Material Spotlight: Benefits and Uses for Canvas Tarps

Canvas tarps are mainstays at construction sites, fire departments, cargo operations, salvage companies and schools, for covering outdoor equipment. Affordable, fold-able, long-lasting tarpaulins are also favorite buys of city dwellers, suburbanites, farmers and outdoors enthusiasts for their sheer versatility.

Lightweight canvas tarps are indispensable for landscaping and home improvement projects, protecting decks and patios during outside paint or repair jobs. In freezing winter weather, protect plants on an apartment patio or a backyard garden with a water-repellent canvas tarp. Screened porches can be shielded using insulating tarps on brisk or stormy days. Farmers cover hay and tractors with canvas tarps, which resist costly condensation

Our U.S.-made 100 percent single-filled military cotton duck fabric tarps at TarpSurplus.com have triple-stitched hems and sturdy grommets placed every 24 inches for easy tie-downs. They’re water-resistant but also breathable, which means they won’t trap moisture like poly tarps. Available in 10-ounce or 12-oz. weights, these handy military-grade cotton canvas tarps are bestsellers at Tarp Surplus.

Campers use lighter-weight tarps as makeshift overhead shelter from the elements during outside picnics. Avid bicyclists stow lightweight, tear-resistant canvas tarps in their saddlebags to cover their bikes and themselves during sudden rain showers. Hunters use canvas tarps to line the floors of duck blinds.

They’re water resistant, but not waterproof, which makes canvas tarps great protection for light rain. Because of dyes and finishes, they’re recommended for outside use. Canvas tarpaulins are sturdy, but not tough enough for trailer, boat or car covers. Shop our line of vinyl tarps for those jobs.

Keep a folded canvas tarp in your car trunk to spread on the ground when checking under your hood or repairing a flat tire. Unlike some slippery poly tarps, canvas tarps stay put when you walk or stand on them. Then, line the floor of your car trunk with the tarp, toss in the flat tire and your tools, and enjoy a safe ride home. Not only do canvas tarps have hundreds of uses; you can reuse them hundreds of times. 

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Pack a Tarp: Uses for Tarps While Camping

Tarps have long been the stars of must-take packing lists for camping trips. Savvy campers use them to line tent floors and cover the tops of older, iffy tents. Some who like to lighten up their backpacks on off-trail treks use tarps as their tents.

Camping families buy our colorful low-cost tarps at TarpSurplus.com to cover picnic tables and create a roof above those tables to protect against rain or too much sun. Start up the grill under a fire retardant tarpaulin on rainy days. Spread one on the ground for outdoor game night.

You can create an outside dressing room with a strategically placed tarp, or use one as a temporary privacy wall at a crowded campground. Line your car trunk and back seats with small poly tarps for transporting messy camping supplies and the family dog back home. Today’s tear-resistant tarps are available in water-repellent or waterproof styles and even fire-resistant editions. But should an enterprising 12-year-old discover a way we don’t know about to punch a hole in a tarp, a piece of ordinary duct tape will fix it.

When a customer called TarpSurplus to ask which tarp would be best to build an outdoor hammock for a camping expedition, we were momentarily stumped. Then we found dozens of how-to tips on the Internet for building hammocks from tarps and thought: genius.

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Homeless Turn to Tarps During Cold Winter

Normally tarps are popular at construction sites, boatyards and other worksites, but this winter they were also being used as makeshift housing for homeless people.

Along the banks of the Feather River in Northern California, people with nowhere else to go used tarps as roofs over pieced-together structures when temperatures dropped to the freezing point in January, the Appeal-Democrat reported.

An estimated 30 to 40 people were camped along the river in a region without enough emergency beds for the number of local homeless people, the Marysville, Calif., newspaper reported.

Reinforced blue roof tarps like those from TarpSurplus.com have become a familiar sight at the locations of major hurricanes and other natural disasters to protect damaged rooftops.

For a few dozen homeless people perched on a California riverbank this winter, a simple tarp to protect against the elements was the only roof available.

Read more about this story here.

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