Patagonia H2No better then eVent?

[Ceph Lotus]

I just came from a Patagonia store, and one of the people working there said that the Patagonia H2No fabric they use in their rain jackets is better than eVent since it is more breathable. Is this true?

[Eric Blumensaadt]

I doubt it's more breathable than eVent. H2No has been around for a while. Unless Patagucci has recently changed the WPB membrane it is not even as breathable as newer iterations of Gore-Tex.

[Ryan Elsey]

the rain shadow paints I have, which i think are h2no, breath a tad better than my precip jacket… If that puts things into perspective

[Jeffs Eleven]

Ouch!

maybe they should call it 02No

[Stephan Doyle]

Ummm…. no.

Didn't Patagonia move back to Gore-Tex anyway?

[larry savage]

The purpose of a sales person is to sell you something preferably inventory on hand. A sales person is acting rationally by dispersing cloudy information if there end goal is to sell you something.
I find people at Marmot stores have very high opinions of Marmot products, the same thing happens in Patagonia stores, unfortunately everyone at the North face is always over at Starbucks so I can never get any opinions from them.

[Sam Farrington]

Certainly not. It is better than most other urethane-based WPB's, and I am wedded to my Patagonia Specter 8 oz pullover; but eVent it's not.

You might want to look at Alan Dixon's article about WPB's on this website.

Wild Things used to have a small display with two beakers of slow boiling water. The steam would visibly rise through the eVent, but not through Goretex or urethane WPB's.

[Ryan Jordan]

H2No is not a technology.

It's simply Patagonia's "standard" for "something" that is 100% waterproof, and breathable.

Within the H2No classification, Patagonia uses a variety of technologies, depending on whether the fabric is 2, 2.5, or 3 layer, and what the price point is (i.e., they *may* use different technologies within each layer class).

I have not been impressed by the breathability of their 2 layer technologies, but so what – they are mostly your run of the mill, fairly cheap, PU-coatings. No big deal.

I love my old Specter (2.5 layer), and found it to be *almost* (but perhaps, not quite) as breathable as Pac-Lite.

I also have their M10 jacket (2010), which is 3 layer, and is as breathable as any eVENT jacket I've used. Very impressive stuff.

Don't write it off. eVENT has competition.

[Sam Farrington]

Well, that explains it. Thank you.
Patagonia used to have different designations for the different types of barriers, but more recenlty I noted that only the H2No designation was being used, but hadn't thought about it much.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

Eddie Bauer actually PUBLISHES the breathability ratings of their WPB membrane clothing such as the BC-200 WPB parka. And those numbers are very good when compared with Gore's best.

But I still prefer my REI Kimtah eVent parka – so far.

[James holden]

what i find most interesting is that patagucci is moving to gore tex … not sure if they are discontinuing some of their in house WPB fabric … but i think its telling that they are making the move

[Jeffs Eleven]

But do you think its to make their jackets better, or to lure all the zombies with the GoreTex big ol crooked tag that flops all over the place?

prob a little bit of both

[Matthew Black]

The change probably doesn't mean very much; Patagonia frequently switches much of its product line between H2No and Goretex. They did it a few years after XCR came out and they appear to be doing it again several years after the release of Pro-shell. I cannot recall them ever switching to Gore immediately after an improved version of the fabric is released and they always have some H2No pieces.

[Dustin Short]

Also if you watch their videos for why they switched to Gore, they mention that Gore just got some independent certification for being a green technology. Patagucci has a huge marketing campaign focusing on how they source the greenest textiles and such which makes them more eco-friendly than the rest of the industry, blah blah blah.

I haven't looked at the exact specs to confirm if there is any non-marketing validity to this green labeling but the way I see it is that plastics used in outdoor gear is inherently un-Green and it's a hypocrisy we all deal with to satisfy our outdoor endeavors. Are some techs better than others, I'm sure but many are still going to have a ton of toxins somewhere in their life cycles, at the very least in their humble oil beginnings.

[Gabe Joyes]

I also have an M10 and I have been pretty impressed with it. It certainly breathes better than the gore-tex pro shell and paclite jackets I used to have. I've never used event so I can't compare.

[James holden]

i suspect its for more than marketing reasons that patagucci went gore …

its telling that they discontinue their M10 and other "high end" in house WPBs for gore tex pro shell

perhaps they believed that gore tex pro is at the level where the difference in performance is minimal … if anything else patagucci doesnt seem the type to get rid of something better for a lower performing more marketable product …

[Matthew Black]

I would tend to agree that it is a marketing strategy with negligible impact on performance much like when Lowe Alpine all but abandoned Triple Point Ceramic for GoreTex.

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