have flies. Rigging a fly which does not contact the main tent body with these tents (typically large floor area wall tents, though other configurations are made as well) is problematic at the very least.

Bill -

I wonder if the OP feels up to the challenge of making a rain fly for his tent.

I wouldn't.

Camperguy, it might just be in your best interest to buy a better tent. I know for typical car camping, $20-$100 tents are perfect, but if you're really concerned about this wetness scenario, maybe a double wall tent is the direction you should go.

It might be a load out of the wallet, but it sounds like it will make your experience a lot more enjoyable.

Before you ditch the cheap tent, look a bit more closely at the theory behind double wall tents.  If there is little or no ventilation, ie. moving air , and if the temps are right for condensation, condensation will be difficult to keep out of your tent.

A because the outer layer (the rain fly) of the double walled tent is waterproof, the ceiling and walls of your tent can be made of breathable material, like uncoated nylon.  That lets moisture escape out of the ceiling of your tent. The moisture then hits the outer wall and is trapped between the double walls, and then gets blown away by the ventilation or wind flowing between the gap.  That is why others have warned you to keep the fly from touching the ceiling of the tent.

But, what if there is no breeze, or any moving air to clear out the moisture?

It is trapped there and eventually will saturate right back into the tent especially if you brush against it.

Your best bet is to hope for an nice breeze and sunshine.  Leave your wet shelter standing.  Let the sun warm it up and it will soon be dry again.

Condensation is not just at beach level or just in the summer.  It will find you at altitude and it will freeze up in winter, coating your shelter with ice!

Ventilation is the key.  Tarps are well ventilated, but will not be condensation free either.  

Just do not let it bother you.  Next time it does......

Think of the early arctic explorers whose sleeping bags had condensation freeze them shut.  Imagine trying to get into a bag of wet frozen down, and what happened to that frozen lump when body heat started to thaw it!  They literally had to chop their way into the bags inch by inch, then hoped for some measure of warmth.

"....Condensation of breath was another problem. After a few days the inside of the tent became covered with a layer of ice and every time the wind shook it, a shower of ice fell on the men sleeping beneath." (Scott's Expeditions)

Winter issues of condensation:

http://www.angusadventures.com/arctic/condensation.html

Regarding: "The reason everything inside the tent got soaked was because the condensation soaked through the tent wall"

Although I suppose this can happen, condensation on the inside of any shelter normally happens because the moisture condenses from the inside. The humidity is usually a little higher inside of a shelter because of the added moisture from your breath.

When the temperature drops to the point that air saturation reaches 100%, water will condense on all solid objects, inside and/or outside of your tent, hanging clothes, etc...

It usually doesn't matter how expensive the shelter, condensation happens in those kinds of situations.

The best way to reduce the wetness is ventilation. An open drafty shelter may not be as warm, but it will be drier in the morning.

Sometimes double wall shelters have limited ventilation and this can aggravate the issue. The double wall can help channel the condensation away from your sleeping bag, but it will still happen, only on the outside of the inner wall.

I prefer a tarp in those kind of situations. A tarp can allow a good airflow and the addition of a bug net or bug bivy can protect you from the critters and damp ground.

The combination will be drier than most expensive double wall tents in high humidity situations..

My advice is:

1) Accept that you and your gear are going to be wet.

2) Do not bring anything made of cotton. Instead bring clothing that is hydrophobic and/or insulates when wet. Light merino wool in summer is surprisingly warm when wet, but cool during the summer heat. Synthetic fleece combined with a breathable shell will be damp in wet conditions, but will help keep you warm in a cool breeze.

Wet but warm is OK when you get used to it.

3) Be careful storing wet cloths in air tight containers. Mildew will be a an issue. Hang your clothes, sleeping bag, to dry during the day, in the sun if there is any.

Later, put your dry gear in drybags after they are dry.

4) Use a synthetic sleeping bag or quilt. Down can also be fine if the shell is water resistant. Either way, you should hang it out to air every day as condensation will reduce it insulation.

More...?

@  Bill S

The camp ground    does not have electricity.       as I have stated 3 times now  I was at the OCEAN!!!     There is No electricity at the Ocean.       On the Beach!    

this is not some Lake resort     which I think you are confusing things with.

Some of  You guys are Failing to understand

1.  this  was not  at some camp resort
2. this was not at a lake
3. this was not at a pond
4. this was  not in some snow climate
5. it was not raining
6. it was not cold weather  from the north

Some of you are only Skimming over what you want to see  and not reading the whole story obvioulsy!

Lets get some Facts Straight here.

1.  This was at the Ocean  On the beach.   There is No Electrical hook up  on the Ocean
2. This was in North Carolina  USA! 

camperguy,

Yes, you said you were at the ocean in two posts before the last one. Some campgrounds at beaches do have electric hookups (including State campgrounds here in California). I looked back at your posts. While you say "at the beach" and "at the ocean", you did not say "no electric hookups" in the first two posts. Not everyone trying to be helpful is familiar with this specific beach.

Since the Ozark Trails tents are not backpacking tents, I made the (probably unwarranted assumption) that you were car camping. Cars and trucks have electricity, and there are 12VDC electric heaters and AC units that can be used in a tent (our local Big 5 has them). As I mentioned, there are generators that are easily carried in a car for car camping. On the rare occasions I stay in a car camping campground, I see (and hear) these generators frequently, some running heaters and in summer portable AC units (and in one campground recently, a big screen projection TV). So electricity for beach camping is not an absurd idea. As a ham radio operator, I have a small generator for emergency operations (we have earthquakes out here on the Left Coast, and for the big one in 1987, I put it to good use for the real-life emergency communications and keeping the refrigerator running for the 2 days before power was restored. I also used it during one of the hurricanes while we were living in Mississippi). You could even use them at a lake resort or a beach park which does not have electric hookups.

Sounds like to me that you have to accept the fact of life given by TheRambler, whomeworry, mikemorrow, and and brooklynkayak in their posts - in humid conditions, there is condensation and things get wet.

Ok Camperboy, I'm going to cut to the chase. Your tent is poorly made. Get a new one. We have all been there, done that. It looks to me that you arnt willing to take the advice givin to you. Otherwise just keep doing the same thing, expecting differant results.

As far as your last post. The answers to your facts,,,,,,,So? We all gave you the facts of camping. If you dont like to camp stay at a hotel.

Camperguy,

The same problems can be present whether you are at the ocean, or in a river canyon. The same principles apply. As I have said before here on Trailspace, I have had water bead up and run down my waterproof rain suit, while hiking, when there was no rain whatsoever. My tent suffered the same trouble. I was camping in a river canyon in the mountains with water vapor in the air so heavy you could swat it away; I was wearing the rain suit trying to shield my clothing from getting wet. After hiking in the mist the previous day it became apparent my clothing would get damp just from the water in the air.

That's just the way it is sometimes. You have to gain the experience needed to manage different situations, dry, wet, hot, cold, & the resulting effect these variables have on you and your gear.

You also need gear designed to handle these situations, the tent you had, sadly was not.

Simply put, what you experienced was condensation, also referred to as dew in this situation. There was most likely also some water vapor in the air due to the ocean waves, but the remedy is the same.

Dew: the water droplets formed by condensation of water vapor on a relatively cold surface of an object. It forms when the temperature of an object drops below the dew point temperature.

There is no easy button to solve this problem, all we can do is offer our advise based on experience dealing with condensation.

Edit: We are giving you our best advise based on your statement of what occurred -

 "every night when the sun went down   everything got wet.  Even though It did not rain.    I had a towel hanging  on a line    that got wet    chairs got wet    the inside of the tent and out side of the tent got wet ,  my sleeping bag got wet.      This was over 4th of July weekend.      No clouds  No rain  Clear night skys   all 4 days  I was there.    it seemed like everything   had a vast amount of condensation."   

seems to me like the OP doesn't really want the advice we have to give.

Between all of the responses he has gotten, I'd say there is close to 200 years of combined experience in camping, backpacking, hiking, and climbing, and he is stuck on giving us a spiel about how unique it is to camp next to the ocean??

Camperguy, you're getting a lot of good advice here, don't be rude, just take it or leave it.

The best advice you've gotten so far - get a new tent, your current tent is a piece of crap from Walmart. If you don't want to get so wet, the first step, no matter WHERE you camp, needs to be high quality.

end of story.

Speaking of wet ... I had a "dewey" night this past August near Lower Cathedral Lake in Yosemite.  I was camped a reasonable distance from the lake, and a little above it, in a sandy spot amongst the granite slabs.  I camped in my Big Agnes Copper Spur UL1 without the fly installed.  I love the open feeling of it like that, yet I'm also protected from the 'skeeters.

But during the night the mesh, lower tent walls, and the top of my sleeping bag (Marmot Helium) got very wet.  Also each end of the bag got wet where it touched the tent walls.  Fortunately it repelled the water well enough so it didn't wet the down.  But the surface was pretty wet (and didn't feel all that good with the wet hood around my face :).

I think the temp got into the high 30's that night.  'course as soon as the hot August sun came up in the morning, things dried right out.

Here's the tent set up on the rocks to dry before I packed it up to hit the trail.  And note the juxtaposition of the brand spanking new tent and ~32 year old Kelty D4 pack :).  In fact my whole camp kitchen is set up there, with my bowl of oatmeal & mug of tea :).

If your on the ocean shore in NC in anything but summer weather, everything will get wet, Walmart tent or the super-elite mountaineer tents, condensation does not very depending on how expensive the tent.

Wind resistance, and other issues, especially weight, are a bigger problem with budget tents.

The Walmart tents I have seen have pretty good ventilation and ventilation is the key.

Breathable material can help but only in certain conditions, not when the humidity is at 100+% everywhere like on a NC shoreline at 5:00AM.

As I stated before, it's all about how you deal with the dampness that its key. Once you adjust your gear and methods to match and don't let the dampness bother you, it won't ruin your trip.

I have been on 10 day trips with consistent rain and/or fog. Where none of my gear every dried.

That happens in coastal areas a few time a year.

I was wearing hydrophobic clothing and aired my gear out as much as possible.

Others on the trip never aired out their gear and kept clothing in air tight bags. After 10 days everything they owned reeked of mildew.

brooklyn -

the double walled tents would definitely be better than a single walled if the rainfly is installed and used correctly. 

I don't know if Ozark makes a double walled, but I'm guessing it doesn't. While a double walled won't fix the problem completely, it will sure help a lot.

brooklynkayak said:

If your on the ocean shore in NC in anything but summer weather, everything will get wet, Walmart tent or the super-elite mountaineer tents, condensation does not very depending on how expensive the tent....

Note that the OP said:

I went camping this past summer  on Carolina Beach  in  North Carolina.....

I didn't enounter this problem last summer..

He commented in his second post that it was about 20 deg cooler than the previous summer.

This was over 4th of July weekend. No clouds No rain Clear night skys all 4 days I was there.

So it happens in summer as well.

Two meteorological conditions that produce lots of condensation - clear night skies (lots more ground radiation escaping to the sky, hence more ground cooling), and the opposite, such high humidity that there is a lot of fog. Opposites, yes, but the difference is that in the "clear sky" case, the ground gets cold, as does everything on the ground, so in high humidity conditions, you can get the condensation on the objects. This also requires a lack of condensation centers, so generally calm, windless nights. In the fog case, it's basically the same thing, except that you have condensation centers (near the ocean, this means usually enough breeze to stir up white caps, hence salt particles in the air to act as condensation centers).

On an overcast night, the cloud cover acts as a blanket to keep the surface air layer somewhat warmer, hence less condensation - see, water vapor is a much more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, especially when it condenses into clouds and forms a reflective layer not too far above the ground.

WOW!!!

Guys   some of you  dont need to be so snippy.     No offense but  One response was down right Catty!      Keep it clean and be nice   

The guy was just asking for advice  some payed attention to Details  Some did not.      I think the guy was just trying to re ittirate a point.

Camperguy  I have camped  in both NC and SC   and  it can be a very unique experience   I hope this helps so here goes!

   Get one of those Catalitic heaters you can put in a tent,   run it a few hours before you go to sleep in the tent.   Just make sure there is good ventilation!   You don't want carbon Monoxide poisoning!      the heat will raise the inside temp of your tent   and help prevent condensation  due to cooler night temperatures.. 

Even though there is a much lower risk with a catalytic heater  there is still that risk of carbon monoxide.   So use caution!    

Also you may want to try something called  " Damp Rid"    you can usually buy at any Home Depot  or  Lowes  home improvement centers.  also   there are  tent sprays  that will  help keep moisture at a Minimum

Double walled tents are good for   cooler  or rainy weather.    thats really about it  but thats my opinion!

To anyone coming in late on this thread, It may be pertinent to note that some of the OP's aggressive comments have been removed by the moderators, and that he has now been banned because of his behavior.

Even though I did not leave a reply, I have been following the thread in astonishment at the OP's responses.

What did the OP  say?

Thank you all for your thoughtful and sane attempts to help, but I think it's time to lock this thread.

"Joe Wiggins" knows exactly what the OP said.

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