Big Agnes Big House Tent: 6-Person 3-Season

I have owned several BA products over the years, including sleeping bags, tents, pads, etc and have always been please with their quality.

When first opening my order, I was pleased by the weight of a 6 person tent and the well constructed/organized tent bag. When setting it up for the first time I found setup was easy and quick with light weight poles that offered a great amount of strength. I was impressed with the adequate ventilation and interior sides lined with pockets. So far I was pleased and couldn’t believe the space it offered, but...

With further inspection of the interior I started finding that the stitching was poor. It made me feel that it was quickly put together without quality control. There were numerous loose threads and bunches in the seams. Just the feel of the fabric and mesh of the tent seemed cheap and wouldn’t take much to wear it out. In my opinion what the tent walls should have been the same material as the fly, because that was the only quality fabric of the tent. After entering and exiting the tent a few times and noticed more things I didn’t care for. The zippers had small teeth, tended to get snagged, and felt cheap. The doormat is a nuisance and silly looking – if I would have kept the tent I would have cut it off.

Then came the ugly, it leaks BAD. After running a sprinkler on it for 20 minutes, all 6 pole corners were leaking. The fabric wasn’t absorbing water, but actual puddles forming in the tent corners. Even though the fly was as tight as I could get it, it still seemed loose, probably contributing to the leaking.

I performed the same sprinkler test on my BA Seedhouse SL1 and BA Parkview 3, with no problems. I even took the garden hose sprayer and blasted them for several minutes in each corner, not a drop in those tents.

BA I like your gear, but your Big House has Big Issues!

Car camping, road trips this tent is pretty much right in your wheelhouse. It stores up nicely in my roof box, even though packed away it's pretty huge- but what do you expect, it's a freaking 6 man tent! Big enough for my wife and I plus plenty of room for my 2 year old to chase my two 70lb dogs around the inside. The vestibule is a nice touch especially when the dogs need a break from being corralled by the kiddo and would like some additional space to hang out.

The tent sets up quickly, and it only takes 1 person so if Mom needs to tend to the kids and dogs Dad can set up the tent without any assistance (or feeling the need to cuss.)

It's too bad the poles aren't strong enough to support a mounted flat screen... or are they??

this tent holds up awsome to the conditions in windy wales. we fit a whole camera crew + myself, a total of about 5 people with room to spare, also this tent can take the wind very well.

Absolutely love this tent. Now that we have kiddos and don't backpack anymore, we needed a family tent and wanted room for luxury. Two cots, two kids on sleeping pads, and room for all gear, and tons of room to stand up and change. Holds up well in wind and rain (no leaks under fly, despite whipping winds), cold nights in Yellowstone were warm enough, hot nights in southern Utah were cool enough. Easy to set up. Couldn't be happier.

I have only used this tent once this season and it's great. The overall design was excellent and the materials seem to be strong. The tent was easy to erect and seems solid. I did not buy the vestibule, but may consider buying it next season. Another great product from Big Agnes.

This is our 1st tent but i have been camping for years with Scouts. We received it and set it up in the backyard. I do agree one on one thing that the mesh net had a couple of minor snags. The other thing that happened when we set it up is that one of the poles snapped due to something my 7 year old did, not in half but it now has a minor rip where the 2 poles meet but since we went camping this weekend have not had a chance to deal with it but it is not BA's fault and did not compromise the putting the poles together.

I will say that we have 2 adults, 1 male @72", 2 females at 60" and 1 7 year old @48". My hubby and i slept on a queen air mattress. My daughter slept on a twin air mattress and my son slept on the self inflating sleeping bag mat. It was a very tight fit. So much so that in some ways, i wish i had bought a bigger tent. However, I knew that most of the time, my husband would be setting the tent up with the 7 year old for scouts, and that they needed something that was not too unwieldy to set up.

If you use any air mattresses, you will be hard pressed to fit them all in this tent.

I do like the tent. When set up properly and guyed out, we did not have any sags and the tent vestie was great although it would be nice if it was taller and if it zipped to the tent like a sleeping bag or similar. We laid down a tarp in the vestie for our clothes and it really helped with giving us more room.

I like the way the footprint works with the tent and keeps everything situated. I also like the fact that for Scouts, we can leave the vestie at home and not bother with it but for car camping it was invaluable.
Once we guyed it out, we rolled back part of the fly because we knew it was not going to rain and the inner mesh kept us cool and comfie in the 90/70 temps.
We did have some condensation in the vestie but none in the tent, but i confess, we used a fan that kept the air circulating so i think that played a big part in the lack of condensation.
I would definetely buy another Big Agnes tent.

The main thing is that my hubby loved it and he is not a tent camper. He loved the ease of set up and take down.

As new member to the family camping scene, this tent is great for a family of 3 or 4. I'm over 6 foot, and I can stand in it. This is a big plus when you're camping with a 1+ old and you need to go in and out a lot, especially when having to change a bunch of stinky diapers :) I have a decent amount of experience camping, and own some high end gear. This was my first Big Agnes product, and I'm somewhat impressed. In terms of price it's pretty close to Marmot and The North Face, but you can notice the difference in quality. The tent is definitely water-proof, has a great fly that can be rolled up and tied off. which is nice, because you don't have to completely remove it to increase your air-flow. My one and only complaint was the screen and zippers on the doors. While the doors are huge, making it super easy to enter and exit, but I think since it's so big, it makes it difficult to zip and unzip the door. I think you need to take your time when you open and close this tent, otherwise you risk the zippers getting caught up and possibly ripping your screen. I think maybe the zippers need to be upgraded or the door itself needs to be smaller, because it was just a little too flimsy, making it difficult to open/close. After 2 multi day trips, my screen on my door was stretched out, and about to rip. I called the good folks at Backcountry and explained them the issue. They had me ship it back and are going to replace it for a new one. So I'll give the Big House another shot, maybe my zippers were defective??

We LOVED:
1.the color - bright and cheery, making every day start right - wonderful,
2.size - very, very spacious for 3 adult size and one 5'3" large kid,
3.height - my husband (6') could stand up easily and we could all stand at the same time - throughout the tent,
4.skylight - fabulous to see the stars, rain, blue skies,
5.tons and tons of pockets - I never thought I'd have enough, but this one had them!!!

We HATED:
1.cheap quality materials - the netting had snags in it before we opened it and got several more after only a few uses and the netting was not even close to the quality of Sierra Designs, nor any of the other materials (We had a Sierra Design for 17 years before needing a bigger tent and it didn't get a snag for the first 14 years!),
2.saggy fit - (look at some of the pictures) the tent could never be tight because the material wasn't cut correctly so there was tons of sagging and flapping,
3.the rain fly could not be staked out tight, so I'm certain the rain would have collected on the tent itself,
4.the optional vestibule was a joke! - we tried putting it on and it was cut so poorly it was ridiculous and we had to nearly crawl to get inside, which rather defeats the purpose of a tent you can stand inside (very, very disappointing since that was the primary reason I bought the tent - so we could get inside without getting rain inside our tent and store wet things out there,
5.the door did not zip and unzip well,
6.there were lots of flaws in the sewing,
7.a gust of wind while set up in the back yard bent the poles and tore a hole in the rainfly (never had a big tent before, but I feel certain this is because the material was cut so poorly that there was no way to guy out the tent tightly,
8.no cover or vestibule on the main rainfly,
9.started getting rips in some of the seams after only about a dozen nights of use (ridiculous!).

I could probably name a few more things. The bottom line is that the reviews were all so glowing and we loved so many features that I was shocked at the poor quality when it arrived. When the tent was torn up, we took it back to where we bought it and they gave us our money back. I'm still sad. I loved the design, size and features, but the quality was terrible. I'd buy this same design tent again if someone like Sierra Design were to make it with quality materials and precision cut and a better door to keep rain out when you open it (not found yet)!!!
Oh yeah, and the footprint is stupid - (don't know why Big Agnus isn't listening on that one) - but we used it to cover our shoes since there is not a door on the rainfly (again - stupid).

Okay for camping in the backyard so you have a backup. Okay if you have a backup. Won't last.

I'm 6'7" and can stand up in the middle of this bad boy. We had this Taj-Majal at the Gorge for a long weekend...Wind, Rain, Sun...took everything in stride and kept us toasty and dry. Had a Queen Size air mattress 2 XL sleeping pads and a regular size sleeping pad in here with no problem. Had a pack & Play, 2 chairs and 3 sleeping pads...whatever you want...I think the Vestibule is lousy. I bought it and returned it...not of the same quality as the tent. Super easy to set up too...but you really need 2 people!

Love the tent except for it's failure in moderate wind. I've had a pole bend on two occasions due to moderate wind that i would expect a high quality tent to endure. It's easy to piptch and very roomy, weather proof, colorful. I have the vestibule but it's pretty much worthless if there is even a slight breeze. I a good not BAP has been very kind to repair bent poles for me at no charge and very quick. If I can get a second set of poles of heavier poles this would be ideal.. but probably won't happen.

This is a great tent. Easy to set up and very stable. We used it this summer at Glacier Park - the winds were really howling and the tent had no trouble withstanding it. I was very impressed with its stability and ease.

This thing is a beast! it is huge and has hella-room. The sides are riddled with gear pockets. The fly is kind of gimpy as it covers the sides but not fully the doors. To remedy this, the doors are waterproof, but to get the full advantage of waterproof/fly space, you have to get the vestibule! 11 freaking feet of space! This has some of the most sq. footage in this tent range and I will get nothing less. Always a cute touch with the welcome mat, but helpful to keep the tent clean too.
The poles are pretty light and super strong. The pole to tent interface is slick and the sleeves for the poles are pretty tough. I hate tents that the sleeves get ripped! The bathtub bottom rocks but the footprint is not that much more and always another set of comfort. This is actually pretty light too for what it comes with. If I put the vestibule, gearloft, tent and all in the carrying bag it fits fine and is not bad. I can actually pack everything up pretty easy between a few backpacks if you wanted to take this out yonder and have a huge tent. Definite must for a family of 3 or more!