(Re) Water Proofing Caravan pop up canopy?

Phil Graham

Honorary PhD
Mar 10, 2011
651
1
18
Atlanta, GA
Hey all,

I've got a Caravan canopy where the rubberized waterproofing material originally applied has degraded substantially. Has anyone had any luck re-waterproofing one of these, and if so, what stuff did you use?
 
Re: (Re) Water Proofing Caravan pop up canopy?

Coming from my years of wilderness camping, once the waterproof lining starts to peel/flake like that, you're better off getting a new piece of material with fresh waterproofing. Unless it's only the seams that are leaking, then you can get any kind of seam sealant and go from there.

However, to answer your question, yes, it can be done. There are various companies who make rain sealing products (Nikwax, snoseal, canvak, etc) so it really comes down to picking the right one for your material and the level of water resistance that you're looking for. You may be hard pressed to find something that measures up to the factory sealant, though. The other problem that you will run into is that many of these products require clean fabric in order to work properly. Simply laying it down on top of the old, defeated sealant will just cause it to fail again, or not work at all. Also take into consideration that you'll need a fair amount of sealant to cover your canopy (which I'm guessing is the standard 10x10'). At that point you'll probably be a good amount towards buying a new canopy top from the manufacturer.

I looked into doing this myself a few years ago when my canopy started doing the same thing. Turned out a new top was $90 straight from the manufacturer which was a little more than double what it would have cost in materials alone to reseal my top (but was totally worth not having to spend the man hours to do it myself). Needless to say, I got the new top and didn't bother resealing.