Ordered a New Clam Tent

[Huck]

I ordered a new Clam tent.

I think this might solve some of the problems I had with my old Clam 6 pack. This one comes with a floor, has built in wind panels that are attached to the tent and roll up and down, mesh panels in the wind panels that can be opened or closed, and a lighter colored roof. I think it also has rain flaps that cover the wind panels to prevent water from leaking in.

A tip I got from Clam Outdoors. I had a problem a few times with the roof collapsing. Here's the recommendation if it ever happened to you.

As for the roof hub collapsing this can happen but is rare when the shelter is deployed correctly. The 2 most common reasons the roof collapses are due to the shelter being staked out in a manner that is more than the shelters original footprint. This takes tension away from the roof and can cause unexpected roof collapse. Additionally when tethering the shelter the tether ropes should always be tied to the eyebolts in the center of the hub. From this point you want to put the stake about 1' just outside of the ground skirt to hold the shelter down. Many choose to put the stake out aways from the skirt creating an angle and when tightened it actually pulls the shelter wider than its intended and takes tension away from the roof and actually begins the collapsing process. These are the 2 most common reasons for roof collapse.

I ordered the CLAM PAVILION CAMPER SCREEN SHELTER.

Now with a removable floor, the Quick-Set Pavilion Camper has crossed over into the tent camping space! Includes a durable vinyl floor that can easily be installed and removed with quick position toggles at each inside corner, This feature makes the Pavilion Camper the perfect shelter for your overnight excursions in the outdoors. This shelter also includes all of the great features found on the Pavilion including the zip down privacy wind panels and the larger screen panels.

Here's who I ordered from. I have never bought from them before so can't attest to how they are to deal with, but they had the lowest price I could find. They aren't expected to ship for another week.

https://www.upnorthsports.com/campin...n-shelter.html

[New Orleans John]

[QUOTE=
I ordered the CLAM PAVILION CAMPER SCREEN SHELTER.

Good choice ! Good price too with the floor. Get the roof rain fly, in case ambers from your roaring camp fire land on your roof. An electric fence is nice too if you boondock in bear country

We love ours it's our portable leaving room (4 season, with a Buddy heater inside)

[Captleemo]

Thats a nice looking setup.

[Huck]

This might not be the Clam most of you want to buy. It is heavy. It's difficult for one person to carry it any distance and it is difficult for one person to set up if there is much wind.

I am going to keep it, but I don't think I will be setting it up unless I will be in one place for a while. It is a very nice tent, but it can be a workout setting it up.

It has a lot of great features such as a removable floor, built in wind panels that roll up and down with zip down sides, and built in mesh windows in wind panels that can be open or closed, but it does get pretty hot inside even with the window flaps up.

If there are 2 people and both are physically able to help, then you should be able to handle it OK.

CLAM PAVILION CAMPER SCREEN SHELTER

• Specifications
• Footprint: 110 sq. ft.
• Center Height: 94"
• Hub-to-Hub: 150" x 150"
• Set Up Size: 12.5 ft. across
• Weight: 47 lbs.
• Fabric: 210 Denier Poly-Oxford
• Capacity: Up to 8 people

[New Orleans John]

Originally Posted by Huck

I don't think I will be setting it up unless I will be in one place for a while. It is a very nice tent, but it can be a workout setting it up.

For 1 or 2 night stay we just use the awning.
For a 3 nighter or more, we deploy the Clam. With practice it can be erected by 1 person, 2 is easier & faster. In Summer you need a fan. In Winter you need a Buddy heater.
We added a 'large bay window' using a crystal clear vinyl shower curtain, cut to fit, that we velcro to the side overlooking the best view. The Casita is our bedroom. The Clam is our Living Room, when we need shelter from weather or bugs.

[Huck]

Originally Posted by New Orleans John

For 1 or 2 night stay we just use the awning.
For a 3 nighter or more, we deploy the Clam. With practice it can be erected by 1 person, 2 is easier & faster. In Summer you need a fan. In Winter you need a Buddy heater.
We added a 'large bay window' using a crystal clear vinyl shower curtain, cut to fit, that we velcro to the side overlooking the best view. The Casita is our bedroom. The Clam is our Living Room, when we need shelter from weather or bugs.

My old Clam was easy to set up and take down. This is the 2021 top of the line Clam. The Clam Escape weighs 37 lbs and this one weighs 47. That additional 10 lbs makes a difference.

[RogerDat]

37 lbs. is sweet. Even 47 lbs. isn't too awful compared to the 80 pounds my steel Coleman popup awning weighed.

Set that Coleman on the front couch of a Scamp 13 ft. and have no worries about tongue weight being sufficient. Getting it in and out of the camper was a a cast iron "challenge" shall we say. Storm took it out. Bent the foot plates it was staked to the ground by.

I have been looking at the Clams, they seemed to come through the storms in fairly good shape. I used the same real world observation when I bought a tent. What was still set up and working after a storm in a campground was what I wanted to be shopping for in a tent. Good to be able to read the real world use feedback on a camping item I'm looking at.

[Huck]

Originally Posted by RogerDat

37 lbs. is sweet. Even 47 lbs. isn't too awful compared to the 80 pounds my steel Coleman popup awning weighed.

Set that Coleman on the front couch of a Scamp 13 ft. and have no worries about tongue weight being sufficient. Getting it in and out of the camper was a a cast iron "challenge" shall we say. Storm took it out. Bent the foot plates it was staked to the ground by.

I have been looking at the Clams, they seemed to come through the storms in fairly good shape. I used the same real world observation when I bought a tent. What was still set up and working after a storm in a campground was what I wanted to be shopping for in a tent. Good to be able to read the real world use feedback on a camping item I'm looking at.

My experience is Clams don't do well in strong winds. There isn't a center support pole, it stays up based on tension. I have had the top collapse a couple of times in high winds. The problem is not so much the top collapses, but then your tent turns into a big rain collector.

My new clam seems to be much sturdier than the previous one, so it might prove to be better in wind. I have mine set up in the yard just waiting for a good storm to come through so I can see how it handles it. I'm also planning on carrying an extension pole with me in case I need it to support the top.

With my old Clam, I used additional spikes and then I tied the tent to something like a picnic table just in case. In a couple of really bad storms on the outer banks, the top collapsed, but all I had to do is pop it back up and dump the water out. It was the only tent on both occasions that was still standing.

[RogerDat]

Collapses but the whole thing doesn't fail is the winning solution. May be a mess after the storm but if it pops back into shape and one is still in business that is the solution that I think works. Can't make it strong enough to withstand every storm. Have to take it down as one probably does with an awning.

I settled on dome tent with fiberglass poles. In a storm I have had that thing fold over till I have to move toward the center to keep the sides from slapping my face while I sleep but it doesn't break or blow down. Bamboo vs wind compared to oak tree vs wind.

Sounds like a expanding pole with maybe a tennis ball over the end as a center support might be good idea.

[Alex Adams]

Originally Posted by RogerDat

Sounds like a expanding pole with maybe a tennis ball over the end as a center support might be good idea.

The only issue with that is that it tends to concentrate all the force onto a small area. I have seen plenty of the pop up canopies have the top rip where a tension rod pushes the center of the canopy up.

[Huck]

Another problem I am having with the tent is heat. With the outside temperature about 95, the temperature inside the tent was 120. I am testing some ideas to try to bring the temp down and will post results when I have them.

[Casita Greg]

We've had our Clam 1660 Model, (original 12' six-sider,) for probably about 10 years now. The only thing I didn't like was the "self-healing" entry fly zipper, which would never work right. As you tried to zip it closed, it would maddeningly pull apart just above where it had been zipped. Grr! We ripped the old zipper of and sewed a new 6' YKK #10 Brass zipper on the fly sections and it always works now. We also bought the Velcro screen covers, which we've never used in all that time.

Yes, these Clam tents, with their "no-see-um" screen meshes don't move a lot of air and they can become unbearably hot in the Summer. I much prefer the floorless model because we set up our Camp Chef stove inside it, and I don't want any tent floor under the camp stove for grease to splatter and drip on. We put down a 9' X 12' RV Patio Mat and 3/4 of the Clam sits on it. The part without the Patio Mat under it is where we set up our camp stove. We also bring a propane fueled lava rock fire ring for the evenings when it chills down, and this also sits on the bare ground in that area.

I've only had the roof "collapse" once, and since then we not only stake down the perimeter on all six points, but we've also added a few adjustable guy lines to the upper side corner grommets and haven't had a collapse since, Winds can come up and top 70 mph where we camp. I've seen some afternoon gusts "out-of-nowhere" while camped in the high desert in Northern Nevada that have literally blown nearby tents around like tumbleweeds, even though they had all their camping equipment, including full heavy coolers, inside them.

Water-proofing is nothing more than 3 cans of Scotch Guard waterproof spray annually, just as you would, or should, do for any fabric item to seal it. Never had any rain intrusion even in torrential downpours.

[greybirds2]

Originally Posted by Casita Greg

I've only had the roof "collapse" once, and since then we not only stake down the perimeter on all six points, but we've also added a few adjustable guy lines to the upper side corner grommets and haven't had a collapse since.

I'm currently at a location where the wind is gusting up to 48 mph (according to Ventusky) and the roof of my Clam Escape 12x12 has collapsed twice. The perimeter is staked down on all six points, both at the external eyebolts and at the bottom.
Your tip of adding guy lines to the upper side corner sounds good, but I am not sure I understand how you did this. I see grommets at the top on the outside and "assume" you staked these down? If so, did you use all of them or just some of them and how far out did you put the stakes? Or am I completely wrong?
A picture would help my feeble brain comprehend if that's easier than typing

Thanks heaps!

[Meadowlark]

We're like casita Greg in that we cook in our 12x12 Clam, so I'd be hesitant about one with a floor. And like another poster, we sleep in the Casita and live in the Clam. My husband is a belt and suspenders kind of guy, so we, too, add extra guy ropes if we think we're going to have wind events.



We love the Clam and try to use it every time we camp.



It's not easy handling it single handed, especially when one is on the high side of 60. There are two issues I have gripes about. The website shows how one person drops it and folds it up so it's nice and tightly bundled. Yet there's no clear instruction sheet on just how to do so. Ours always folds up big and pooffy and wrestling it into the bag is like wrestling with a drunk pig.


The other issue is the carrier bag itself. It was designed after the fact, measured with a bundled Clam that probably had never been erected. They really short changed the customer on the amount of nylon material used for the carrier bag. It is as if you have a size 9 foot and the shoe is 8.5. It will never fit as neatly and cleanly as when you first take it out. If they'd added three more inches to the width of the carrying bag, and about the same number at either end, you'd never have any problems tucking it into the bag.



We had used ours two or three times when one of the ground grommets separated from the fabric tag. I called Clam and after some misunderstanding..she thought I wanted to replace the entire Clam when all I wanted was a new grommet-, it came in the mail within a week.


Some advice, when you're about to pack up the Clam, clean the top and sides before you pack it. I use an extendable pole with a dust mop on the end, and use that to brush the top of the clam clean of dew, needles, leaves and the odd bug or two before we drop it. We've even been known to drop it when we think it's going to rain that night. (which it does a lot here in the PNW..rain).Then at the end of our trip, we set it up in the sun, open all the screens, to let it dry out completely. That's when I also check for holes. That's fixable with a tent repair patch.

Keep it clean, keep it waterproofed, and your Clam will last.