Ground Covers increase the life of your Part Tent Top and Bounce Houses
Day-to-day upkeep of your tent parts, bounce house and event tents is an integral part of ensuring your equipment has a long and useful life. In addition to proper tensioning, transportation, and correct canopy top cleaning techniques, use of a drop cloth can go a long way toward maintaining a tent in great shape.
When choosing a drop cloth size, make sure you can cover up the entire area of the tent top with an additional 4’-5’ leeway on each edge. This means that for a 20’ x 20’ tent, you will need to cover an area approximately 25’ wide and 25’ long. Drop Cloths from Celina Tent come in 25’x25’ Square, 25’x45’ Rectangular, 35’x35’ Square, and 45’x45’ Square. Any of these can be combined when the length of the tent extends past the dimensions of the cloth; always remember to overlap drop cloths by 5’ to ensure proper coverage. For tents with widths wider than 40’, additional drop cloths will need to be placed side by side for the width.
The specific use of drop cloths or ground covers is to reduce the occurrence of pin holes on the tent top, and to reduce the amount of residual dirt that can accumulate on the tent fabric during installation. Laying out a drop cloth before unrolling the tent creates a buffer layer between the ground and tent fabric. This layer does not create an impenetrable guard on the bottom of the fabric; as always you should not walk on tent fabric while it is laid out on the ground. Added pressure can and will cause holes and scuffing should any rough material be under the tent top.
To reiterate: Drop cloths do not make it OK to walk on tent top fabric.
While it may appear that drop cloths are more work than they are worth, just image the creation of a single pin hole per installation and tear down. Multiply that by the number of installations a tent goes through in a year, the amount of cleaning the top goes through, and the drying times. Can you catch every hole before it’s packed away at the season’s end? If you can’t, that’s one more way moisture can enter the scrim on your tent, most likely leading toward irreversible scrim mold.
Keep you tent in the best condition it can be in; guard it with a drop cloth for every installation and tear down. Drop cloths are also advised for use when installing or striking sidewalls, which are created from the same fabric as most tent tops.
Check out these videos on the Celina Tent YouTube Page:
Why Use Drop Cloths?
How to Use a Drop Cloth for Sidewalls