What about the rain, or the potential for 120-degree heat? For the moment, my dream of an extra room in the back yard has come true. This is one of those products where the instructions are basically a complete fantasy. They make one false unstated assumption after another. What you wind up with is a web of pipes and plastic pieces that falls apart at one end as you assemble the other.
It goes up OK, poles have color coded stickers on them. Been through several severe storms while camping with no issues. Keeps sun and bugs at bay which was my main reason for buying it. The way the poles clip into hubs is a little hard to get apart. We bought this screen tent about 2 years ago and just took it out of the box to put it up.
Then the instructions start to get really funny. ‘Insert the leg poles into the hubs to raise the screenhouse frame’ got the first laugh. The “frame” barely stayed together on the ground. Any attempt to lift a ozark trail canopy corner and insert a leg pole resulted in pipes flying everywhere. I thought of resorting to duct tape, but since I had none handy, with great finesse I managed to lift each corner one pipe segment at a time.
I like that the Alvantor Screen House folds down flat so it’s easy to lay flat on other gear or store in a narrow space. Finally, this shelter features a very fast setup (60 seconds). If you’re taking a camping trip with a small group, the Coleman Instant Screen House Canopy Tent is a great choice.
This is one of the larger camping shelters at 120 square feet, and while the setup isn’t quite instant, most people can manage it in under 30 minutes with 2-3 people. The setup on this monster shelter isn’t bad at all either, and it’s also pretty huge at 150+ square feet, so it’s definitely one of the larger screen shelters on this list. This screen tent features a speedy setup, and even though the tent is light (8.1 pounds), you still get 100 square feet of space and a seven-foot center height.
Like the REI model, the L.L.Bean tent has ample interior pockets, a lantern hook, and a roomy carrying bag, though the bag is of the typical drawstring-sack variety. The whole thing, bag and all, weighs 14 pounds. Several REI reviewers who bought both the tent and the fly for rain protection note that the fly has only two walls, leaving much of the tent exposed. The add-on fly for our runner-up pick, the L.L.Bean Woodlands Screen House, offers four-walled protection, though it’s also more than twice as expensive. Our favorite of the eight canopy tents we tested, the REI Co-op Screen House Shelter ticks all those boxes. However, it isn’t meant as a place to sleep; for that you should choose a regular car-camping tent.