Review: Big Agnes Seedhouse SL 2
Date Reviewed: 10/16/2004
Date Updated: 07/08/2005
Product Reviewed: Big Agnus Seedhouse 2 SL
Retail Price: $299.99
I got a Big Agnus Seedhouse 2 SL early in the spring this year, and have used it on two Boundary Waters trips, a long distance kayaking trip, and car camping. When combined together this amounts to over two months of camping, so this tent has seen a good amount of use in some hard conditions. Here are my impressions:
It's Awfully Light
Although weighing fewer than four pounds and built with silicone nylon, the Seedhouse seems durable enough. During the testing period, the nylon held up without a scratch even without using a ground tarp to protect the floor, but the mesh canopy has developed many runs and a couple holes in the pockets during this time. It seems that with this tent some durability is sacrificed for reduced weight. UPDATE: 2/10/06 - The zipper on the canopy also tore out and had to be repaired in the field when my backpacking partner tripped and fell onto the tent.
That there Zipper Leaks like a Sieve
In order to accomplish some of the weight savings, Big Agnus has chosen
to use a waterproof zipper. By doing this, they were able to skip using
rain flaps to cover the zipper and save the weight of fabric. Although
this works and the zipper is waterproof, one night during a thunderstorm,
I awoke to the drip, drip, drip of a Chinese water torture coming down
on my head. In the morning, I discovered that the seam joining the zipper
to the rain fly wasn't factory sealed. I made it through the rest
of the trip and then sealed the seam and haven't had any problems
since then. This isn't the only problem with the vestibule door
and rain though. When entering or exiting the tent during rain, the
door allows water to fall into the inside of the tent. I found that
I had to smack the tent to make most the water run down the front of
the tent, so the vibration of opening the zipper wouldn't cause
water to run into the tent. If I were to redesign this tent, I would
change the vestibule door to a two-zipper design with each zipper running
from the stake to the top of the tent. Then you could use trekking poles,
paddles, etc ... to hold up the vestibule door and become an awning.
(This would be similar to the SD Meteor Light.)
Condensation
The specter of condensation was held at bay even during hot humid midwestern days in August, except no matter where placed, in the morning there would be a good amount of condensation between the tent floor and the ground. I haven't seen this often in any of the tents that I've used before, so it remains a mystery to me. I suspect it has something to do with the silnylon used.
Shine on You Crazy Diamond
One of my favorite features in the tent is the pocket above the door. If you put a headlamp in this pocket it points down into the tent and provides the right amount of light for playing games, reading books, or just organizing the maps for the next day.
Here a Zipper, There a...
In contrast to the great placement of the above-mentioned pocket, the zippers leave a lot to be desired. The canopy door uses two zippers that meet in the lower right corner. This makes several problems, the first of which is that the person sleeping on the left side of the tent has to fumble over the person on the right side in order to open the door. The second is much more annoying: When opening the door to adjust the venting of the vestibule zipper, you have to open the zipper very widely, which in the Minnesota Northwoods during bug season lets a ton of blood suckers into the tent. It is also hard to get the zippers to come together and close completely, which results in a small hole that bugs, somehow manage to get into. Had Big Agnus used a door that opened to the bottom instead of the side and had they used one continuous zipper with two pulls the tent would have been much more user friendly.
Wow! It's Tight in Here
The zipper would have been much more annoying, if the tent was bigger than it is, but there is very little distance between the person on the left and the zipper on the far right. It was tight sleeping with two people, so you better be very friendly. Most of the summer, I used this as a solo tent, but on those few occasions that I used it with a friend, we both agreed that we wouldn’t have wanted to be stuck inside during a rain day. That being said, it was still roomy enough for two to sleep, and it was a great size for one person. Just don't expect to spend a lot of time inside sitting up or moving around.
The Set-Up
This tent uses a unique pole system to set up. The pole is a single pole with hubs at either end that split into two separate poles. (This is what Eureka should have done with the classic Boy Scout tent, the Timberline.) This makes it easy to set-up, and when staked out with only 5 stakes, it is solid in storms. During several nasty windstorms in the Boundary Waters, the tent didn't budge a bit. The set-up and design impressed me, but by the end of the year, the poles where starting to bend into a curved shape.
Conclusion
Although, I have said a few negative things about this tent, I feel
that overall, it is a great lightweight tent and by far the best out
of all of the sub four to four and a half pound tents. In order to reach
that weight, they had to compromise on a few design issues: the weight
of the bug mesh, placement of the door on the rain fly, but these are
small issues. The biggest flaw that the tent has is the zipper design
on the canopy. This needs to be fixed. I recommend this tent for anyone
looking for the best of the lightweight tents on the market.
UPDATE - 2/10/06
After a reader wrote to me thanking me for the review, he mentioned that the waterproof zipper now had a rain flap over it. So, I checked it on Big Agnes's website, gave Big Agnes a call. They told me to send the tent in for a replacement, and when it came back I had a new fly with the rain flap over the zipper. This fixes all the water problems I had with the zipper -- a huge improvement. On the warranty sheet, I failed to mention the ripping out of the door zipper on the canopy and the holes in the bug netting, so they didn't repair or replace the canopy. Mainly, that was my fault, because, coming from retail, when we sent a defective item in with most companies, they would just send us back a new one. I assumed that this would be the same with this tent. The lesson I learned was to fill out the form with every problem you've had with the item. My fault for assuming and not theirs. This rain fly fix - the new flap - puts this tent back on top as the king of sub-four pound tents. It is highly recommended.
YE OLD UPDATE - NOT TRUE ANYMORE
My initial review of this tent was pretty rosy. I felt that the tent provided a good value and weight savings for the money, but after this spring in non-stop rain, I discovered a fatal flaw which earns this test The Famous Nessmuking Do Not Buy Award. The waterproof zipper leaks. Last year, I thought that it was the seams because they were not sealed, but I sealed them, and found that the leak comes through the zipper itself. It leaks right through the teeth. Without a new zipper, there is no way to fix this problem, so I suggest looking elsewhere for a lightweight tent.