One person vs 2 person tents

Obviously there isn't a one-to-one percentage relationship between desirability of weight savings versus available size. I guess its a mostly subjective choice.

But obviously, a solo tent doesn't save half the weight of a two-person tent. Apparently if you build a tent twice as big, it's not twice as heavy ???? I'm confused about this.

Regardless, there may be a tendency to over-blow the advantages and underplay the disadvantages of solo tents.

Strictly to compare the idea of a 1-person tent with a small 2-person, it looks like the weight saving is roughly, vaguely, averagely, 1.5 pounds, assuming solo use. That's equal to 1.5 pints of water. Here are some numbers comparing pairs of tents that likely have similar construction.It's not a comment on whether they're good or bad.

A Black Diamond Higlight "2 person" tent is 13% heavier and 27% larger than the Black Diamond "1 person" One Shot model.

Golite Shangri-La 2-person" 32% heavier and 113% larger than Golite Shangri-La "1-person." (These two are "tarp shelters.")

Sierra Designs Flashlight is 37% heavier and 65% larger than Sierra Designs Light Year.

Mt Hardwear Helion 2-person 32% heavier, 74% larger than MH Stiletto 1-person.

I've used a "20-sq-foot?" tent quite a lot, but it's now in semi-retirement and I prefer more space, especially after one or two nights out.

I originally purchased the thing in a panic at the idea of heavy packing, and in general, I've gotten lots of use and satisfaction from it and enjoyed having a light and compact load.

Difficult question. It really depends on your personal preferences. I kinda like having a larger shelter so I have more room to spread out my junk.

Some other choices:

A Gossamer Gear 2-person Squall Classic weighs about 26 ounces total. It has almost 30 square feet in the tent itself and seven more in the vestibule.

http://www.gossamergear.com/cgi-bin/gossamergear/Squall_Classic.html

An 8x10 foot silnylon tarp weighs about 15 ounces with stakes and lines, and provides about 40 square feet of excellent coverage, though no bug protection. I use a 6x10 foot tarp for most cool or cold weather hiking.

Another improvement in the space-to-weight area is the Tarptent Rainbow. It's a single person tent, but is considerably lighter and wider than the MSR Hubba (I chose that tent because they somewhat resemble one another.)

So, why do I prefer the Hubba? Mostly because it's easier (for me) to pitch - a little less fussing around to get it taut. Also, on a hot night, I like the option of leaving the fly off for 100% ventilation - can't do that with the Rainbow. Those are "comfort" choices that I'm willing to sacrifice weight and space for - but I certainly wouldn't try to force those choices on you. The Rainbow is a great tent, and I'd recommend you give it a serious look.

Another reason the Hubba works for me is that I'm not carrying very much gear, so I don't need a whole lot of space. Using nearly all MSR gear (not noted for being lightweight), and a Vapor Trail pack, I'm still only carrying 18 pounds for a two-night summer weekend. My pack goes at the foot of the tent, turning my Thermarest Prolite 4 into a full-length pad while solving the problem of where to store the pack. My shoes go under my head, with my Dromlite (inflated with air or filled with water) on top of the shoes to make a pillow. Water bottle, filter, rain gear (in a stuff sack), spare clothing (a pair of socks), first-aid kit, toilet paper, and map case arrange into the 4 corners of the tent, with a tiny bit of room to spare. The Pocket Rocket, Titan kettle, and food are hanging in a tree.

I ended up choosing the Hubba over the Rainbow for these reasons; I didn't need any more tent. By choosing a smaller footprint, I have more potential campsites to choose from, increasing my chances of camping where I want. So, for me, a solo tent is perfect. If you're carrying more gear, or are more comfortable with the extra room, you'll need a bigger tent. Considering that I began camping when a "lightweight" two-person tent weighed 7 pounds and solo tents were unheard of, I think that all tents today are pretty lightweight by comparison.

In my experience, most so-called two-person tents are comfortable for a skinny guy and his dog but maybe not for two average-sized American adults. If you're 5'10", 180lbs and your lady is 5'3" 125lbs, the typical two-person tent will seem small--especially if the trip is longer than 2-3 nights.

My 15YO TNF Tadpole is about the perfect size for a one-person shelter, IMO.

Anymore, I prefer a tarp if the bugs aren't bad. More space plus less weight = good.

I've got something much like NF Tadpole. It was advertised as 3-season+ and has full storm flaps and 27 square feet.. A very nice tent for one person. Amazingly warm, given flaps and full-coverage fly, with snow banked on fly.

Adds way more than ten degrees to ambient air temperature. A full-coverage tarp MIGHT give ten degrees..... Not good for two people that are taller than about 5.'8"....Okay for one on diagonal..

It's heavy...Five pounds maybe. I lost the pole set five years ago and replacement is like--- $200..

I bought a Wanderlust 2-for-2 tent about 6 years ago and it only weighs 29oz. I love the 5'X9' floor space. The tent was made by a thru-hiker who designed a tent for his own use and then started a 1 man WEB based business. I don't know what he is doing now. His WEB site is not up anymore. The only drawback to this tent is that you have to place a pole in the middle of the floor, although for 1 person, you can offset the pole to give you more room. I like it because it is light enough where I don't feel I need to buy a seperate 1 person tent and if the wife or 1 of the kids wants to come along, there is still plenty of room.

John,

I see you're on a shelter kick today. As I mentioned in your tarp thread I use a T.T. Contrail. I like it's VERY light weight and many people who have seen my Contrail for the 1st time are amazed at its spaciousness. You could easily include a medium size dog in the tent - not that I'd want to.

So, for me, I take the Contrail and leave my TNF Tadpole at home unless I know for sure it's going to be very windy.

Eric

"Apparently if you build a tent twice as big, it's not twice as heavy ???? "

The tent isn't actually twice as big. It is only wider.


Picture a box, 12 inches square. It has six sides, each 12x12. Let's say each side weighs 1 pound. So you have a 6 pound box.

Let's make this box twice as wide. To do this the top, bottom, and only two of the sides must double in length. The two other sides (ends) stay the same. So our box now has 4 sides of 12x24 or 2 pounds, and 2 sides at 12x12, or 1 pound. All told that's only 10 pounds.

Difference for our hypothetical box: 10 - 6 = 4 pounds.


You'll notice 2 man tents are seldom twice as wide as 1 man tents. A common width for two man tents is 56-60inches, for one man 34-36 inches. So the weight difference is even less.

I hope this helps.

Off topic. Sorry.
Woh! Tom! Where have you been? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
-Barry

I wish manufacturers would have one good tent design and then offer it in several sizes - like small, medium and large.

I am always amused about diagrams that show the way two people fit in the tent is headt-to-foot. Who gets their head downhill? Who wants to get kicked in the face all night? These tents should not even be called "2-man."

A lot of weight for a tent is in the poles. Reducing pole weight or eliminating poles (use of trekking poles) seems a better way to lighten tents than shave off inches in size. However, single pole tepee type tents have a lot of wasted space.

My main issue with a 2-man tent is the bulk. I have very limited space inside my smaller pack that I use for trips under 1-week length. Going off trail a lot, I do not like to strap stuff on the outside of my pack. I primarily use a 1#6 oz. bivy sack and accept that I will have a few miserable nights.

So it's volume that isn't doubled.

But in your example, floor plan square footage is twice as big.

12x12 = 144 and 12x24=288

There are definitely some concepts here that I don't quite understand.

Volume can be doubled. Square footage (floor surface) can be doubled. It's the overall skin (surface area) that isn't doubled.

If we were to measure the length of the poles they would be doubled either. Let's consider the square tent again and assume a simple two pole set up.


The pole would have 12 inches on each side, plus the tranverse. Using the Pythagoream Theorm we get

H = (S^2 + S^2)^1/2
H = (12^2 + 12^2)^1/2
H = (144 + 144)^1/2
H = (288)^1/2
H = 17
so the total pole length for the small box is 12 + 12 + 17 = 41


For the long box, the sides are again 12, but the tranverse is longer.

H = (S^2 + S^2)^1/2
H = (12^2 + 24^2)^1/2
H = (144 + 576)^1/2
H = (720)^1/2
H = 27
So the total pole length for the large box is 12 + 12 + 27 = 51.


Doubling the size of the tent only added about 25% to the length of each pole.

We saw earlier that doubling the square footage (floor area) and volume of the tent increased the surface area (skin) from
12x12x6=864 to
(12x24x4)+(12x12x2)=1440,
an increase of about 66%.

It's actually simple geometry. To make it less complicated, think of a tent as a box: Volume = Length x Width x Height. The only parameter that differs between a one-person tent and a two-person tent is the width. The length and height will generally be the same for both tents.

Of course in a real-life tent, the height portion of the volume measurement involves curved surfaces, which requires more complicated math, like integral calculus. The floors of many tents are trapezoids (narrower at the foot), just to add to the fun. But the fact remains that there is no way that a one-person tent could be half or even two-thirds the weight of a two-person tent.

There is another consideration--width per person. There are so many different sizes of both "one-person" and "two-person" tents that you really have to go by the floor measurement, primarily the width, to decide how many people can actually sleep comfortably in there (square feet doesn't do it if part of it is unusable for sleeping, like a triangle tucked into a corner). These days most couples when at home sleep in a king-size bed, 72" wide, or a queen-size bed, 60" wide. The old-fashioned "double bed" is 52" wide. A twin bed (standard one-person bed) is 39" wide and an infant's crib is 27" wide. By comparison, many tent manufacturers allow little more than 20" (the width of most sleeping pads) per person in a 2 or 3-person tent. That works, sort of, if you like being really cozy with your tent mate and only one person sits up or even turns over at a time. Consider, though, that nobody would buy a one-person tent only 20" wide--there's no elbow room inside. In other words, there is usually more width per person in a solo tent than in many 2-person tents.

As I suspected it's delightfully complex and I'm afraid I'll never be able to follow you down that trail. But I'm interested in where it's headed.

The floor plan is doubled for weight gain of 40%, assuming a completely enclosed tent with integral floor material (Did I get that right?) The 40% figure would remain constant if you kept on doubling the size?

(a medium-sized rat that is twice as big as a small rat, is 40% heavier? Same with elephants? Is that a totally different question? Must be... "a pint's a pound, the world around." But why wouldn't a one-pint (volume) tent weigh twice what a half-pint tent weighs? Or does it???


This tent is shaped like a rectangular box? Would a wedge (puptent) or other configuration change the calculation? what about floorless tents?

Also, the 66% percent figure for the skin is to double the floor space? Or the volume? or did I get that wrong? Sorry for my confusion...

"The floor plan is doubled for weight gain of 40%, assuming a completely enclosed tent with integral floor material (Did I get that right?) The 40% figure would remain constant if you kept on doubling the size? "

More or less.


"(a medium-sized rat that is twice as big as a small rat, is 40% heavier? Same with elephants? Is that a totally different question? Must be... "a pint's a pound, the world around.""

Completely different question, although the rat analogy is probably close.


" But why wouldn't a one-pint (volume) tent weigh twice what a half-pint tent weighs? Or does it??? "

The space (volume) doesn't weigh anything. Only the skin (surface area) and support (poles, really part of the skin) have weight. That point needs highlighting (smile).


"This tent is shaped like a rectangular box? "

This is our hypothetical easy to illustrate the point tent. Real tents are seldom this simple.


"Would a wedge (puptent) or other configuration change the calculation? what about floorless tents?"

Any other shape will change the calculation. I was using a simple shape to illustrate the point.


"Also, the 66% percent figure for the skin is to double the floor space? Or the volume? or did I get that wrong? Sorry for my confusion... "

Both floor space and volume are doubled. It is the surface area that is not doubled.

Thanks for reply. Don't mean to do a coloquial here, but one last question....

So if you cut the empty rectangular box (tent) in half, diagonally on the long side, & closed up the opening, such that you had a wedge (tent), doubling dimensions of the wedge would increase its weight by.....25%+??. I guess...?

What ever it is, it's roughly the theoretical difference in weight between one-person and two person puptent with identical designs, assuming of course one is twice as large as the other, which, as somebody pointed out above, is unlikely to be the case.

& yet the several examples I looked at, the actual average difference was closer to 35%.

mmm... anyway I like to use a fairly large tarp tent when bug conditions permit. A pound one way or the other isn't going to kill things.

"So if you cut the empty rectangular box (tent) in half, diagonally on the long side, & closed up the opening, such that you had a wedge (tent), doubling dimensions of the wedge would increase its weight by.....25%+??. I guess...?"

Without going through the math, more less less you are correct.


"& yet the several examples I looked at, the actual average difference was closer to 35%."
I expect that in real world cases this number is pretty close.

Looking in my CampMore catalog at these identical except for size tents:
Zeus 1 3lb10oz 23.26sq ft
Zeus 2 4lb8oz 32.7 sq ft
Zeus 3 5lb8oz 48.2 sq ft

The weight of the Zeus 3 is about 1.5 times the weight of the Zeus 1, but the square footage is about double. I believe this is for 3 people who like each other ALOT.
<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />


"mmm... anyway I like to use a fairly large tarp tent when bug conditions permit. A pound one way or the other isn't going to kill things. "

This is my feeling also. I like a little extra room and if I can manage it, I take it.

"I wish they'd have one good tent design in several sizes."

You mean like the MSR Hubba, Hubba Hubba, and Mutha Hubba? Or the Tarptent Rainbow and Double Rainbow? Or even the various Seedhouse variants from Big Agnes?

However, like you, the head-to-foot thing has always amused me. It's great until somebody gets kicked in the face - or decides to sleep with his feet outside the sleeping bag. I've never used a two-person tent any way but face-to-face.

All this information is great but wouldn't it be a lot better if we just hiked and not worry about all that darn math. I can't come close to relaxing on the trail while I am trying to do calculus problems. It's just a contradiction to me, but then again that's just me. I have been trekking for thirty years and a calculus problem has never entered into my problem solving...period. and believe me in thirty years I have had to solve several of them..Hope that helps at least one person...Happy Trekking....sabre11004...

The first step that you take will be one of those that get you there...

Is that calculus? The basis of common sense is too often a mystery....Zeus 2 is about 25% heavier than Zeus 1.....I don't want either of these tents.

It's just me, but when the terrain permits, I prefer the head-to-foot configuration. In some cases, this is due to highly objectionable and predictable snoring of one of my regular companions.

Head-to-foot significantly cuts the decibles.

Also puts at a modest distance the snuffling, sneezing, coughing mumbling drooling and whatever other highly personal functions emanate from head end of whoever I'm with. With my girl friend, obviously, I'm willing to put up with these matters.

Quite level ground is of course needed..Never a problem in deep snow. Otherwise, obviously, often or some times, not possible to locate. Fortunately I mostly camp alone.

I find the occasional math problem quite relaxing. But that's just me. Lately I've taken up studying the theories of card counting and may actually try to develop this skill.

I should have clarified: the only time I sleep two to a tent is with my wife. Even in the old days, when solo tents weren't available, I rarely (never?) shared a tent; my friends and I all preferred to each carrry our own 2-person tent and have our privacy. Of course, we were younger, stronger, and arguably dumber, back then.

Nostalgia: The REI catalog in 1969 or '68 sold a "1-person" tent made of cotton with a nylong floor. It was radically tapered in height and width to the rear. The one in the catalog photo may have been dark blue. I purchased a similar 2-person tent that was yellow.Mine weighed about 7 pounds with A-frame front door. Eddie Bauer also sold a 1-person tent in mylon, around the same time from a different manufacturer. Gerry ultralites of the era were very small tents at minimal weight, but I think the smallest was advertised as 2-person.

Afterwards, there was a long period when REI didn't offer 1person tents. Before that, I wasn't looking at backpacking catalogs. But the British were manufacturing solo tents before WW I.