Stacking pads – Is R value cumulative?

[Ken K]

When stacking sleeping pads, is R value cumulative? Or do you lose some insulating value along the way? Is there a "rule of thumb" for figuring final insulating values? Is it more efficient to put a CCF on top of or underneath an air mattress? Does it matter? Season specific?

Thanks!
Fat Boy

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Generally you just add R-values. So if you have a NeoAir (R-2.5) and a RidgeRest (R-2.6) then you'd have a total R-value when stacked of R-5.1.

There seem to be two schools of thought on which order the pads should be stacked. Some people say you should put a thick air pad on the bottom (ie. NeoAir) and the CCF pad (ie. RidgeRest) on top, because the thick air pad loses heat through the side walls, so if it's on top then you get cold creeping in from the sides and that will affect you more, than if it's on the bottom. The other school of thought is that putting the thick air pad on top is better because it's more comfortable. This is the school of thought that I agree with. Maybe if I was really worried about being way too cold some night then I would try putting the CCF on top, but normally I don't find much of a difference so I go with the more comfortable setup.

[Steven McAllister]

Some pads attain part of the "R" value from the indentations on the surface, z-rest comes to mind.
So stacking a plain closed cell pad on a z-rest would create dead air space in the indentations. This could actually give a little more than double the rating.
Stacking two z-rests could cause you to loose much of this dead air space and give you double or less "R" value.

This is my theory only, I have not actually tested this:-)

[James Marco]

Radiative heat loss is generally an energy equation and is computed as the inverse square of the distance. This is a small part of the R value's, though. Generally it is ignored. Simply adding them is within most usefull purposes. Conductance and convecton(an indirect form of conductance)are the major sources of heat transfer.

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