I bought two of these tents new last year from a yard sale. The were never opened by the seller. We have only been using one since. After a pretty bad storm at the beach, a few of the poles broke…so we are moving onto the next new one and selling the first for parts. The campground received a moderate rain on the second night and the roof collected water in several places, causing the screen house to collapse. This was not a heavy rain by any means as no other shelters or tents collapsed.
Just had to comment after reading these old reviews of folks who couldn’t seem to set it up without either A. It take 2 people at least to set this screen house up. Tried to buy replacement parts but they were discontinued. Repaired the cracked gable with duct tape and was able to use it one more time but then gave up on the cracked part and bought another smaller screen room. Had I have known that this particular screen house was so hard to find, I would have bought a kit and tried to repair it.
Dozens of two-foot sections of pipe spilled onto the floor with stickers labeling them ‘1B’, ‘4’, or ‘2B’. Childhood memories of failures with Tinker Toys came flooding back. But, with determined hope, I began to wade through the instructions.
My family and I have used it a total of 3 times and the seams have ripped. There is no way we can camp with this tent, if it would rain it would ruin everything. This tent is only $47 at Walmart, however that is not the point. The hubs on the tent and the construction of the design are worthless. A light misting rain and it’s all over. The hubs break and the legpoles bend beyond repair.
Then I started having other wild fantasies, like effectively adding a room to the desert shack where I live by erecting the shadehouse in the backyard. We love the size of the tent and we used it for a week with no problems. The second time we set it up one of the poles snapped and now I can’t find where I can get replacement poles. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have large screen house and I love it. It gets used very hard every summer.
Hopefully I can find a replacement part. I contacted Wal-Mart (1-800-WALMART) to see where I could get a replacement pole for the tent. They are idiots and seemed ozark trail sun shelter like they didn’t want to help me by supplying me with the manufacturer’s phone number. When I got the thing home and deboxed it, the reality began to set in.
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. Some middle sections fell out but I had a standing frame of sorts, swaying and wobbling. Nobody wants to spend all day sitting in direct sunlight either though, and that’s where a tent with a screen room like this Ozark Trail 9 Person Cabin comes into play.
I was wondering if anyone out there can e-mail me the manual. The set-up is extremely complicated and took two persons over an hour to complete, including all staking of the structure ozark trail screen house and guy lines as required by the instructions. We placed the screen house over a picnic table at the campsite and it did a fairly good job of keeping insects out while we were eating.