Weathering a marquee to a house part 1

The easiest and indeed the best way to weather a house is by positioning the end of the marquee (the 4m or 6m side) against the building. This is because:

It genuinely creates an extra room to the house (the goal of most marquees attaching to a house) without going through a corridor/walkway or similar
The apex design of most marquees means that water comes off the sides of the marquee, very little comes down the end because it is a flat gable. If you orientate the marquee like this then it requires very little weathering/guttering – generally you can just pull the flap of the roof up and clip it to the guttering of the
There is no eaves rail in the end of the marquee, this means you can generally lift the gable of the roof up and over any door opening in to the marquee
Tie downs are always attached to the sides of marquees, even if the marquee is on a patio there are often flower beds or fence posts at the sides of the garden to use for anchoring points

Some other points:

Ensure some of the tie downs are angled towards the house, it is very easy to attach all of the tie downs at an angle away from the house without realising it which would allow the marquee to move. If there are solid fixings on the house (cast iron not plastic downpipes for example) then by all means attach on to them to anchor the marquee down
A house will often have an overhanging gutter so the marquee won’t go hard up against the house. In my experience it’s best to leave all of the sides off facing the house (especially if there’s a window that can look out in to the marquee) and block in the gaps either side to keep in the warmth. How to block in these gaps:
Cover one end of a groundbar or similar length pole with gaffa tape (if you don’t have this in your van as standard then you can’t call yourself a true marquee erector!)
Hold the pole up to the eave rail at the end of the marquee and very loosely cable tie in place (c’mon, you must have cable ties!) with the taped end towards the house
Push the pole towards the house until it’s touching (the tape prevents you scratching or damaging the customers house) and then tighten up all of the cable ties to hold the pipe in place
To actually fill the gap attach a wall or window to the corner of the marquee as usual by bungee-ing to the leg but cable tie the top of the wall to the jutting out part of the pole you’ve just fixed in place keeping all of the slack towards the house
Go and find something heavy in the garden (plant pots are good) and rest on the rain skirt of the wall tight up against the house – this keeps the bottom in place
Unless you are incredibly lucky and there’s something on the house to cable tie the marquee wall to then that’s about the best you can do

Thanks for reading, I’ll run through the other methods soon

Spencer