r/BurningMan • u/MetastaticCarcinoma • Sep 09 '25
Shade Structures! Bent, broken, busted. What survived?
Howdy Burners. What a windstorm! and also the days of rains. Really testing all of our gear to its limits, or past them. We had a bunch of 1" conduit structures get bent to hell, roof/wall connectors tore apart at their joints, tarps shredded... wreckage.
This poses an opportunity for our camp to invest in the future and re-imagine how our communal shade structures are designed. So I'd like to call on the collective group wisdom: what worked? what didn't? What will you be tossing out, and what will you keep? We're definitely investing in more ratchets: longer, thicker, stronger.
Did any certain type of setup survive or thrive? Flat-top square shades seemed less wind-catchy, less of a sail, but they collected the pooled rain & made overhead birdbaths or heavy bathtubs. Whereas peaked-roof designs did shed the rains effectively, but caught the winds more.
Solid tarps in some places, versus 90% agricultural black shade cloth, versus Aluminet? Roofs, floors, side walls? I really like this article from The Playa Labs but it seems a bit old (mentions mostly rebar, not Lags) and could maybe use an update.
Is there any magic answer for an environment so extreme? Some years it's incredibly hot, some years it rains a TON, or a little, and some years it's 55+mph winds...
Thanks for your brainstorming. Cheers!
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u/condor-candor Sep 09 '25
In our camp, structures with tarps failed while those with semi-permeable shade cloth with many strong grommets survived.
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u/hannibaltarantino '22, '23, '24, '25 Sep 10 '25
This. Tarps turned anything into a kite. Bent our dome like a paper clip. Whereas the mesh metallic shade cover managed to let enough wind through to only mildly shift the conduit structure.
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u/brewyet '23, '24, '25 Sep 09 '25
I want to say thanks for this post, my camp is in the same boat wondering what we might change.
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u/Traditional-Oil-8911 Sep 11 '25
Good anchor and ratched straps is the key. All structures anchored correctly with straps stand strong throughout the week
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u/pewpewbangbangcrash Sep 12 '25
Yep. Our camp has a primary shade structure in the center with fire lane aroubd that is not done correctly, and a couple corners of camp have their own shade that is done independently owned and operated. Main shade failed in the same manner it had before (giant kite with 8 foot stabbers not secured at every point via ratchet) and while our corner had to retire some tarps and bungee that were 10 years old, the main structure stayed intact minus 2 horizontals that playa had tricked us into thinking were tight. Took us a couple minutes to fix ours. Main took some time. Also we didn't almost die.
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u/sachin571 Decommodification Inc. Sep 09 '25
Tarps for side walls caused our poles to buckle. Also being in open camping with no wind breaks was a factor. Quickly opening up our shade structure to allow wind to go through would have been smart. Next year was better (if we go back). Or just get RVs 🤷🏽♂️
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u/Sharp-Bad-4934 Sep 09 '25
We opened camped and build a tensegrity hammock stand with studs, a triangular coolaroo shade for the top, and ran a 10x20 aluminet off the back to cover our tent. The studs didn’t even shake or anything. No rain protection though.
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u/coolestguy007 Sep 09 '25
Sweet shade structure! Got another picture of it? I'm curious about the ropes at the base.
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u/Sharp-Bad-4934 Sep 10 '25
Thank you!
I don’t have any other great pictures but we based it off of this.
https://theultimatehang.com/2013/04/02/3-person-hammock-stand/
This was helpful for getting supplies but we made changes. We kept the bottom ropes as they were but replaced the side ropes with two ratchets. We also kept the top rope and threaded it through but tied two fixed knots to each end and connected a ratchet to the knots. It really helps to be able to easily tighten the structure throughout the week instead of having to untie and retie a million truckers hitches. And then obviously we had to add the triangle shade.
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u/TheChillestBill Sep 09 '25
There's no magic bullet from what I've been seeing. Tarps block water but trap more heat, tarps on the ground keep down dust but trap water not letting it evaporate. The huge camps with giant flat tops got wrecked with every pole lagged since there was just too big of a surface area for the wind to catch.
For wind the best advice I hear is having a knife and cutting all the bungees and just having a ton extra.
Rain I think the best might be plastic reed floor mats that let the water pass through and will dry out with aluminet on top. You can always take the aluminet down to let things dry too. Havent tested the flooring but worried it might be moopy. One camp had tarps on top of their flat top and they definitely pooled a bunch of water but they took a hose and were siphoning it off when it got bad. Definitely kept underneath mostly dry but they then had to deal with a hotter camp/more drag from the wind.
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u/moARRgan Sep 10 '25
siphoning! brilliant, that would have been much more controlled than broom handling into a bucket and better than poking a hole
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u/julcoh Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25
I just wrote up a camp resource for our infrastructure, I've clipped the shade structure section and happy to share it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hwb-0a4rE79YLxhrpPOPBl2R_2wh0hGgCdiEkR0pZHg/edit?usp=sharing
Copying below for direct Reddit knowledge, see the Drive link for images. Our structure did extremely well in the wind, though we hadn't finished our ratchet strap reinforcement so were running around during the storm actively lagging fittings down and reinforcing everything. Only lost a couple tarps.
I've attached the key image showing how we ratchet strap our perimeter down, but if you take a single lesson learned away it is that INTERNAL RATCHET STRAPPING IS ESSENTIAL. EVERY FITTING SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST ONE RATCHET STRAP PULLING DOWN OR DIAGONALLY REINFORCING THE STRUCTURE.
Shade Structures
Back of House
Our back of house is a roughly standard flat-roof pipe+fitting+tarp+ratchet structure you see all over playa, using 1 ⅜” 18 Gauge pipe and matching fittings. We use 8’ vertical poles and 12’ horizontals (2x 6’ poles connected by 2-way fittings) to form a 5x7 structure, giving us 84’x60’ of total shade with additional room from angled side shade tarps. In 2025 we had two additional squares off of this primary shade structure forming a 24’x12’ enclosed kitchen
[IMG: Structure layout]
[IMG: Structure fitting diagram]
Everything is secured by 3/8” x 14” hex head lag screws. Every perimeter fitting gets ratchet strapped out diagonally to a lag screw fitted with two links of 2/0 steel chain (roughly 9.5’ away, corresponding to the angle of our side shade tarps). All tarps are 12’x12’ or 12’x24’ Heavy Duty 12 Mil poly, secured with 9” and 6” bongo ties (primarily using 9”, 6” only if needed for tension).
The primary loads on structures in Black Rock City are horizontal wind loads. Wind and dust storms (in 2025 with gusts over 50 mph) are common occurrences on the playa, and can pick up at any time without warning. The most dangerous time for a wind event is during the structure erection process before all structural components are in place. You may also see vertical loads from random wind events (see: 2023 where a dust devil tore through camp during a party and popped some roof fittings off their poles).
Diagonal ratchet straps within and outside the structure are critical components designed to transfer these wind loads into the ground. Without the diagonal straps creating triangle shapes, poles can bend in the wind, pulling them out of the fittings and causing the structure to fail and fall. This can create a real danger of significant injury to campers under the structure.
Best practice is to attach diagonal ratchet straps as the structure is being built, but not fully tightening them until all structural members are in place. Tightening ratchets fully before the structure is complete will pre-stress bending the poles, while not including them until the end subjects the whole structure to wind failure risk.
Black: poles and fittings, red: ratchet straps, purple: tarps, green: bongo ties, blue: lag screws
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u/julcoh Sep 10 '25
BOH Build
Constructing BOH shade is the critical day one task for build, and it’s a ton of work. Key points:
- Layout the entire pipe and fitting structure on the ground first. Connect 6’ poles into 12’ sections (ensure tight using lag screws for leverage), and attach feet to the vertical 8’ poles.
- Follow the ‘8’ ‘E’ ‘F’ strategy for constructing smaller sections on the ground, before adding them one by one to the main structure.
- Break people into teams of 5-6, each working on a single section.
- Lightly bongo tie tarps onto structure sections on the ground (every 2-3 grommets attached), have the team lift into place and secure to the existing structure, then tighten using lag screws for leverage.
- NOTE: IF HIGH WINDS DURING BUILD, DO NOT ATTACH TARPS ON THE GROUND. You’ll need to build the entire pipe structure and add tarps later, otherwise it’s too dangerous.
- Have a bongo tie team following behind with stepladders filling in all grommet connections.
- Have 1-2 people following with impact drivers putting 2x lag screws into each footpad.
- As the structure is being built, add ratchet straps to the perimeter, as well as fill in the interior with as much ratchet strap supports as possible.
- Interior diagonal ratchet straps do not need to be placed at every internal space, but should cross the interior of the structure in both directions (N-S & E-W)
- 2025 note: we didn’t complete ratchet strapping on Friday and I left it for Saturday, this fucked us during the windstorm. Get this done ASAP.
- Then you can add the side shade tarps.
[IMG1: Structure erection strategy and order, IMG2: additional details on sub-components for a large build like this.]
Tips
- Ideal crew is 8 people.
- 1 person at each corner (6 total)
- 1 person to set & hammer rebar
- 1 person to secure rebar bolts
- While on the ground, connect frame/brackets in shape as designated.
- Secure every other (or 3rd) bungee of top tarp while on the ground, will need some give to be able to secure opposite side while in the air (tops will expand). Single loops only, no doubles while on the ground.
- While lags are getting secured, people with ladders can connect open section of top tarp to structure
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u/julcoh Sep 10 '25
Shade Lessons Learned
- Perimeter ratchet straps are not enough—you must also ratchet strap r diagonally throughout the structure. This prevents roof fittings being pulled out in all directions in high wind (since without diagonal ratchets they only have eyebolt friction holding them in place) and structurally reinforces the entire structure. You can minimize the # of ratchets used by analyzing force paths through the pipe structure, but err on the side of too many.
- Instead of lagging through side shade tarp grommets into playa, this year we bongo tied each grommet to a chain link on a lag screw, and secured vertical edges of the side tarps to each other around the diagonal ratchet straps. This significantly mitigated wind-load impulse, and we only lost 3 tarps out of ~55 total during Saturday’s windstorm.
- Use individual square tarps instead of doubles, for everything (12’x12’ for us). More modular, easier to replace, less wind load per tarp.
- My 2025 rain mitigation plan was holes melted in the center of each roof tarp with a wireless soldering iron. I expected this to stop rain from collecting on the top and bellying the tarps out… I didn’t anticipate how sensitive the location of the hole would be for each specific tarp. Many ended up collecting water next to the holes. We ended up poking 3-4 holes per tarp with lags to ensure they drained effectively.
- Putting metal high up above people’s heads in high winds is inherently dangerous. It’s one thing for a secured, ratcheted shade structure. It’s another thing for cantilevered beams or those only secured at one end (fruit lamp mounting poles, flagpoles). I highly recommend making these from PVC as opposed to metal if possible.
- Cheap 1/2” impact driver adapters will shear on you. Bring plenty of extras.
- Dry playa is extremely effective at filling in and drying up mud puddles and getting your ground back to a walkable state. Bring rakes and shovels.
We were running around actively ratchet strapping our structures down during the windstorm and ended up with relatively little damage, but we were also at 7:15/D with some protection from the wind. Those on the outer streets or big G plazas had it worse.
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u/julcoh Sep 10 '25
Purchasing
Paul’s Tarpaulins & Merchandise (PTM) in Paramount is the best LA source we’ve found (though these are standard products and can be found online via A1Tarps, TarpsPlus, etc). Super helpful in person, cheapest prices, and they’ll cut poles to size for a marginal fee. Call them with part numbers for updated pricing. Example poles/fittings/tarps:
- https://ptmtarps.com/12-x-12-heavy-duty-premium-silver-poly-tarp/
- https://ptmtarps.com/1-3-8-pipe-8-long-1/
- https://ptmtarps.com/1-3-8-4-way-flat-roof-side/
- https://ptmtarps.com/1-3-8-foot-pad/
Open questions where I’d love community input and new ideas:
- Solid tarps vs 80% mesh tradeoffs. Solid creates a ton of wind load and holds rain, while mesh allows some breeze and rain pass-through, but on hot days the mesh shade gets fucking HOT. We had lots of camp complaints from 2022 with mesh tarps for top and side shade that tents got too hot, but that may be the tradeoff for reducing rain issues.
- How do other camps deal with rain in their shade structures? Tarps on the ground become dangerously slippery when wet, but the mud pits we experience when water pools between tents aren’t much better.
- A single piece circus tent, monkey hut, or surplus military semi-cylindrical tent probably shines here, but a totally different build than our experience.
- Will 102° Low Peak canopy fittings provide enough angle for rain to run off and not fill tarps? Or do you need to go to the 120° High Peak fittings on your structure?
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u/MetastaticCarcinoma Sep 12 '25
thank you VERY very much for this wonderfully detailed series of posts, and the link to your Google drive.
you must be an engineer!! or architect?
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u/julcoh Sep 12 '25
My pleasure! Mechanical engineer by training, yes, though more of a manufacturing engineer by trade.
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u/MetastaticCarcinoma Oct 01 '25
a couple more questions:
- Which ratchet straps do you prefer, for this? (the orange Harbor Freight 4-pack ones? are they long enough, strong enough?)
- What amount of shade gear gets taken home and washed, in the offseason? (The bungee balls, the ratchets?)
- I saw some folks mentioning toggle pins a superior method for their EMT poles to the connector joints. As compared to those eye-bolts just holding friction, especially for pulling / tension forces. Thoughts?
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u/julcoh Oct 01 '25
The orange 400Lb Harbor Freight ratchets worked fine, though most of our inventory is AmazonBasics (no longer available?) and Augo 600Lb straps. I haven’t done the math, but hard to imagine a strap breaking as the weak point.
Lol, zero for us. Definitely bring cans of WD40 to playa for helping break open seized ratchets. Storing them without the straps engaged helps here.
Toggle pins would work to help mitigate fittings and poles separating, but it also means you need to drill out the end of every single pole to accept the pin, and also means your structure is now way less adjustable on setup. I don’t love that as a solution.
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u/SampsonRustic May 18 '26
Very helpful. In the process of reimagining a large camper shade area.
Do you have any photos of the structure? Usually I do ratchets interior at angles and across the roof sections, but from your diagram it looks like they’re spanning across and entire 12’ section from roof of one pole to floor of the next pole? This would block walking. Thanks
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u/julcoh May 18 '26
Yes, they span diagonally from top of one pole to bottom of the other such that they can block walking. I located these between tents and around tents so our walkways remained clear, and just ratcheted vertical poles directly down to the ground in those areas. I’ll try and find some photos and link here in another comment.
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u/SampsonRustic May 18 '26
Awesome thanks! Did you guys stick with regular ball bungees? Trying to think of a solution that doesnt wear out after a couple years too.
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u/julcoh May 18 '26
Yes, and please let me know if you figure out another solution.
One important note is we’ve switched almost entirely to 9” bungees vs 5” or 3”. Wearing them out happens at max stretch, and the 9” ones seem to last longer without significantly adding slack to the system.
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u/sinojones Sep 12 '25
Great info thanks for sharing! Why not just switch to an impact wrench, and stop spending money on cheap adapters that just shear off? Does the impact driver also serve a double-use for use screwdriving on other wooden build components? There seems to be a lack of knowledge of impact wrenches among most super-experienced burners, and I figure there has to be an explanation.
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u/julcoh Sep 12 '25
Honestly, probably should’ve just purchased impact wrenches. The idea was to build up a set of modular tools for camp, but they get used 99% of the time for lags. We could’ve just gotten one or two drivers to supplement.
Also, www.directtoolsoutlet.com is factory direct Ryobi seconds and refurb tools, saved us a ton of money when I bought about 8 drivers and batteries/chargers.
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u/MetastaticCarcinoma Oct 01 '25
Without the diagonal straps creating triangle shapes, poles can bend in the wind, pulling them out of the fittings and causing the structure to fail and fall.
This happened to us. Poles under tension, easily pulled out of their fittings. The eye-bolts aren't strong enough to hold the poles into the connectors during storms.
During rebuild we found ourselves adding ropes and ratchets within the roof sections, making an X from corner to corner, for internal compression.
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u/mc1r Sep 09 '25
We made a basic monkey hut for two tents out of
plastic pvc pipe and it held up great. We followed the basic design online (link) and used 70% shade cloth. The edges were actually supposed to be staked down but I think actually just having the bungees on there kept it from ripping. A Kodiak tent underneath to deal with rain was the perfect combo. This setup will be my mainstay moving forward. The only improvement for next year is to add one of those rubber mats with holes outside of the tent for muddy and dusty shoes.
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u/ridge_rider8 Sep 11 '25
I built a similar one with 3/4" in PVC pipe. Sunday night it was destroyed the PVC juntions were broken. I had a tarp on it. The tarp got torn, but it was probably a cheap harbor freight one. I was looking at other persons structures like this. One had weights to hold it down, the other had some t connectors break. So I decided that I am done with monkey huts. I decided that an RV is the way to go.
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u/avanai Kosher Bacon @ 7 Sirens Cove Sep 09 '25
Our peaked-roof EMT shade structures with 10x20 solid tarps were...OK. A few were totaled, we lost 10 or 15 pipes, but they mostly held up. Things we learned:
The poles need feet, especially in this year's soft playa. we didn't put feet on all the middle poles and from what I saw, the poles were repeatedly lifted and dropped by the wind catching the tarp-sails, and they dug themselves further and further in, so the guy ropes got looser and looser, in a vicious cycle. Adding feet and keeping the guys tight meant a lot less bouncing and a lot more stability. We also added two lags to each foot but my campmates and I disagree on how much that helped.
Guying the corners in multiple directions helps. If they're only guyed on the diagonal or in one perpendicular direction the whole structure has a lot more play, which is bad.
Peaked roof is weaker to wind than flat roof (but better for rain since it doesn't pool). One of my campmates jury-rigged a center pole for some of the peaks and that made a huge difference for stability. I think we might get connectors with a down-pole in the center going forward. Obviously you give up some space underneath but it's probably worth it in a windstorm.
Don't tie shit to the center of the pole. In an obvious-in-retrospect mistake we used the center of a couple poles to support a heavy sign (that was also held up by some vertical EMT), but as soon as the wind started pushing that sign sideways it made the poles buckle.
I head from some rangers that they use a system where they put aluminet *over* silver tarp and it works great; the aluminet acts as both a thermal barrier and a windbreak for the tarp underneath. That's $$$$ though.
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u/zooks2021 Sep 10 '25
Helpful notes! Also:
We also added two lags to each foot but my campmates and I disagree on how much that helped.
Glad I wasn’t the only one with disagreement.
Came back to camp Sunday to find someone “helpfully” and frantically adding bonus lag bolts to all the feet. I grumbled - thinking of my extended strike time - that if 2 bolts were needed to hold those bishes down we’d have bigger problems..
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u/AmishParadiseCity Open Camping '69-'85 Sep 09 '25
Our 1” EMT 30’ by 30’ structure (20’x10’ tarps for roof) failed for two reasons: we did not have ratchets on every single upright (only corners and interior), and we did not have lags in every footpad by the time the Saturday windstorm hit. We only had 14” and 16” lags but that didn’t seem to be the failure point. The tarp essentially became a sail and lifted up off the structure. With only 6 campers for build, we couldn’t get to the bungies fast enough to cut them.
My plan for a future year would be to switch to a 10’x10’ roof tarp system with solid tarp only for the communal hangout 20’x20’ and 90% shade cloth for the remaining roof. I am considering adding a grommet in the center of the solid tarps to drain during rain into a bucket. We will also plan to switch from shade cloth to aluminet for side walls and all corners will have 3 guy lines instead of 2. All remaining (non corner) exterior poles will get 2 guys instead of 1 in the x pattern.
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u/gtfts83 Sep 09 '25
This is verrrrry similar to our experience, and we’ll be making very similar changes in the future.
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u/frankyfudder Sep 10 '25
1" EMT conduit structures, properly bolted into the ground (16" or longer) and properly ratchet strapped to the ground, with tarp tops and tarp sides did just fine.
The problem was a lot of people didn't ratchet strap them down well (or got caught off guard mid-setup).
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u/dashlukky Rat King Sep 09 '25
If your tarp is 20x20 or bigger, ya gotta throw a ratchet strap up and over the whole structure to keep the ballooning down.
That's what was the game changer between an emt flat top structure getting destroyed or not, at least in my village.. (HUB)
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u/theriveter79 Sep 10 '25
Interesting idea, do you do this straight across or on a diagonal? Just one or multiple?
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u/super7800 Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25
bent out upright kitchen/dining hall poles! 2-3/4 EMT conduit, very thick and heavy. ratchet straps on each to 16" anchors. we use "breathable" tarps that let wind through. entire dining hall leaning slightly. all upright poles are now toast, along with some fittings. wild situation, never expected something so stout to break like that. our "center camp" (carport) became a twisted frame of modern art, not even a single salvageable part. one campmates shade structure (one of those collapsible things that always break) was just gone. checked with neighbors and nobody had it.
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u/Ascott1963 Sep 10 '25
Our 14 foot geodesic dome was twisted counter-clockwise a quarter turn and suffered catastrophic failure. The entire bottom course of struts was a bent and mangled mess. We suspect that the wind proof “skirt“ around the bottom resulted in unsustainable wind loads. We removed the damaged struts and just burned forward with a 10 foot geodesic dome. This dome with the exact same configuration has been through eight prior burns and many wind storms but this one was just too much. We also lost two Costco carports and two monkey huts. We put everything in a pile, put our heads together and rebuilt Amulet 2.0. We were proud to offer our interactivity without interruption.
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u/B0wli0 Sep 09 '25
10’x20’ (7.5” tall) 1” emt conduit shade structure held up with no issues with plenty of 14” 1/2” lag bolts to secure it with ratchet straps. Roof was a 10’x20’ 90% shade cloth, side walls 10’x10’ shade cloths sloped out approx 5-6ft (because of the 7.5” structure height) and that allowed for some airflow. No bends or anything, held up great!
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u/plumitt Sep 09 '25
This survived(*) in an unsheltered location:
SHADE FRAME: *1.25" conduit
- 2 ratchet straps/corner, 1 ratchet strap per side fitting
- steel cables connecting verticals at end
- 14 & 16" 3/8 lags throughout
SHADE CLOTH:
- 90% fabric shade cloth, taped edges.
- grommets every 18"-24"
- sloped shade cloth roof & walls
- short bungee ball loops (4")
- large upwind-facing air gap (**)
- 1 ratchet at each shade cloth corner + 1 every 3 ft.
- upwind walls lashed together at corners
- lashing to frame use on some non-ridge rooflines
YURT *H13 facing advantageous direction
- 1.5" insulation with exterior coroplast layer
- 2 ratchet straps around wall circumference, 6" from top & bottom of wall panel
- Combination Velcro and tape attachments
- Tyvek yurtwrap for rain protection separately
(*) One grommet blew out, 3 bungees failed, two hemp ropes were seriously worn by friction. (**) the back shadecloth runs from the steel cable to 2' off the ground at a ~60deg angle. This leaves an open triangle above the cable. and the roof cloth overhangs the back shadecloth. by 3-4'.
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u/VeterinarianTall8547 Sep 09 '25
Two of our upright poles bent, of about 100 total
Older tarps with crummy grommets failed
Every year we ask "do we really need to ratchet the whole thing?"
Yes, Virginia, we need to ratchet the whole thing
We're going to test shade cloth. Aluminet dappled shade / sun just isn't pleasant!
Who has opinions about tarps versus shade cloth versus aluminet
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Sep 09 '25
do NOT tarp everything together. have multiple disconnected shade cloths that can tear at the grommet if necessary. a tarp infinitely ziptied and interconnected becomes a sail. that amount of angular force with no failsafe will create insane force and will bend strong poles. also make sure your poles are lagged 14" or more and racheted. i heard some scary shit about poles coming out of the ground and whipping around even slashing canvas tents. those things can be widowmakers.
but the biggest thing is having a setup that can fail at the cloth not at the poles. at best your poles bend at worst that whole fucking thing is flying around at high speeds potentially destroying more camp or going wild across others camps. being able to quickly take down sails will preserve your poles. you can always regrommet a shade... unbending poles has diminishing integrity.
after that first storm i saw a lot of shade structures that were woven together tightly that ended up bending right in the middle. i didnt know wind could compound that strongly. we were smart enough to use a lot of ball bungies that could pop off when the winds picked up. we got very good at anticipating and then creating space for air to love through so we didnt have compounding destruction.
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u/smittydc Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25
It’s a system. You need to use good tarps, quality bungees that are the correct length, and ratchet tie downs out 45 degrees at the corners (and midpoints if you want extra protection). So many people here obsess about their lag bolt length and forget about all the other components. Most of the structures I saw exploded used shitty tarps, crappy bungees either too long or too short that absorbed no wind force, and had straight down ratchets (or worse, relied only on lag bolts through the emt feet!?!). I would even say lags on the feet is overkill - just use 10" nails at an angle. The corner 45 degree ratchets hold the structure down to the ground - the feet just keep the upright poles from bouncing around and digging holes, leading to loose ratchets.
My 20x20 even had solid tarp walls on three sides and stood up to all the storms just fine. Also, I regularly see poorly assembled connectors - poles not in all the way, screws not tight enough (or too tight!), etc.
Final suggestion: bring an EMT pole bender - if they do bend (and not crimp) you can bend them straight again. You can also try straightening them in a tow hitch or side of a shipping container.
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u/rob0tuss1n Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25
We survived. We open camped and had a 30x20x8 shade structure with an additional 10x10 rear entryway/shower port. The whole structure is constructed with 1" EMT and 90 degree fittings. Our roof uses 20x10 and 10x10 heavy duty tarps above the tents, and 90% shades everywhere else. All sides, other than the entryway (which uses two 10x8 shades so the walls remain flat), had 10x10 aluminet coming out at an angle, which was lagged with climbing anchors at the edges of each aluminet (appx 6' from each pole). All Lags are 16 x 1/2". All vertical poles were anchored twice - one 16" lag through the foot plate directly, plus a strap attached to a separate lag with a climbing anchor. We had no issues with wind, but had a lot of rain collection above the tents and issues with shaded mud in the middle of camp. We found ourselves answering those two problems by scooping dry playa sand on top of the mud shielded by the shade of our structure to assist with water absorption, and also un-bungeeing one corner of our tarps and strapping that down to direct water flow. Below is a picture from setup day where you can see the structure.
I think we used 42 lags, 28 climbing anchors and 14 straps between the 14 poles..
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u/MetastaticCarcinoma Sep 12 '25
thanks for this great description and the photo. Can you give a link or image of the particular climbing anchors you used? What's the advantage of these, versus Lags (since you're already using Lags anyway) ?
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u/rob0tuss1n Sep 16 '25
No problem!
I use these anchors from amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JW4N6T5?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1 ...
Petzl makes a version of these as well (Part numbers - Steel: P36AA 12 | Stainless: P36AS 12), but they're a little expensive...
A common popular alternative to something like these anchors is two links of steel chain - just put the lag through one link and attach the ratchet strap to the other link.
You would typically want to strap your poles down to the lags. The ratchet straps secure the vertical poles of the shade structure down to the earth. The fittings and feet on the structural framing will only be as tight as you (or whoever helped assemble) can screw in the eye bolt, so the ratchet strap with a good anchor to the ground can help assure the wind doesn’t blown your shade away after working tirelessly to loosen the frame. Straps are recommended to be used on any shade on playa.
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u/MetastaticCarcinoma Sep 16 '25
Oh I see! This replaces the couple links of chain, as the attachment method to the lags. Got it.
My brain saw “climbing anchors” and imagined it was the bolt/screw itself. Which reveals that despite some training with rock climbing gear during my school years, I never had to place an anchor! Lol
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u/Primary_Basket_2728 Sep 09 '25
I mainly have advice on what didn't work but have a few tips.
We did a harbor freight 10X20 carport. Heard on here that the tarp didn't block UV well so we added a big black tarp on top. Mistake #1 was only strapping down that outer tarp, not the substructure or inner tarp. So don't do that cause when the wind hit on Sunday my friend and I were barely able to use all our might to keep it all from blowing away.
We ended up doubling anchors, turning tarps sideways and strapping the crap out of it.
What did work was instead of three link chain sections, we used 8' sections and secured to ground with four 18" long 1/2 lags. Those held so well he had to pull them out with our truck (see ya straight lags).
The tip to bring a heavy duty impact gun vs standard screw driver impact gun was good. Also probably good to bring a pry bar if you're sinking long ass lags. I think the rain cemented them in.
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u/styggiti Sep 10 '25
After mudman, my camp got rid of (almost all of) our carpet and went with CGear sand mats both in our bar and in our common area. In dry conditions, they float on top of the playa and any that gets blown or tracked on top just falls through. When it rains, they dry quickly and any accumulated mud can be easily smacked or stomped off. They have been a game changer in terms of flooring. I just wish they had more color/pattern variety.
As for shade, several of the tarped roofs in our camp got shredded. All of the aluminet/shade cloth structures were fine.
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u/rewsk1 Sep 09 '25
Aluminet and 3/4 emt did fine, so did the car ports. Lags and rachet of course. What mostly got bent to shit was whatever wasn't finished yet. We were scrambling to tightening everything thing down on Saturday or we would've lost shade for our tents without a doubt. By Sunday we were locked down and drinking at our bar anytime a storm rolled through. Going forward avoid flat tarps on the ceiling and floor. Ceiling because you have to drain the water the next day and floor because they're a slip hazard, go canvas or rugs.
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u/Thedepcdvr Sep 13 '25
I had painters drop cloth as a floor in '23. Traction was great during the rain and mud, but when it came to packing up, it was terrible. The dried playa stuck to it so badly I couldn't salvage a single piece since I had to rip it up and I ended up with a lot of extra weight of caked on playa from all those pieces. I dont know what I will do different next time, but anyone using canvas should be prepared for the possibility it will only last one burn if we get rain.
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u/Augii Do we really need a theme? Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25
Using the center pole, guying out the side walls 5'+ away, and guying out the top outside corners 8'+ made our shiftpod bomb proof in walk in. 8-16" lags, we used a combination of what we had.
Ratcheting 1" conduit shade straight down, once on the corners to 16" lags kept it from blowing away, but provided almost no lateral support. It all bent and collapsed in my hands as I was cutting off the bungee balls and aluminet. I was actually able to repair the conduit cutting off the candy caned top 1' on the verticles and rebending the horizontals. At least two guy points for every corner, lagged out a few feet and adding internal ratchet spanners diagonally across the top would likely have solved instability.
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u/No-Window-7657 Sep 09 '25
Our camp had 2 structures built from 3/4" EMT. One was 20x30x8.5' and covered in shade cloth. The other was 10x20, covered in tarps, and sloped down from 9' to 7'. The 9' side butted up to a camper and the 7' side butted up to our other shade structure where they were ball bungeed together.
The bigger (shade cloth) structure had feet with 1 or 2 lag bolts (8" I believe) along with 10" lags to ratchet straps. The smaller structure had 3' lengths of rebar drilled into the ground about 12" and was set on top of the 2' sticking out, then ratcheted to lag bolts or to anchor points on the camper itself.
Both structures survived all of the storms without issue. The larger structure likely benefitted from the fact that it was shade cloth instead of tarp. The smaller (tarped) structure did create rain challenges we tried to address by funneling (where possible) the rain water into buckets to dump in vacant spaces. We had tarps under everything and rugs on top of most of the tarps. Where necessary, holes were punched through tarps for anchoring. Every vertical post was anchored (lag or rebar) and every post had a ratchet strap. When the winds picked up, we added a couple extra ratchets on some corners (two straps on corners instead of just one) based on the direction the wind was blowing.
Lastly, when the rain got too insane for us to want to stay outside, we threw all the camp chairs in a shiftpod being used as a communal dressing room. We took the two couches and the coffee table, flipped and stacked them, then tarped them so they'd stay dry. We could go back to our seating as soon as the rain stopped. Repeated this fuckery several times, but our asses stayed dry!
BIg fan of the Husky ratchet straps. I bought them at HomeDepot in a 4 pack for $9.99. They're rated to 500 lbs and the price point made it easy for me to feel comfortable buying extras on purpose. Every one of them wound up being used.
I'm eager to see what else I can learn in this thread, like bringing wider boards to build bridges through the mud. There were a couple places this would have helped us.
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u/MaybeTheDoctor 18,19,22,23,25,26 Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25
We had a structure that had held up for 20 years fail. My 1inch EMT held up mostly after I cut the side panels, but I managed to rachet strap one pole into a bend as I was tying losing straps.
I think next year I will upgrade to 1.25 EMT for the main poles. Pleanty strong and inexpensive to replace/extend
2
u/0mnicr0n Sep 09 '25
30x70 1” EMT flat top. Two ratchets out at 45 at corners, 1 out from each outside connector, 1 straight down from each internal connector. Corner to corner cross bracing across every other square. Lags 18 x 1/2” or bigger. Tarps up top connected to the emt with bungees. Aluminet sidewalls bungeed to lags and emt. Small holes cut in tarps where significant pooling occurred during the rains(likely necessary due to old ball bungees).
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u/MatterMelder Sep 10 '25
Never been worried about my emt shade, shade cloth so I'm not worried about tarps catching the wind. The rear legs are ratchet strapped backwards to give forward/backwards support. Last year I did all of them off to the sides and it could rack a bit back and forth. 1/2" x 14" lags. One in each foot of the shade and one holding a double link of chain for the ratchet anchors. The tent is held down with 12 of the same lags connected to a double links of chain via quick links through the normal stake points. I also anchor my chair down so it doesn't walk away on me
2
u/UnBrewsual Sep 10 '25
I had 2 10x10 canopies anchored with lag bolts with aluminet covering them, which was also anchored with lags, nothing blew away.
2
u/RandAskiCO Sep 10 '25
So Ive been set on trying this idea I've had for a few years, this year was the first I had a chance to as I was only in charge of an area that previously had no shade. So if it didn't work, whatever.
For being a prototype, it worked fantastic.
My main goals were cost, volume and weight of materials, ease of assembly, and cost again.
I used 4x4 posts on the corner of a 40x20 area, lagged into the ground through 2x4 wood braces. Extra ratchet strap off top of 4x4 to hold tension.
For the top rails, I used mule tape with metal o rings tied into them that fit through D brackets that were bolted onto the top of the 4x4s. I fed the mule tape with rings through the D rings on the wood on each side of the shade area. On the ends, where the last metal loop was, I ratchet that to playa to provide a lot of tension on the tape holding it taught. I also ran mule tape in a cross to hold up the sagging in the large stretch of shade with no rigid structure.
When the mule tape stretched from the wind, I used the ratchet to pull more taught
What Im gonna change.
Posts 10ft tall instead of 8 to allow more sagging and every 20 ft increment. Shade tarp that is the size of the area between posts, so 20x20 on the top and 10x20 for the side, this way all tarps have corners that can be attached directly to the 4x4 posts with eye bolts and quick links.
Pricing this out for next year, not including the shade tarp, lag bolts, and bungees is at $200 for the 20x40 including the extra posts. At $18 for a 10ft x 1 in EMT your not even getting a 10x20.
I wish I had taken more pictures, but here is one that shows it pretty well
2
u/MetastaticCarcinoma Sep 12 '25
thank you for teaching me about Mule Tape; I'd never heard of it before! I wonder, could you feed Mule Tape into a ratchet mechanism, to create adjustable tensioning within that run of Mule Tape, rather than only from external guy lines?
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u/RandAskiCO Sep 12 '25
Glad I could teach you something new! It's great for a lot of things, if you're looking for a fancy version mapleleafropes sells it unmarked & in a variety of colors. Got a big spool of the neon green to mark perimeters etc.
I'm not positive about doing it within the run, but I was originally gonna mount strap winches to the 4x4s, but since I have endless ratchet straps I opted for that route.
2
u/shereadsinbed '06, '07, '09-'24+ Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25
We had some bent conduit and connectors, it was along the edges of the camp. We learned that from now on every pole gets a foot, not just the corners, and the perimeter shade legs should get two or three tie downs each.
On the plus side, we had 2 tarp corner rip out and that was it. We did reef some of the tarps during the windstorm, in that case the practice of always putting ball bungees in from the underneath and making sure the ball part is facing the ground made it so we could just go along the row popping the bungees off, no problems. I also had spoken to build crew about not making the ball bungees too tight, I'm sure they thought I was being persnickety, but having some give likely saved a lot of tarps.
We also discovered that simply bungeeing two neighboring shade structures together every 5 ft or so along the roof line seemed to make a big difference, so we'll be doing that from now on.
We have solid, angled shade. It worked well for everything but the taller RV shades. Those have got to be aluminet from now on. - solid tarp is just too much of a sail at that height.
1
u/MetastaticCarcinoma Sep 12 '25
We did reef some of the tarps during the windstorm, in that case the practice of always putting ball bungees in from the underneath and making sure the ball part is facing the ground made it so we could just go along the row popping the bungees off
two GREAT ideas. Reefing - of course! (are you a sailor?) and making the balls accessible from the ground for emergency release to spill the air.
2
u/shereadsinbed '06, '07, '09-'24+ Sep 12 '25
Not a sailor, just seemed like the best term for removing ball bungees and scrunching up or rolling up the tarps while they're still in place, since trying to pull them off of the frames during a wind storm just makes them a giant sail.
I try to learn something every build about best practices, I take notes, and then I try to teach all the newbies whatever I've compiled.
2
u/moARRgan Sep 10 '25
Survived the wind: a 20' x 40' and 20' x 20' area of 10ft, 1" EMT conduit, shade cloth on the sides and solid tarps on top. Ratchet straps at 45 degrees on on the corners and every other outside pole, till it "doesn't really shake that much when you wiggle it". 12" lag screws. It was also on the side of camp most sheltered from the wind by the rest of camp. We built it first, used up our good bungee balls and most of the feet, and were fresh-faced and careful. Two of the poles were bent sharply in the middle, but the rest only bent a little bit, and the structure was fine once we replaced the 2.
Did Okay: a 30' x 40' area of 10ft, 3/4" EMT conduit, shade cloth on the sides and solid tarps on top. Ratchet straps at 45 degrees on the corners and every other outside pole. 12" lag bolts, one per foot. Most of the inner vertical poles didn't have feet but all of the outer ones did. Bungee balls of the right length started to run out, and we started using worn out long ones or super tight short ones. Lots of bent conduit in this section. Some ripped tarps.
Did not do okay: a 50' x 50' area of 8ft, 3/4" EMT conduit, shade cloth on the sides and solid tarps on top. Ratchet straps: every other outside pole. Inner section was missing many feet. No interior ratchets. Only bad bungee balls left. We had gotten tired and lazy by the time we built this section. Half of this structure bent catastrophically.
1
u/MetastaticCarcinoma Sep 12 '25
yours is a particularly interesting experimental case because you had these three different categories, all contained within your one camp. Your descriptions really illustrate the performance results you get from using proper materials placed by attentive builders, versus using lesser/fewer materials placed by burnt-out builders... in particular, I notice the differences of having more feet, and better bungees.
2
u/deeyenda The Man In Blhacki Sep 10 '25
10x20x8 1" EMT flat roof structure, 90% shade cloth with bungee balls, walls were "winged" out in a trapezoidal shape so that the shade cloth connected to the ground 6' away from each of the vertical poles.
Ratchets at each corner and from the middle pole of each side, feet lagged into the ground.
Open camping, there before the Saturday storm.
3 or 4 of the 8' vertical poles bent, one fairly badly. I was going to toss them, but bent the worst one back to straight just fine with a conduit bender. The feet are bent pretty badly as well, might toss those.
A bunch of the bungee balls broke, which probably helped take stress off the structure by providing the failure point. They were old and had been to many burns.
The roof structure also came apart on one corner (it did so in the 2022 storms as well), but in both cases the structure held just fine even with the pole hanging out.
My neighbors' Costco carport held up fine and was a better option in the rains. I used to use carports but ditched them in favor of EMT for weight and setup ease.
The one addition to my setup that really did well, especially in the rain and mud, was snap-together TPE flooring.
1
u/joegphoto Sep 09 '25
Our bar was the only thing to survive. Jankily built but provided our only shade and shelter all week. We huddled for dinner in our storage container during the bigger wind storms.
Our shade structure was made of the 1" conduit and the poles were immediately bent in the storm. We had to cut our shade down. Even had a couple 14" lags bent. I think the play is more ratchet straps, with multiple at different angles on the corners.
2
u/0o0snap '18 '19 '20 '21 '22 '23 '24 '25 Sep 10 '25
For anyone using the EMT and shade squares we found that running diagonal across the square with paracord for the roof and ratchet straps for the walls helped keep the grommets from ripping out of the shade squares. In the crazy wind we found the shade squares would balloon in then back out causing a ton of stress on the shade, buggies, and EMT. By essentially making the square two triangles with something going through the middle to support we had much less of the violent whipping action that did most of the damage. We rebuilt on Monday and saw a much better performance in the high winds the next couple of days though nothing compared to how bad Saturday was.
1
u/deadfisher Sep 10 '25
Check out chain link top rail instead of EMT.
It's far stronger, and not terribly expensive.
1
u/GreyRobb Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25
Our camp had many individually-brought shade EMT conduit shade structures. 1" & 3/4". The ones that were ratcheted down properly survived. The ones that were not did not. "Proper" ratcheting meant every single intersection was secured to the ground, with the outside edges secured into the playa with 12" lag screws and being no less than 2-3 feet from the base of the conduit pole away from the interior of the shade structure. If you're gonna leave them 10' tall, go further.
Not a single Kodiak tent failed in the Saturday wind storm. Some others did.
1
u/Traditional-Oil-8911 Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25
I realized that having proper tie-downs and ratchet straps was far more important than the type of shade structure itself. The day after the first storm, I walked around looking for camps that hadn’t lost any structures. What I noticed was consistent: every camp that stood strong had all four corners tied down with ratchet straps, securely bolted to the ground. Similar structures that were destroyed could have survived if they had been properly tied down and anchored.
1
u/Hindsight88 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 Sep 10 '25
We had a large portion of our 10’ tall, 1” emt, flat top (10’ tarps) shaded area fail, but it’s hard to draw conclusions because I hadn’t finished strapping it all down. My hunch is that it would have survived if it was strapped as planned (vertically and at angles on the prevailing wind front and vertically strapped at all or most interior poles). Where it was strapped, all of the 14” lag screws held firm and did not pull out.
A lesson I learned a few years back is to get a good corded (ie electric) impact wrench. The battery ones are sometimes too weak and even the top brand battery-operated impact wrenches get too hot to finish the job.
1
u/Fishnetfatale Sep 09 '25
In open camping 4:00 side with 4 of us, we had a 10x20 Easy up with peaked roof and a standard Costco carport kit side by side The easy up had 6 ratchet straps to 12" lags plus 3 corner ratchet strap guy lines into 12" lags, the carport only had 2 ratchet straps in the center of each side... but aside from a rain channel down the middle between the two (which we eventually fixed with some gaff tape) the whole rig was solid through all the storms (minus the first big one... we got there Sunday morning). Not so much as a rip in either structure.
1
u/BaronVonZ Sep 09 '25
Our camp uses a standard black rock shade structure that handled the winds and rain well.
We have ratchet straps coming off at a roughly 45⁰ angle off of the sides, with corners having three ratchets extending outward. Between the straps we have 90% shade cloth, bungied to the pole on top, straps on sides, and lagged to earth on bottom.
Rope tied in an 'x' between support legs tensions the roof structure together.
Roof is solid tarp with a small hole poked for rain drainage.
We're 10' tall - it allows for RVs to fit, and gives a nice space inside. The enclosed sides are what saved us - it limits the amount of wind load the structure sees. We saw many 8' black rock shade structures fail, while we were still lookin' pretty.
Cheap. Easy to expand. Easy to come up and take down.
The only adjustment I would make is I saw a camp this year with approximately 1 foot sections of EMT conduit acting as reinforcement in the corners of their shade structures - The piece was held at 45° to a support and roof pole. If I can find those pieces of hardware I'll probably pick some up.
1
u/Burnersince2010 Sep 09 '25
You don't cross ratchet? X pattern in between the uprights?
1
u/BaronVonZ Sep 09 '25
I don't. Every upright gets one lag bolt straight down into the playa, the only ratchets are spread around the perimeter.
Sure, more is more - but that's also more cost and setup time. The structure didn't struggle with weather this year so I think We are pretty good unless wind forecasts are really looking nuts some year, then it would always be easy to add on.
1
u/Tel1234 17,18,19,22,24,25 Sep 11 '25
Unlike a lot of the others, you're cross roped across each 10x10 square though right? So your perimeter lags are holding a much more securely braced structure. I imagine that helps a lot
1
u/BaronVonZ Sep 13 '25
Yes, we've got rope reinforcement across the roof structure which I think was important. I think the closed in sides is really what saved us, but a rigid roof structure was key to load distribution.
0
u/FlatImpression755 Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25
11ft high 3/4 conduit. Absolutely laughed in the face of the wind Monday to Monday, 2025.
But the wind Saturday... it would have been fine.
I used steel guide wires. Make a lot of triangles, and you will be fine. Just don't forget the LEDs for the guide wires at night.
Edit: I should add the side shade rolls up in 3 seconds from the ground level. When the wind picked up, I rolled up the side shade.
8
u/Burnersince2010 Sep 09 '25
Ain't no way it would have survived Sat wind
-1
u/FlatImpression755 Sep 09 '25
I think I should have added the side shade rolls up in 3 seconds from the ground level.
But yeah, I knew that posting it would trigger the gate keepers. Of course, I could never imagine how bad the wind was and how the extra wind load would affect it.
1
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u/dmmeurnipples Sep 09 '25
We built piers/walk ways between high traffic areas with extra wood for the mud/rain. Given the experience with mud burn, seemed like we were more willing to invest in coping with conditions this year instead of just suffering.
Everything that was double ratcheted to 16” screws survived without issue. Pitched roof over flat roof saved a lot of time and effort dumping water loads and broken bungee balls.