Since I dumped on Outside Magazine’s Gear Guy last week, I may as well make up for it in response to a consumer-friendly response to a reader who wonders if there’s really any need to buy one of those special footprints REI and other outdoor retailers sell. The gist of the reply:
A tent footprint or ground cover simply helps protect the floor of the tent from abrasion. …
How necessary this is, well, that’s an open question. I mean, we used to pitch tents without footprints all the time, and I can’t recall anything bad coming from it. … Still, on rough, gritty ground, it’s a way to protect your investment (as is pitching the tent in the shade and staking it out tightly so it can’t thrash around). ..But I don’t think you need to buy a purpose-built footprint.
I confess I’ve bought a couple of those made-to-fit footprints. They’re tough but a bit heavy for backpacking purposes. It makes just as much sense, as Gear Guy advises, to use cheap plastic from a hardware store.
I either use a footprint (when I can get one cheap on sale) or a cut-to-fit piece of hardware store plastic (cheap, but they don’t last as long). Some of my friends use Tyvek.
Eventually your tent floor will wear out. Using a footprint may delay this such that the floor doesn’t wear out years before the rest of the tent.
Dan
I have had 2 tents wear out on me, a canvas wall tent, and a nylon dome tent.
The canvas tent I inherited from my Dad, it was WW2 army surplus, it lasted almost 50 years, and was used every summer. It was very well cared for.
The dome tent I had for around 12 years. It was a very inexpensive model with a poly tarp floor. I carried it at all times in my vehicles and used it quite often. It was abused.
I had a couple of stiched up rips in the floor of the canvas tent, caused by a branch. There were no repairs to the floor of the dome tent at all.
Except for a short period of time when I used a piece of carpet under part of the wall tent’s floor (for a better sleeping area) I never used any form of footprint at all, and never had a problem with the floor.
-I use a homemade cloth footprint under the dome tent I use now and an old poly tarp under my new canvas wall tent, but that is mainly to ease cleaning and packing.
-The majority of the time I don’t use a tent anymore, I use a tarp. And this summer I’m trying a hammock.