I have used a wall tent for elk hunting for a few years, but i prefer my camper hands down.
We've thought about that - and a camper is definitely in our sights, and has been.
The down side is one of the events we do is at a park where we have not been allowed to drive off of the pavement and off the pavement is the only place we would be able to put a camper for the event, the drive and parking lot aren't camper-able (blocks traffic). That has cramped our event a good bit. The park management doesn't mind tents and carts on the grass, but no vehicles (they can rut soft ground after/during rain). So that pretty much puts the kabosh on a camper there - and that is the event/place we had the cabin tents last where the tarps ripped.
Taking a dump in a 5-gallon bucket with the clip-on toilet seat thing during a blizzard at midnight makes you really miss your camper! Aluminum IMC weighs close to the same as EMT, but costs more, I had the same idea when i was building my tent frame but there's really no point. I bought a fireproof tarp and use it as a rain fly so no embers burn a hole in my tent roof, snow also slides off with just a tap in the morning.
Interesting on the alum IMC. I have not heard of that before. When I mentioned aluminum I was thinking along the lines of 6061 structural tubing. I have not dug around to see if a suitable wall thickness in a close enough OD to EMT is available (IE - same OD as EMT = can use the same stock angles).
Make sure you guy your chimney pipe down or secure it with screws, I had the top portion of mine blow off in a storm just below the top of the roof peak. the wind pushed smoke into the tent all night. Good way to wake up feeling very sick or not at all.
We have a pellet stove. I am familiar with anchoring the flue pipe - you're 100% correct. I like having structure to secure it to, if nothing else an A frame ladder. We use thick steel utility wire (kind of like a cross between picture hanging wire and steel bailing wire - when I got it everyone in town was out of steel bailing wire - hay season - so it was the next best thing) to wrap around the pipe and attach to structure.
My experience has been you will have a sore back, it's cool and fun, but its a LOT of work unless you're leaving it somewhere all season. My tent weighs about 100lbs, my tent frame is 100lbs, my wood stove + cookware weighs about 100lbs, my cooler weighs about 100lbs, I bring about 100lbs in firewood, i have about 100lbs in blankets/cots/tables/lanterns/bedding etc... every component weighs about 100lbs. you get to pack it all into your truck, nice and neat, then unpack 800lbs of stuff and set up camp. I usually hunt for 7-10 days then I get to pack the 800lbs in icy canvas and cast iron back up and head home. The best part is when you get home you unpack everything and have to set up the tent+frame in your garage or basement for two weeks so it's completely dry before you put it up for the year or it will mold... then two weeks later you finally get to put it away. Skip this one year and your $1,500 wall tent is rotten and your $300 worth of EMT and special-made angle kit is rusty.
The above is a valid all-encompassing subject and perspective. Some of the events we do is about a month's worth of work for a "weekend" outing. That is, the 2 weekends prior are preparatory. The idea I try to go after is to have everything packed and ready to roll the weekend prior, minus last minute/important stuff. Then we get to condense the set up and tear down over the weekend, then do the reverse afterwards. Right now there isn't a way to ease up on that process/speed up the process - we don't have the space at the moment to keep things all together easy to grab, and all but the strictly "camping" gear is used other times so things get scattered to some extent.
Whether it makes much sense or not, with a set of wall tents my gut tells me we're going to have a quicker & better tent set up. Rigging the tarps is a PITA. I'll see if I can get a picture or two of our set up for perspective. The long and short of it is we use 2 poles per tent/tarp to set up a tarp in a large A configuration with a tent under it.
I wholeheartedly agree, though - a camper would be a million times easier and faster - its already "set up" for the most part. The down side is a primary/important event we do a camper may just not be possible. If a camper was our only option it takes one management decision from the park to tell us not to drive on the grass to put the kabosh on the event for us.
Pro tip: get colored 35 electrical tape and mark your poles and angle pieces with a stripe or two to speed up assembly: legs are blue stripe, walls are yellow, trusses are red etc... either side of the angle piece gets the corresponding color. just lay everything out and match color for color when you set your tent up, no more trying to eyeball if it's a 90* ridge piece or the 115* side piece. it'll really cut down on your setup time.
Thanks for the color coding. I do something similar with frames that have a specific organization to them. I label things with letters at joints. When things go together the first time I put letters on matching joints so to reassemble you match A to A, B to B, C to C, etc. The color coding would probably be faster as you don't have to look close for letters - the color can be seen quick at a glance.
