Gear: The Ozark Trail Screenhouse

The way the poles clip into hubs is a little hard to get apart. It seems like I am the second person to review this product, and the second one to give it a 1 Star rating. Goes together well, but as soon as we got a little shower….

ozark trail screen house

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. We bought this screen house at an auction for $5.

This is one of those products where the instructions are basically a complete fantasy. They make one false unstated assumption after another. And even then, they’re not simple. What you wind up with is a web of pipes and plastic pieces that falls apart at one end as you assemble the other. Then the instructions start to get really funny.

Yes, I know it will, so what gives? A Pavlovian reaction to super-size doses of advertising? Greed, optimism, stinginess, and materialistic guilt thrashing together in a dance of futility that leads straight to the checkout counter? To make matters worse, sometimes I’m so ashamed of the purchase that I can’t even bring myself to return it. You either need six people or twelve arms to hold the thing together when assembling.

I purchased my tent a couple of years ago, but time passed and just got it out to put it up. Also, one of the parts broke before using it one time. The ozark trail canopy is 13 feet long and nine feet wide, with a standing space that tops out at seven feet high.

Total collapse, hubs (2) shattered and two sets of poles completely destroyed. Not sure if I should order replacement parts or not, maybe I should just consider this a waste of money, and cut my losses while I can. We bought this screen tent about 2 years ago and just took it out of the box to put it up. I hate to say it but this thing is a piece of JUNK.

Now unable to get all the parts I need to make it worth repairing. I purchased Model #WT98010R and I’ve had it for 2 years and have put it up probably 6 times. This summer I had it up in the backyard after a birthday party for several days and one of the poles broke during a bad storm while I was at work. I bought two of these tents new last year from a yard sale.

Shade can be a matter of survival there if you’re outside at midday. 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. This product from the list of stuff that I wish I never had bought it would in the top two. Setting up the screenhouse you need an army of people to hold the frame in place to put the screen over. Then the hooks don’t even reach the holes at the bottom of the poles. Then if you can manage to get that far, you have to run like crazy to get it tied down before if falls over.

It was a nice size though and eventually got up with extra tape. One mad idea often begets another, and that is how this $34.95 purchase came about. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in the blog, I’m getting married in Joshua Tree on August 2nd, outdoors.