Top positive review
33 people found this helpful
Extremely useful and well-constructed
By Robert LaBella on Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2014
After reviewing many of the other product reviews for other screen rooms, I decided to give this one a try. I'm glad I did. I found this Coleman screen room to be made of very good materials, easy to set up (even for one person) and it functioned very well - even in bad weather. This screen room is well-engineered and there are many different features which make setting up and using it a great experience.The frame, roof and screen all come separately packed. After removing the frame from the [well-made] carrying case, I was able to extend the frame easily to [most of] its full 10 x 12 size on my own simply by allowing one foot to dig into the ground a bit and act as an anchor. I left it partially collapsed simply to make it easier to attach the roof. If you have two people doing this it would be even easier - but this approach worked for me. The roof attaches to the frame with velcro strips that are large and secure (I would later put these to the test in high winds - thank you velcro!) and takes just a few moments. After attaching the roof, I extended the frame to its full 10 x 12 size without any problem. To secure the roof and lock it in place, simply push up on the handles on each leg and the roof locks into its full, arched shape. Having some experience with shade covers, I found this to be remarkably easy to do. Once the roof is on and the frame locked into place, the legs extend to their full height by just pushing in a trigger-like handle and pushing down on the legs. They slide easily and lock into place easily. When all the legs are fully extended, the first thing you'll notice is that the roof is very high. A very tall adult will have no trouble standing in this. This part of the process took less than 10 minutes.Putting up the screen is equally easy. It has two zippered doors in it and it came with both already in the zipped configuration. Unzip one (or both) of the doors and it will become one long screen wall (or two if you unzip both doors). The screen attaches under the roof material where each leg is with two simple hooks. Move from leg to leg pulling the material tight so that the reinforced seams match up with the poles. I found that I had to adjust the position of the legs here and there to make sure that they ended up aligning with the reinforced seams in the screen walls. (it was a good thing I hadn't anchored the legs at this point). The screen has a heavy duty barrier at the bottom (dark grey in the picture) which acts as a heavier barrier against crawling things ( I presume). There's a small hook at the bottom of each reinforced seam that attaches to a hole in the lower part of the leg and which secures the screen. This whole process took less than 10 minutes.The screen room comes with six ~12" steel spikes which are used to anchor the legs. The set also comes with 6 lighter tent stakes which are designed to anchor the screen by passing them through durable cloth loops located at the bottom of each reinforced seam. The whole set up can be anchored by using the small tent ropes that are located at the top of the canopy and attached to the tent stakes.So, here are some of the details about how it worked:1. It was very roomy and we had no problem sitting six adults in chairs around the perimeter and also had a six foot table along one wall which we set our stove up on.2. The ceiling is high and we ended up stringing lines to hang clothing - and were still able to get around well.3. In high winds, I was glad it was anchored down. When I say "high winds" i mean that we got caught in the leading edge of a massive storm in the Appalachians and the winds were throwing around other people's tents. the seal between the roof canopy and the screen didn't open and remained sealed against the rain we had.4. Rain did blow in from the sides, but the screens did a remarkable job keeping most of it out - it was kind of like a little mist rather than the torrent of rain that the people next to us had to deal with that didn't have screened in protection.5. In the very heavy rain, the roof - which the manufacturer doesn't claim is waterproof - did great. We experienced very little dripping (and it was a heavy rain) and most of that came through the seams. I plan to apply waterproofing to the seams as a minimum and may just spray the whole roof.6. Because the screen fits so tightly around the structure, the bottom barrier held its form and kept out some of the water from puddles that had formed around the site. I wasn't expecting that - but it worked.7. Before and after the rain, the structure provided a great place to sit in the shade, completely free of bugs. As long as you keep the doors zippered, we didn't have any problem keeping out flys, mosquitos and no-seeums. We did note, however, that while we were setting it up, some of those got in before we could secure the screens and so they were trapped in there once we got the screens up. A little bug spray took care of them and we didn't have any issues thereafter.8. Sitting under the canopy inside the screens, we definitely were able to feel the breezes (reduced) that were in the area. So, it was bug-free and comfortable.Taking this thing down was as easy as it was to set up. There were several people in the campground that came over and wanted to know where I got it and who made it because they had seen one person put this shelter up and one take it down. I chose to leave the roof attached when I folded the structure up so that it would be easy to set up again next time. You'll want to be careful doing this when you put it back in the case because the zipper could catch on the roofing material and tear it.All-in-all, I think this is a great product and would highly recommend it.
Top critical review
17 people found this helpful
Seems like it might be good, if not for the seams
By Rawdge on Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2020
I purchased the 12x10 version of this item, but unfortunately, I have to send it back for replacement, since it looks like I got a defective one. There are a few issues, but the dealbreaker for me is that it appears as though the overall circumference of the net walls is too small - or at least, it's inconsistent. It appears that one of the seams along one of the door zippers got messed up during manufacturing. The result is that there's an enormous (and inconsistent) amount of stress on the zipper in that one "narrower" spot where the zipper seam got messed up. You can definitely see from the first three photos where the section of tent material above the netting is uneven. What's harder to see is the strain on that part of net wall. It's trying very hard to split and come apart because it's under so much more tension that any other section along that same zipper. In fact, during setup, the only way I was able to get the zipper closed was to partially collapse the whole structure, close the zippers on both doors, and then push the entire structure back into place like normal. That's when I noticed just how much strain is actually on that part of the zipper, so that's when I took the photos.Speaking of setup, the initial setup isn't a 60 second thing. Largely, because the instructions kinda suck. There are images only, with no words involved. Complicating that even further, is that the images in the instructions don't match the actual product. The instructions for mine seemed to indicate that there were some sort of plastic hooks in the middle of the walls that connect to the support bars. That's not the case. There are, however, two metal hooks in each of the upper corners. The instructions show there should be two metal loops in each corner for those metal hooks to go into. That's also not the case, as there's only one metal loop per corner, which both metal hooks go into. The reason this got a little confusing at first, is because at the very bottom near the floor of each corner, there's one metal hook as well. So I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out which way was "up" for the walls, and if the single hook should go into the single loop. Nope. The single hook goes at the bottom, presumably into a stake or tie-down in order to help anchor the wall there, and the two metal hooks at the top of the wall go into the single metal loop at the top of the corner. Aside from that confusion, it's still a little awkward and clunky to expand the structure, extend the legs, attach the walls, and so on. Even if you avoid the same silly confusion I had, assume it'll still take about 5-10 minutes for the initial setup, if you're doing it yourself. I expect that time will increase as you get more used to doing it though.Finally, one other problem I noticed - though this one isn't a dealbreaker on its own - is that one of the little "patches" of material that sits on top of each of the ceiling "knuckles" was also sewn on in the wrong place. All the others ones are placed correctly, and sewn into the ceiling where they should be, but one of them is very clearly in the wrong spot. Again, this wouldn't be a huge deal all on its own, but in light of the other sewing mistake on the zipper and the mildly confusing instructions, it does make me wonder if anyone at Coleman is paying attention to these things before they head out from the factory. They're not inspiring a ton of confidence in that regard.All that said, the structure itself does seem pretty sturdy. It's got enough heft to it that I don't think it'll take flight at the slightest breeze, but it's also not too heavy to move. The construction of the supporting structure seems robust enough to last awhile, though I'm not sure I have as much confidence in the ceiling and wall materials, especially given the problems I've seen with them already. The carry bag for it seems fairly robust and well made, too. No doubt that will last longer than the ceiling and wall materials over the long haul!I've already setup my return with Amazon, and I should be getting my replacement in a few days. Once that arrives, I'll check that one out, and update this review with how that turns out.UPDATE 08/23/2020After record-breaking heat in AZ, I finally got a chance to go outside and setup the replacement. The issues on this one are similar, but worse. Two products in a row have had misaligned stitching around the zippers, placing *far* too much unbalanced stress on the zippers themselves. This product is simply waiting to tear itself apart. The first one I bought had a misalignment on one door zipper. The replacement has the same problem on *both* door zippers. Additionally, two products in a row have had misaligned "bolsters" sewn in above the "knuckles" making up the roof. Clearly, this is a consistent production problem, and not just a one-off that slipped through QA. In addition to those two problems for both products, the replacement also had a tear in the roof fabric loop that closes around the horizontal sections of the roof perimeter.I *really* wanted this product to work out, and I'm disappointed that it didn't. It's the right price point for me, and by all other accounts, this specific screen mesh is fine enough to keep the bugs out, while still loose enough to let a breeze pass through. I tested this specifically with a fan setup outside the fully setup gazebo, and even on low speed, I was able to feel the air circulating all the way on the other side of the gazebo. This proved to me that it would get enough air circulation to allow it to be used in the 110+ degrees of Arizona heat. I've heard reports, read reviews and watched videos of the other "instant pop-up" gazebos that are more expensive, and by all those accounts, the mesh on those is too tight to allow air circulation, which makes them totally un-useable for me in my location. Sadly, the production problems on this product simply do not install the confidence I'd need to spend this amount of money for short-term use before it destroys itself. The quality just isn't there. I was definitely hoping for this to work out. Looks like I need to do some more research in order to find the solution I'm looking for.
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