Gorilla grow tent

I bought one. Much cheaper better Options around and the customer service blows

 

In my seven years of gardening indoors, assembling this tent has been the biggest and most frustrating waste of time.

The instructions are printed in incredibly small type on an 11"x17" piece of paper. There are typos that make me think no one proofread the instructions. The instructions are generic; one set of instructions are used for the 4'x4' as well as for the 12'x12' and the 10'x20'. Because of this, the specific issues that arise from assembling a large tent are completely bypassed. They even misidentify which ceiling support pole goes where. It makes me think the people writing the instructions have never assembled one of the tents.

One nice point is that the main walls contain velcro straps to hold up the wall while zipping it together. Except the velcro straps are reversed on two whole walls, so that you have to twist the straps to get them to work. Not exactly terrible, but how on earth could a fundamental problem like this get past any type of quality control measures?

On the topic of zipping up the main wall, the zippers on the upper half of my main wall are incorrectly placed (I have two female zippers on one side, and two male zippers on the other side), meaning the main wall is incapable of being zipped up. The solution I have found is to force the zipper shut in reverse, but it only temporary because the forced section of the zipper keeps popping open.

Even where the zippers are correctly matched up, it is poorly designed. To open a main door, you have to unconnect one zipper, and then backtrack another. Every time I open my main doors, I am going to be wasting time.

The extension panels are great in theory, except my 2' extension is not long enough to close properly. I'm told a new one is coming, but again, how can something this fundamental go wrong?

 

I bought a tent off eBay from kms direct it was full of light leaks all over the thing so sent it back for a full refund. So then I was left with 8 plants an no were to put them while waiting for them to get the tent back and refund me . I looked into reviews on tents an decided to pay a bit more an go for a decent brand secret jardin DS120 didn't think for a second that there would be a problem with this new one but while putting it together it ripped open at 3 places lots of the stitching hadn't been done properly an was loose an cotton hanging , the socks for vents were not any were close to being light proof also at the zips were light leaks in most places and the poles wernt great either . I'm so angry that once again I will have to waste time pulling another tent down an sending it back , they have offered me a replacement but not sure if I even want another piece of junk after seeing how poor that it had been made. Anyone got any idea which brand is the best value for money that does what its ment to without any light leaks an decent material which doesn't tear apart while pulling over the poles ?


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I own two of their 4x4 tents and think they are a decent product.  I also own a couple Secret Jardin tents.  The thickness of the walls on the Gorillas exceed anything else I have encountered.  The poles on the Gorilla are pretty beefy too, again, far beyond what SJ is using.  Both are fully functional, but the Gorilla is heavier duty. I put mine together without using the instructions and that was the first time putting any grow tent up.They aren't that difficult to put together. Mine do have quite a bit of light leakage.  Where the zippers meet at the bottom, they don't close up completely and the flaps they put in place to cover the gap, while decreasing leakage, don't eliminate it entirely.  I also had a lot of pinhole light leaks along the stitching, not impressed by that. I'm running mine in a blacked out room though, so I'm not so concerned about light leaks on the tent.  Lots of ports to run things in and out of the tent, good reflective surface on the inside, good port seals with cinches on them.  The clear windows on the doors are cool if you want to look in on your plants but don't want to waste your CO2 or upset temp/humidity management.  I haven't needed to engage their customer service so I can't comment on that.
 
For durability I think Gorilla has the competition beat hands down.  For things like those light leaks there may be better options.  The SJ units I have also have some leakage.  Maybe a bit better performance than the Gorilla at this point, being new, but I think the SJ units will wear quickly and things like tears or busted zippers are going to start to add up.
 
If I needed to buy another tent today, I would buy another Gorilla.  They aren't perfect, but I haven't seen any other tent which impressed me more than these.  They are a bit spendy, but I'm not as concerned about that and figure I'll spend less in the long run anyway because they will last longer.
 
Food for thought.

 

Thanks for your help. I wonder if the SJ have different quality ones mines the DS120 REV 2.5 I'm wondering what this means REV 2.5 is that a cheaper version of there better ones I wonder cause it says on the listing when I bought it that it was the latest version. I've been offered a replacement from the seller but I'm not sure if there is any point as he only sells the SJ make and the way it tore so easy has put me right off completely it won't last long at all an for so much money that's not on . Don't know what to do now :/