Winter down bag decision

In a way, all those with DWR-down are test dummies as those companies are building up experience with their formula's. It reminds me a bit of GTX: it took Gore nearly a decade or even longer to solve the problems with leaking GTX, delamination, …

It really cones down (no pun intended)
If someone wants to be an early adopter,
I was one for years but not so bothered now.

If you are an early adopter or not, is a choice, but even if you are, it's sometimes better to pass.

Most defibitley, I do have 2 items with DWR
down, but I did not purchase them because it had so.

I talked to a WM rep yesterday and he said that it appears Down Tek, Dri Down and other down DWR treatments wash off fairly quickly and that is why they do not use a down DWR yet.

for bags thats actually not a big deal as you dont wash your bag too often … even high fill power non DWR down degrades with enough washes and use

now for jackets worn daily, that is an issue … as if youre wearing your high fill power jacket all the time you should be washing it not too infrequently to get your body oils and vapor out of the down

;)

Now, perhaps it's a bigger issue then realised. If it is like with DWR on clothes, it will need (rather) regular washing to keep doing its job. But if washing degrades that DWR, then it might be an expensive 'mistake'.

If washing degrades the down DWR, then does that mean repeated stuffing of the down garment would also degrade the down DWR?

I mostly assumed that DWR down was something invented to sell more down products (and to get people to pay more for the same down item). Who knows if it has any real benefit?

well to put it simply we havent seen any REAL test on the subject .. not mindless intraweb forums speculation that we all do

we do know that when new DWR down does provide some benefit … the prolite gear vids (sad they went belly up) shows this as does anecdotal tales from folks whove compared them in humid environments

however like all things in the outdoor industry real tests and facts are often not available to the public … being obscured or hidden my marketers

things we dont really know …

– does DWR down prevent the loss of loft in real world humidity that makes 900 down fill irrelevant in many cases

– how fast does DWR down degrade with washes or with regular use … can the DWR down be revitalized effectively

– how fast does non-DWR down degrade with regular use and washes … especially modern high fill powered down

– does the DWR on the down actually reduce normal degradation from body vapor/oils … remember that flurocarbon DWR is also used to prevent stains and oil from adhering … this is why some manufacturers (especially other than outside clothing manufacturers) use flurocarbons

there are no actual published tests that im aware of that are available to the public … certainly not in an easy to read format

basically you need to cut up a bunch of older and newer jackets, wash the down so many times, and send it off to a lab to test …

the outdoor publications which do have the budget for this simply wont do it … period …

they would lose all the related advertising should the data come back which goes against a certain brand or product …

marketing controls the outdoor industry … its that simple

;)

From the Zpacks website:

"Water resistant down is just normal down that is washed with a water resistant treatment by the factory. In theory this treatment makes the down take longer to wet out, and may retain a little bit less water after being soaked, however real world results are hard to observe. The down still wets out after a while and you still need to be careful to keep your bag dry. I personally think that the benefits are very minor. We have also noticed that the treated down can be more clingy and can take more work to break apart clumps and fluff the bag up, which could result in cold spots if the bag isn't fluffed well.

It is for this reason that we have decided to streamline our production and discontinue WR down as a standard option as of November 2014."

@Eric.
GoLite filed for bankruptcy.

Prolite Gear in Bozeman is still going strong as far as I know. Have you heard different?

@ZPacks
I noticed last year that Marmot and MtnHardware and others RAISED the prices of the DWR down products especially sleeping bags that were essentially the same as the plain old down (POD?) products.

If they all discontinue the DWR down, will they lower the prices back?

This will all make Western Montaineering look prescient.

Have you looked at PHD? They do 1000 fill down now (& I believe the Euro standard is higher than the same US number). They don't do any of the hydrophobic/dwr down but they offer water-resistant ultrashell or drishell outers plus a 'design your own bag service'.

Seriously – we have enough engineers and such on this site.

Can't we just take several bags/quilts of various fills and DWRs, set them up in various conditions particularly in the humid environments (I'm looking at you PNW!) and measure loft?

These could all be backyard tests – before and after lofts, weights, etc. Go sleep in your backyard, breath into the quilt/bag all night long, see what happens???

I'm sure we could all come up with decent "real world" experiments in our backyards. I'm willing to do it on a wet night here in Austin's rainy winter (yes! It's been raining here!)

We can measure temps, dew point, etc overnight – measure the quilt/bag in terms of loft and weight (anything else?) before the campout, then in the am. We can all pool data from our various points and one of you engineering geeks can figure it out.

Thoughts???

Jen…
I think it would be best if one technically skilled person did all the testing in one location… I suggest you order a dozen or so bags, do the testing, and return the bags for a refund…

I have full confidence in you Jen !@!! :)

billy

It would be nice of BPL to test this out, after all that's the kind of testing and evaluation I poneyed up the membership cash for (well it was for the store also, but that got kicked to the dirt).

Bruce,

Unfortunately Prolite has closed it's doors.
If they had stayed open I am sure Craig (the owner) would
of produced a video of DWR down testing, as he had done
so for breathability.

Stephen
Thanks
I was on their site just two weeks ago pricing out Hilleberg tents. But today I see that while the site is up I cannot log in. Their web site must still be running at the hosting company.

Too bad. Great service. Great selection. Great people. I bought a lot of Integral Designs gear from them.
Cheers

unfortunately most BPLers including myself wouldnt be able to produce any results worth anything

how the down is treated prior and the relative conditions will greatly affect affect mesaurements

also as richard has shown, the correlation between loft and and "warmth" can be somewhat poor

the IDFL has notes on why they moved to a "steam" treatment prior to measurement for fill power

theyve found that how the down was shipped to them, how it was treated prior to measurement, relative conditions, etc … by itself can produce a 10-40% variation in measurement … and this is from labs

and they honestly admit that their "steam" measurement may or may not have any real relevance to "usable" or realistic fill power in the field … thats not their goal, its simply to reproduce the closest fill power consistently to the original down out of the factory

which is one of the reasons i dont worry about a bit of difference in fill power here and there … under real conditions is pretty irrelevant

;)

I'm curious about the performance of DWR down too. I recently purchased a 30 degree wide enigma with 900 hyperdry to use over my katabatic sawatch in winter. My hope is that the moisture will be absorbed mostly in the top quilt, and, though I know it won't dry as well as synthetic, that the hyperdry will handle moisture at least a little bit better.

I should have this system out for a multi-day trip in early jan, so I'll report back. Not expecting any miracles here, but I'm at least thinking it'll take the dew point out of my sawatch, and keep it dry, as my main insulation. The EE fabric does seem to be quite breathable for a down proof fabric, which should also help with drying.

These are just impressions, but the down does seem a little more clumpy, albeit still super lofty. I was assured by EE that if the clumping becomes an issue, that its under the warranty, so I'm not gonna worry about it.

So I finally got my Karakoran 0 bag today.

LENGTH – It's just right for me (5' 10") and my boot liners, water, GPS, camera, etc. It's exactly the Same length as my MH -20 F. size long synthetic bag.

LOFT – Still waiting for complete loft. Just unpacked it a few hours ago, but so far pretty good.

INTERIOR SPACE – Big enough for me without being at all cramped when wearing puffy tops and bottoms.

NECK COLLAR – As Peter stated, 6" too low AND no drawstring AND no zipper side Velcro closure.

My Solution:
1. Unstitch factory collar, save down.
2. Sew a new, wider collar W/ drawcord and 2" wide extra-strong Velcro closure at the zipper side.
3. Use the down from the old collar plus 1 oz. new down to fill the new, larger collar. Hand stitch the new collar in the correct location.
4. Sleep draft-free. (But not draught-free… I plan to test it out behind the Southern Sun microbrewery, Boulder, Colorado. ;o)

At $302. for this otherwise very nice bag I'd rather go the DIY collar route than pay more than double the price for a WM Lynx -10 F. bag. The Lynx was my first choice – if I hit the lottery.

Eric, can you clarify one thing for me? you purchased the regular length EB bag correct? So the regular length EB bag is as long as the long MH bag you had previously?

If that is the case I'm glad I went with another option. I don't have boot liners I sleep with and cant think of a time I've needed that much space at the bottom of my bag. Thermal efficiency would be pretty poor for me (I'm 5'11") with that much extra space down by my feet, which I already have trouble keeping warm on a cold winters night.

I'm truly glad that it worked out for you. Seeing a pic of your mods once completed would be great. I need to make a similar one on my Lithium as it does not have velcro on the zipper side of the neck baffle either. The drawstring is pretty ineffective when the ends don't hold together.

del