GUIDE TO SCREEN TENTS

Wenzel Titan 18- by 16-Foot Eight-Person Three-Room Family Dome Tent with Screen Porch

Manufacturer : Wenzel
In Stock : 0

List Price:

$179.99

Features

Three-room eight-person tent measures 18 by 16 feet (288 square foot area)
Includes gear loft for storage and two divider curtains to create three rooms in main cabin
Five-way center hub with pin and ring system for quick and easy set-up
Removable fly; large screen porch
Center height of 78 inches; 31-pound carry weight

Product Description

Wenzel Titan Family Dome Tent: 3 separate rooms to sleep 6-7 AND a spacious front porch? Just sell the house and move it! Need a little privacy? You got it! Want to have coffee on the porch in bug-free comfort? Sure! The Wenzel Titan does both with three separate rooms and a screened porch to keep the bugs at bay. But don't think all the space makes this tent a clunker to set up. Because the Sycamore uses uses a unique 5-way center hub with Fast Feet and clip system for quick and easy set-up - less time setting up means more time enjoying your stay in the wild! And just like all Wenzel tents this one is quality built, comfortable and expertly designed. Built for serious family camping fun: Generous 18' x 10' base size with 74" center height; Updraft Ventilation System provides excellent airflow in tent; Removable fly, with hoop frame over door; Shockcorded fiberglass frame for ease of assembly; Tub style welded polyethylene floor with rain shingle for excellent weather protection; Light-yet strong polyester taffeta walls... two divider curtains to create three rooms in main cabin; Includes gear loft for storage; 3 polyester mesh windows let the breezes in, keep even the smallest critters out; Easy-access Dutch "D" style zippered door; Lightweight, non-rusting plastic pegs; Carry weight: 22 lbs. Get more fun out of your camping with Wenzel. Order Today! Wenzel Titan 3 Room Family Dome Tent w/ Screen Porch

Product Description

Take the whole family camping and enjoy private time at the same time with the Wenzel Titan (36270) three-room dome-style tent, which can comfortably sleep up to seven campers. The rooms are created by simply zipping up the two divider curtains. It has a base area of 18 by 16 feet (with a 139 square foot area) and a center height of 78 inches. It offers easy access with three Dutch D-style doors with three windows featuring polyester no-see-um mesh and one inverted T-style door. Wenzel's Updraft Ventilation System provides excellent airflow. Sturdily constructed, it features a five-way center hub with pin and ring system for quick and easy set-up. Enjoy the last light of the evening with a large screen porch.

The tent's Weather Armor polyester fabric provides reliable water repellency and is enhanced with an additional polyurethane coating. It has a welded polyethylene tub-style floor that's welded, not sewn (eliminating stitching and needle holes) and a rain shingle layer on the lower portion of the tent wall that provides a water shed effect. Other features include a shock-corded fiberglass frame, gear loft storage, and a removable fly with hoop frame.

Specifications:

Base Size: 18 x 16 feet
Center Height: 78 inches
Style: Rectangular Dome
Seasons: Three
Area: 139 square feet
Sleeps: Eight people
Door: One inverted "T" style and three Dutch "D" style
Windows: Three, made of polyester mesh
Floor: Welded Polyethylene
Frame: Fiberglass/Steel
Pegs: Plastic
Weight: 31 pounds
Center Height: 78 inches
Fly Material: Polyester
Wall Material: Polyester/Mesh
Roof Material: Polyester/Mesh
Netting: 40 Denier No-see-um
Pole Size: 9.5 millimeters

Manufacturer's Warranty
Ten-year warranty

Amazon.com Tent Guide
Selecting a Tent
Fortunately, there are all kinds of tents for weekend car campers, Everest expeditions, and everything in-between. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Expect the Worst
In general, it's wise to choose a tent that's designed to withstand the worst possible conditions you think you'll face. For instance, if you're a summer car camper in a region where weather is predictable, an inexpensive family or all purpose tent will likely do the trick--especially if a vehicle is nearby and you can make a mad dash for safety when bad weather swoops in! If you're a backpacker, alpine climber or bike explorer, or if you like to car camp in all seasons, you'll want to take something designed to handle more adversity.

Three- and Four-Season Tents
For summer, early fall and late spring outings, choose a three-season tent. At minimum, a quality three season tent will have lightweight aluminum poles, a reinforced floor, durable stitching, and a quality rain-fly. Some three-season tents offer more open-air netting and are more specifically designed for summer backpacking and other activities. Many premium tents will feature pre-sealed, taped seams and a silicone-impregnated rain-fly for enhanced waterproofness.

For winter camping or alpine travel, go with a four season model. Because they typically feature more durable fabric coatings, as well as more poles, four-season tents are designed to handle heavy snowfall and high winds without collapsing. Of course, four-season tents exact a weight penalty of about 10 to 20 percent in trade for their strength and durability. They also tend to be more expensive.

Domes and Tunnels
Tents are broadly categorized into two types, freestanding, which can stand up on their own, and those that must be staked down in order to stand upright. Freestanding tents often incorporate a dome-shaped design, and most four-season tents are constructed this way because a dome leaves no flat spots on the outer surface where snow can collect. Domes are also inherently stronger than any other design. Meanwhile, many three-season models employ a modified dome configuration called a tunnel. These are still freestanding, but they require fewer poles than a dome, use less fabric, and typically have a rectangular floor-plan that offers less storage space than a dome configuration. Many one and two-person tents are not freestanding, but they make up for it by being more lightweight. Because they use fewer poles, they can also be quicker to set up than a dome.

Size Matters
Ask yourself how many people you'd like to fit in your fabric hotel now and in the future. For soloists and minimalists, check out one-person tents. If you're a mega-minimalist, or if you have your eye on doing some big wall climbs, a waterproof-breathable bivy sack is the ticket. Some bivy sacks feature poles and stake points to give you a little more breathing room. Also, if you don't need bug protection and you want to save weight, check out open-air shelters.

Families who plan on car camping in good weather can choose from a wide range of jumbo-sized tents that will accommodate all your little ones with room to spare. A wide range of capacities is also available for three- and four-season backpacking and expedition tents. Remember, though, the bigger the tent you buy, the heavier it will be, although it's easy to break up the tent components among several people in your group. It's also helpful to compare the volume and floor-space measurements of models you're considering.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating of 4.50 out of 13 reviews

Rating :
Love This Tent - Melanie Stricker, Oct 11, 2007

I bought this tent last summer and have used it many times. I love this tent! Very roomy! I have to respond to another review about it taking two people to set up, I am a mother of two young girls that I take camping alot during the summer and I have no problem setting this tent up myself. The only negatives I found is the leaky cover which can be fixed and the bag that they think you can put the tent back into.

Rating :
good buy - B. Kays, Oct 07, 2007

I bought them late in the year so I only had a chance to use it once
but was pleased with my purchase. The quality was excellent and the it was easy to put it up.

Rating :
Great Tent - Penny Law, Sep 17, 2007

This is a great tent for the money. It was spacious and easy to put together. You will need more than one person to put together because one has to hold one side while the other side is secured. The side rooms are not very big but they will hold a twin sized air mattress and each has its own exit. The "porch" does not have a floor but is a great place to store gear. We have not used this in the rain, so I can't give a comment on that. It says that it is a 8 person tent but if you want to be comfortable I would recommend only 6-7 persons. Overall good construction and quality. We are planning to use again for our camping adventures.

Rating :
A Great Tent at a Great Price (just seal the rain-fly first) - Craig C. Chapman, Aug 29, 2007

My two boys and I went camping on our wooded, 60+ acre property in Upstate New York for the first time in five years last week. Among the things we all agreed that we wanted on this trip was a tent that gave us room to move about and not be sleeping on top of each other.

I'm delighted to say that over the 6-days and 5 nights we enjoyed the great outdoors, the Wenzel Titan Three-Room Family Dome Tent with Screen Porch met all of our expectations for roominess and comfort, with one exception which I'll discuss later.

At the campsite, it took a little time to figure out the best location and orientation of our new tent, given its very large footprint. Once we did though, the whole thing went together and up in under 45 minutes. The only challenges came in vainly struggling to use what turned out to be the porch poles over one of the siderooms (we finally discovered that though they looked identical, they were different lengths), an S hook which snapped apart and having to re-orient the tent so the porch was sufficient distance from the fire pit. People considering this tent should note that it absolutely cannot be set up by one person operating alone; to that point, the Boys [ages 10 and 13] gave much needed assistance in setup.

The Wenzel tent is very roomy and comfortable with room for 3 adult-sized cots and all our (non-edible) gear. Plus, being 6' 2", this is the first tent I've ever owned where I could stand fully upright inside. There is also ample floorspace for one to stand and to move around the furnishings without climbing over them. Even though each room has its own convenient exit, the Boys quickly established a protocol for exclusively using the main entrance [through the screened porch area] as an "airlock" to ensure the insects stayed outdoors where they belong; a pair of obliging Wolf Spiders took up sentry posts in the upper corners of the porch area to dispose of any insects unlucky or foolish enough to venture into the porch area. We also set up a folding chair for donning and removing our shoes and carpeted the floor of the porch area with two of the three bags of pine nuggets we'd brought with us to the site to minimize the degradation of the turf into mud.

My chief complaint about this tent [and the principal reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5] came on the third day, which started with a heavy thunderstorm. The "tub-design" floor, the tent's side panels, windows and zippered seams all lived up to their promise of non-leakage. But out of the bag, the rain-fly proved inadequate to the task of keeping the water out. Within 5 minutes of the onset of the storm, we began to get drips in the main room; within 10 minutes, the leaks extended to the adjacent rooms. While not major leaks, had the storm come in the middle of the night or lasted longer, our sleeping bags and belongings would've become uncomfortably wet.

After the rain subsided, further investigation revealed that while the fabric was absolutely watertight, the seams were not. Moreover, the design of the fly places the meeting point of all the panels directly at the crown of the tent, from which seams extend the length of the fly directly over the adjacent rooms. In my opinion, the rain-fly could've been better designed by placing the stitched seams over the waterproof areas of the tent and not over the screened roof areas. Wenzel would do well to devote some attention to this, or otherwise sealing the stitched seams at the factory.

However since the rain-fly wasn't so designed (and we still had 3 days on our trip with more rain on the way), we sought a solution to seal the leaks as quickly as possible. The hardware store in the nearby town recommended something called "VLP" - a vinyl and fabric repair and waterproofing product in a tube, that dries quickly and retains its flexibility - to seal the seams. Since time was limited due to more approaching storms and the product recommended 2 hours dry time, I focussed my VLP application to the main trouble seams over the crown of the tent. The compound filled the seams, dried quickly and sufficiently enough to reduce the leakage by about 70% - even though the next storm arrived only 45 minutes after application. I used the privacy tarps to make a tent-within-the-tent and placed the sleeping bags, pillows and blankets inside it and on top of my cot to keep everything dry. I then turned the Boys' cots on their sides to avoid getting wet and we went into town to wait for the rain to pass.

About 4 hours later, we had about a quart of water on the downhill-corner of the tent floor and the skies had cleared sufficiently to allow a proper sealing job. The Boys and I sopped out the water, removed the fly and spread it out on the ground. I removed my boots and set to work applying the VLP sealant to the rest of the seams; I gave a second application to the crown area.

After allowing about an hour's dry time on the ground, we reattached the rain-fly to the tent. While more storms passed all around us that evening, through the night and into the following day, the first test of the sealed fly didn't come until 26-hours after application, when a storm that was very similar to the first storm struck - no leaks. Rain continued off and on throughout the night and I'm pleased to say we did not have a single leak from the fly or any other part of the tent.

The tent remained dry despite occasional storms on Days 4 and 5 and heavy dew on the fifth night. Recommendation: seal your rain-fly seams in advance of your camping trip, or you'll almost certainly wish you had.

Day 4 was very hot, with local temperatures reaching 93°. By nightfall, it had only cooled to the upper 70's. Yet the tent's ventilation was exceptional, allowing for a nice breeze to pass through and up through the roof, aided in part by the novel zippered vent near the ground of the tent. The protection of the screened porch allowed us to keep the main entrance partly unzippered despite the threat of rain, aiding airflow and making for a comfortable sleep despite the high temperatures.

On Day 6, we broke camp. The tent disassembled easily and quickly. But as other reviewers have indicated, the bag is simply too small and the tent components too bulky to force back into the bag provided in a reasonable amount of time, by anything other than an industrial appliance. We ended up keeping the poles in their own bag, separate from the main tent, tarps and stakes.

On the whole, the Wenzel Titan Three-Room Family Dome Tent made for a wonderful camping experience. We look forward to using it again very soon and recommend it to anyone who wants spacious, portable shelter as a part of their family camping experience. Just remember to seal your rain-fly seams, first.

Rating :
Great tent for the price - C. Clark, Aug 07, 2007

The tent went up quick and was very easy to set up. The first night we used the tent it poured out. I did spray the seams and the rain fly with waterproof spray and water only came in by the door that we were using. I would recommend spraying the tent if you are expecting rain, even if it is the first time that you have used the tent. The tent had enough room for a queen and two twin mattress's. I would definitely recommend this tent.

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