Water Weights vs Sand Weights for Popup Canopy Tents (and Why We Chose Sand)

I have shouldered many a bag of sand now. It's more work up front but wins over water for most professional use-cases.

When keeping your popup canopy tent grounded with tent weights, you have to decide what tent weights suit your needs best, and that starts with deciding what you're actually going to fill them with.

"Water weights vs sand weights, which is right for me?"

One is not "better" than the other, it just comes down to your own personal needs. With some big water weight fans and passionate sand weight advocates out there, I thought I'd weigh(t)-in with the pros and cons of each so you can decide what works best for your setup.

When to use water weights 

Water is a good fit if:

• You need to fill and empty your weights each use

• You need them to pack flat for transport or storage

• You want easy filling — a garden hose beats hauling a 50 lb bag of sand any day

  
  

When to use sand weights

Sand is the better call if you want to fill your weights once and forget about them. Here's why water isn't ideal as a long-term solution:

• Sitting water, even in a sealed container, can attract mold over time

• Water expands and contracts with temperature changes, which can negatively impact product longevity

• Water has a way of finding its way out eventually...

• Water is about 2x less dense than sand, meaning you'd need a water container 2 times the size of a sand bag to get the same weight.

At Burro, we’re designing our products with professionals in mind first. If you’re setting up with any regularity, you don’t want another thing to worry about with your setup, like where you’ll find water on-site, and you don’t want another task to do before you leave home. (There’s enough on your plate as is! 😅) That’s why we went with a sand bag tent weight for our first product. 

The Burro Tent Weight uses fabric with a water-resistant treatment that repels water from the outside while still letting the sand breathe, thereby reducing the trapped moisture that mold needs to grow. The fabric is also treated with an anti-mold coating as a second line of defense, so even if moisture does find its way in, it has a harder time taking hold.

The Burro Tent Weight bag stand

I’ll be the first to admit, sand has its downsides. It can be annoying to fill up your bags and can make a mess if you get an unexpected leak. Here's how we address these two issues: The box they come in includes cardboard cutouts that transform your box into a bag stand, making filling

them up easy. And our bags are double stitched to ensure the seams are strong enough to keep up with real-world use.

We’re proud to stand by our products with a 5-year warranty. If anything goes wrong with your Burro Tent Weights, we’ll either fix them or replace them. We want these to be the last tent weights you buy. If you’re curious to learn more about how they’re built to last, here’s a write-up about how they’re designed to be all-weather strong, season after season: The Best Tent Weights Built for All Weather

Want to give them a try? Order here, risk free, with a 30-day back guarantee. If you don’t love them, you can send them back for a full refund. 

And if you wish Burro Tent Weights could hold water, reach out and let us know at hello@burrogear.com. We always love hearing about what our popup canopy tent pros need... sand is where we started, but who knows where we’re headed.