Eureka Tetragon

I was a little disappointed with this tent after I pitched it in my backyard to the seal the seams (manufacturer’s recommendation by the way – and a must). The tent alone is nice. Obviously a 12′ by 10′ footprint is plenty of room. But the fly is poorly designed.

Since there are doors on either side, I thought the fly would cover the rear just like the front (in the picture) but that’s not the case. The brim rods are thin fiberglass poles that fit through sleeves in the fly and they attach to exterior guide holes. But the umbrella fly can only be staked on one side.

I placed stakes where the loops are in between the corners to keep it up for 24 hours and let the seam seal cure. It held up nicely until a 15 mph (or so) breeze came through and turned it upside down the following afternoon. All loops that were staked, except the front two where the fly comes out, came out of the ground. Consequently, the left side of the fly completely ripped. So stake out everything/every time in case Mother Nature decides to sneeze on this tent.

You will definitely need a tarp to place underneath it since the floor is made out of the same nylon taffeta as the walls. And I would replace the yellow plastic stakes with aluminum/steel stakes. The tent may stay put in inclement weather but if it’s really nasty, I suspect some rain will make its way through the mesh ceiling even with the fly on because the front/rear do not come below the ceiling like the sides.

The sewn-in gear loft is on the right and just below the mesh ceiling. It can be attached horizontally to store things just above the walls or it can be attached vertically but that will block the view from that window. It would have been nice if the whole thing was detachable. But it will work if/when needed.

The separate room divider can be attached/removed via dog bones fed through loops. It divides the tent into rooms starting from just above the ground and up to the mesh ceiling. If someone is tall, there goes your privacy.

That being said, I think the tent will be OK. I thought I was lucky when I got this on sale for under $100. But I’m glad that’s all I paid. Fortunately, Eureka sells replacement parts so I ordered another fly for $39 plus shipping.

Update (May 25, 2008): I received the fly replacement and it is a huge improvement over the one that originally came with the tent. The new design does not incorporate the flimsy brim rods. And it arches over on both sides where the doors are located. One caveat: you will need to order the pole that has been incorporated into the new design. Otherwise, it will just hang down and could get snagged by the door’s zipper.

When I went to pitch the tent at the camp site by myself, I noticed the fiberglass poles had stress cracks where the poles connect. So while the tent can be pitched by one person, having another person will help reduce that. I would have given this four stars with the new fly but since that happened, it’s still 3 stars in my mind.
Rating: 3 / 5

My sister and I went camping this week, and we took a huuuuge tent with us, which we quickly grew irritated with; it just took too long to set up, and we’d planned to set it up and tear it down each day. So on the second day of our trip, we went to the store and bought this Eureka tent. It’s 7×5′ and it uses clips instead of channels to attach the tent to the poles, so we thought it’d be perfect. We brought it to our site and set it up in no time, and when the time was right, we went to sleep. When we woke up, we were WET! Everything near the perimeter of the tent was wet. It was awful. The cloth itself is not waterproof, so it lets water through, and then, later, since the cloth has absorbed water, it’s still wet when you’re trying to put the tent away. The fly doesn’t zip over the door, so the rain can (and will) blow in there and seep through the zipper. We had to go buy a plastic painting dropcloth and stake it out over the tent so we wouldn’t wake up rained on again. I’m really surprised at all of the 4- and 5-star reviews for this, because we were really unhappy.

Before it started raining, we thought this was a great tent with a couple of shortcomings–cheesy poles and blousy fabric near our heads–which are to be expected at the price we paid! So I guess if you’re in a dry climate (we’re in Oregon), it’s probably a good buy. I’m giving this tent 2 stars, though, because the packaging says “STORMSHIELD” all over it, which is ridiculous. But for a predictably dry climate, I’d give this tent four stars.

Just want to mention again that the tent leaked through the FABRIC, not just the seams or around the zips, so we’d have to have waterproofed the whole thing, not just the seams, to keep it from leaking.

To be fair to Eureka, it’s possible that the tent we received was defective.

We replaced it with a Coleman Sundome, which kept us dry. We put up the Eureka properly, but if you find that hard to believe, then I will condescend to endorse the Coleman Sundome as a tent that will keep you dry even if you are incapable of putting up a tent properly.
Rating: 2 / 5