Tents-Canopy

i needed a waterproof tarp for my dungeon. i mean… my roof. especially with el nino coming and all. i cannot tell you how many tarps i have bought in the past to cover stuff in the rain — usually the blue ones at home depot, sometimes at costco. but i’d get lazy after wards and just leave them on whatever they were on. i didn’t know this, but those blue tarps have a very short life if left in the sun. they do have some uv resistance — just not much. so after just ie, 3 weeks left out, they may become brittle and dry and crumbly.
SO… i’ma told myself stop buying cheap tarps! because i want to buy a tarp once, and i want it to last. i honestly have replenished the tarps i’ve had every year which is a huge dumb waste of time and money. so i found these guys on the web, they had a very large selection of different high duty waterproof and uv resistant tarps, and they happened to be in the l.a. area even though i thought whoever i found (ie, amazon or whatever…), i was just going to do mail order. there’s a lot of info on the site, and dozens and dozens of options for sizes which is good because its very difficult to deal with a tarp if it is too big… and it is useless if the tarp is too small.
i found some very nice (if a tarp can be nice) 14 mil premium CLEAR poly tarps here that are quite durable and much stronger than the standard blue-​tarp fare. they are thicker than anything i found in home depot. they are clear with a white ribbing in between them. and what’s good is, they are somewhat unobtrusive. certainly not as obvious as a blue loud tarp on your roof, which is an eyesore to your neighbors. i can tell these are built to last much much longer than whatever else i’ve bought over the years.
not only that, the price is very similar to the standard basic tarps at home depot. an 8×10 *premium* clear poly tarp is $ 14 or so here for example, and 8×10 *basic* tarps at home depot run the same. i also bought a few much bigger ones, and these premium, waterPROOF (which is stronger than waterRESISTANT), uv protected tarps in every case were the same price as your home depot basic tarp. no doubt– these are much better quality and better buys. they will last!
i ended up driving down to the warehouse in compton to pick these up. saved quite a bit in shipping and it was only like a 30 minute drive from weho. the ladies at the desk were certainly nice enough helping with will call etc. i ordered on the web, you can specify warehouse pickup (or chose the delivery speed you need). website needs a better «basket» function because it doesn’t store things and i kept coming back and reloading it. but the warehouse is huge and everything i needed (4 different sizes) were all in immediate stock.
anyway a tarp is a highly unexciting product, so make sure when you buy one… you only do it once! very good prices and just about every size you need here.

Failed to acknowledge a mail-​order return.
I ordered some canopy joints. They arrived promptly but were the wrong size. There was a footnote on the website that these things are not sized by their true size (like lumber in a way) which the sales person pointed out when I emailed. Problem is I went through the whole purchase and checkout process without that footnote ever appearing or being referenced. I asked for an exchange. They agreed and gave me a return address (but no RMA). I returned the merchandise, foolishly not keeping the shipping number. Over the course of a month, making several phone calls and sending several emails, Tents-​Canopies never acknowledged receipt of the returned merchandise. About half of my emails and phone calls were ignored. When I reached someone they were courteous and promised to investigate, but nothing ever came of it. So, I’m out my money and the merchandise.
I still give them two stars as the original service was fine, and this feels like a one-​off where their process fell apart combined with my not fully understanding the product originally.