Should I give up on my eVent jacket? Worth to DWR?

You may improve the performance using a proper cleaner like Tech Wash and then a DWR treatment approved for eVent. If you washed it with regular detergent and/or fabric softener or dryer sheets, that may be part of the problem.

REI changed their return policies, but they still warranty what they sell, so an exchange is possible.

I have no personal experience, but this is from luke’s  ultralite site…

I often hear people say “My Jacket wets out”  or “Mine is soaking through”     ON ALL WPB Jackets there is a DWR coating (Durable water repellent finish) This is your first protection and doesnt last forever. IF your DWR is worn off the entire jacket will fail and not work correctly. How do i know if my DWR is worn?  Take it in the shower and if water does not bead up and roll off you need to replace it.   I go hiking about once a month and recommend replacement once a year.

How do i replace my DWR?     I personally use Nikwax tx-direct but there are many others. I hand wash it in a bucket with luke warm water ,with the product. Thats just me but there are instructions for each product, however i recommend doing it by hand. This will bring your WPB jacket back to life!

From the source

http://www.eventfabrics.com/fabric-care

event can leak if the DWR is gone and its contaminated with oils/dirt … which is why it needs to be washed and the DWR refreshed more than gore

gore 3 layer wont leak period if the DWR is gone (or it shouldnt) … which is why you get gore for “waterproofness”

wash yr event jacket with FLUROCARBON (grangers or revivex) DWR and then put it in the dryer on low for ~20-30 min … if that doesnt work then yr jacket is gone

from some reasearches at leeds univeristy ….

Type 2 – Fabrics with microporous coatings or membranes

PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) and PU (polyurethane) are the polymers most frequently used to make microporous materials for waterproof breathable fabrics. These microporous materials contain billions of holes per square centimetre that link together in complex pathways. As such, they act as a filter. They rely on surface tension to stop water penetrating them, and if the membrane or coating becomes contaminated then they can leak: water is a liquid with high surface tension, which is why it will bead on certain surfaces. Oils, such as those in sun-cream, food, or on skin, exhibit low surface tension which means that instead of beading they creep into the pores in the structure. Once inside, they affect the way water interacts with the micropores, potentially causing leaking.

Generation 1 Gore-Tex was a microporous PTFE membrane that was extremely breathable but leaked over time because it became contaminated by the wearer’s oils and sweat. For this reason, Gore-Tex is now protected by a coating which reduces its ability to transmit water vapour but increases its durability.

eVent is also a microporous PFTE membrane. Its structure is protected from contamination by lining the pores with a hydrophobic (water-hating) and oleophobic (oil-hating) chemical. By doing this, eVent remains air permeable, which increases its ability to transmit water vapour. Its air permeability is not high, though, and water molecules cannot be simply blown through its structure! To get through its structure is like navigating through a maze.

NeoShell is made in a completely different manner to eVent or Gore-Tex and from polyurethane rather than PTFE. NeoShell is electrospun, which involves dissolving a plastic in a solvent and firing the solution at a collector until a film builds up. Polartec have publicly stated that the NeoShell membrane degrades over time, though they have also stated that the hydrostatic head will never drop below 5000 mm. Relative to the other techniques used to make microporous membranes, electrospinning is still in its infancy but has enormous potential for creating excellent materials because there are so many variables, such as solution concentrations and application temperatures, that can be controlled and changed.

PTFE or PU pores are typically 0.1-10 microns in diameter. A water vapour molecule has a diameter of 0.0004 microns. Rain droplets have a diameter of at least 100 microns. Therefore, in the case of eVent and Neoshell, it is true to say that their breathability largely results from the relative sizes of water vapour, their pores, and rain droplets.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=4556

and some real life anecdotes … if you search UK climbing you can see that the brit climbers, who use WP more than most folks here, find that event and neoshell fail more often than gore …

oh yeah one of the reasons they gave me, is that there was a dirt build up on the jacket, body oils and sweat, contamination from an outside source, contamination and wear & tear from wearing a rucksack, not washing the jacket regularly enough, not reproofing , and this all happened after one day on the hill. Since then i have heard a friend say that he was on to the manufacturer and was told that “its because the jacket is for light and fast”. Ya know a lot of people spend lots on waterproofs, companies rely on purchasers not looking foolish and admittin they dont perform as well as they wish they woul

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=554601

ive said it before … if you want a something that lasts get gore … or get something like an OR jacket with a real lifetime warranty … or both

;)

Eric, the gangers dwr bottle that I purchased last summer from the Patagonia outlet in Reno said that it was flurocarbon free. Do you know of any brands still making flurocarbon dwr? If the rain jacket originally had a non-flurocarbon dwr, would adding a flurocarbon dwr not work well? Also, do you know if a 5000 HH is sufficient for rain? (I own a protoype brooks range neoshell jacket).

justin … interesting about grangers, theres probably a reaosn why dead bird branded DWR bottles are now reviveX

reviveX is PFOS and PFOA free … but that likely means they just use the shorter c6 flurocarbons … you can email em to confirm

if yr jacket had nikwax originally then stick with nikwax … however older jackets except for rab likely had original flurocarbon DWR

5000 HH is the same as the old polartec powershield pro, which was considered a softshell … remember that neoshell HH degrades over time as well

its actually hilarious that our gear is getting less durably waterproof … or even just waterproof, yet we pay more and more …

do a search on ukclimbing on event and neoshell failures … its quite the reading

or just buy an OR jacket … and smile (sorry folks) every time one of these WPB failures crop up on BPL/reddit/etc …

;)

I’ve actually looked in the past for a non breathable, impermeable face fabric (never absorbs water) rain jacket but everything I’ve ever found has been from work wear brands that don’t list weight, so I never figured that one out.

I gave Luke Schmidt my unused columbia outdry extreme jacket (membrane on the outside no face fabric) and he used it for a summer packrafting in British Columbia. He told me it worked well for him. When I got it back, it was super dirty and after washing it 3 times it’s still dirty, so it looks like he got plenty of use out of it. I’m thinking about sending it to Richard Nisley to see if he wants to evaluate the integrity of waterproof-ness of the jacket after being used. I have high hopes for the technology, I think it would be the best option for certain conditions- like bushwhacking or extreme wet extended trips.

Guh, eVent is SO STUPID then! I might as well just get a cheap plastic poncho with good venting.

I was under the impression that the fabric itself was waterproof, regardless of DWR, which is applied to allow for more breathability. I didn’t know that without a DWR the jacket would just become a soaking wet windshell that *rapidly* lets water in. I always figured that if the DWR wore off, no big deal – I’ll just lose some breathability and take it easy, maybe unzip portions of it to allow better venting, but I would still *at the very least* remain protected from the outside rain. Moisture from my body can get me wet, but not to the extend that water coming from the *frickin sky* can.

I soaked completely through in 30 minutes. If I had actually been out in the wilderness I could have been in serious trouble.

Naw, I’m done with eVent. It shouldn’t be called waterproof if it requires frequent application of a DWR that’ll just wear out in no time from water exposure, abrasion against surfaces like packs, and packing. I travel all the time, so good luck finding and then lugging around a bottle of DWR in a town in a foreign country that doesn’t speak English.

So you say a 3 layer Gore Tex is the ONLY material that will still be waterproof after the DWR has been diminished to zero? What about 2.5 layer? Definitely not 2 layer?

Victor,

The level of leakage you described indicates the membrane is <1,500 mm HH vs > 20,000 mm HH when new.  To verify, make a depression in the garment; pour 2 cups of water into the depression; and twist the ball of water as tight as you can. If water leaks through the fabric, don’t replenish the DWR; discard the jacket. A average male can exert 1200 – 1500 mm using the above test procedure.

I’ve had eVent delaminate after a couple years, it was sort of discolored and the fabric has sort of a wrinkled look.  Reviving the DWR didn’t make any difference.  It was 2.5 layer, meaning there was no lining on the inside, just a pattern on the membrane.  This is very light but gets body oils and dirt on it then fails.

Few people on BPL have been as critical as me about WPB garments. The most popular posts on my blog are about campers — except the #1 read post, The Search for the Holy Grail: Waterproof Breathable Rain Gear.

Given this, I will state that it is our responsibility to be good consumers and research all the products we buy, read the instructions, and then follow the use and maintenance instructions. An example is liquid stoves. Every horror story I ever read was the result of improper use or a failure to perform the required maintenance. The same often goes for other gear, which has resulted in corporate lawyers weighing in on the marketing and use documentation. Same with your car — if you never change the oil, the engine will become damaged in a fairly short period of time versus the hundreds of thousands of miles an engine can last when properly maintained.

I bought my first Gore-Tex garment over 30 years ago. It doesn’t live up to its hype for breathability. But I have always followed the care instructions and it works as well today as it did when new. Yes, I still have it and wear it around town.

I had just washed and dried it a week ago as well, but I’ve never applied a DWR coating on it since I got it.

These garments come with all kinds of large heavy tags with pictures of how the garment works and how to maintain them. Did you read and follow the instructions? Is it possible you damaged the membrane when you washed and dried it? How do you take care of your down garments and sleeping bag or quilt? Do you follow the manufacturer’s instructions? As consumers, we bear the responsibility to properly take care of our gear.

I was under the impression that the fabric itself was waterproof, regardless of DWR, which is applied to allow for more breathability. I didn’t know that without a DWR the jacket would just become a soaking wet windshell that *rapidly* lets water in. I always figured that if the DWR wore off, no big deal – I’ll just lose some breathability and take it easy, maybe unzip portions of it to allow better venting, but I would still *at the very least* remain protected from the outside rain. Moisture from my body can get me wet, but not to the extend that water coming from the *frickin sky* can.

This is contrary to what the manufacturer claims it will do.

Naw, I’m done with eVent. It shouldn’t be called waterproof if it requires frequent application of a DWR that’ll just wear out in no time from water exposure, abrasion against surfaces like packs, and packing. I travel all the time, so good luck finding and then lugging around a bottle of DWR in a town in a foreign country that doesn’t speak English.

Well, everything with a HH >= 1500 mm is technically waterproof and as new eVent has a HH of 28000+ mm it is regarded as waterproof. To me it sounds like the eVent in your jacket has a HH under 1500 mm and shouldn’t be regarded anymore as waterproof.

OK, now DWR has no effect on the HH if I remember right. What has an effect, and what already has been said, is contamination of the ePTFE-layer that makes your jacket waterproof. But I don’t think this should happen that quick and that often up to the point that the waterproofness is severly compromised. In fact, this has also happened to GTX as you read in a previous post. GTX solved this then by adding a non-porous PU-layer, but at the same time diminished the breathability-level. With eVent this was ‘solved’ by taking away the solid PU-layer, making the pores back open again, but replacing that with an oleophobic coating on the inside of the pores. But, as you have noticed, it doesn’t always do what you hope. The new GTX Pro goes a step further by using several different ePTFE-layers with different pore-sizes to form the waterproof membrane with one of the ePTFE-layers serving as a ‘sacrifice’-layer to catch the dirt while no longer using that PU-layer, enhancing the breathability-level again. The newer GTX Active with Shakedry-technology builds on that adding permanent water repellancy, but is currently not durable enough for heavier use. But I think/hope Gore is already working on that.

here is a post by one of the authors of the article i posted above …

note that he is an actual researcher from leeds U specializing in performance clothing … and has worked with rab, berghaus, paramo, ME, etc …

https://gearandmountains.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/help-my-waterproof-leaks/

some key points … much more in the link

If you’ve just been for a steady walk to the shops and have come back to find your shoulders soaked through and other areas of your t-shirt looking wet, this isn’t looking good for your jacket. Unless you really are a sweaty beast, chances are that this is water getting through your fabric, not water failing to escape it. There’s a couple of simple tests you can do to check:

stick on a grey or light blue cotton t-shirt or shirt (the sort of one you mustn’t wear in presentations for fear of swimming-pool-pits), put your ‘waterproof’ jacket on over the top, stick your home shower on cold (cold is important – if it’s hot the steam will confuse things), and get in it. Make sure no one is in the shower (perhaps that should be the first instruction?). Put some flippers and a snorkel on to complete the look. Start with the shower on low pressure, and then gradually increase the pressure. The pressure in some showers, particularly power showers, is really high, so don’t go mad – you’re trying to recreate heavy rain, not Niagra Falls. Get out the shower and see whether the t-shirt or shirt is wet – if it is, you’ve got definite fabric leaking.

Another quick fabric test is to hold the fabric up to strong light. If the light coming through appears uneven or has ‘spots’, as if someone had prodded the jacket with a pin a few hundred times then this is a strong indication that the membrane is full of relatively big holes and therefore kaput. Uh oh. It might be a result of gorse bushes or someone going at it with a pin. It could also just be a result of long-term abrasion.

perhaps not what BPL wants to hear …

When buying a waterproof jacket, unless you are a strong runner/climber/mountaineer/athlete, then don’t buy the lightest one: it just won’t last as long as a heavier fabric. Look for high ‘D’ (denier, the mass in grams for 9 km of a fibre – basically, a thicker and more durable fibre is heavier) numbers on the fabrics as these are usually more durable and buy from a reputable brand.

Durable-cheap-light: pick any two. In an ideal world, everyone would have a bombproof jacket for general hill walking and mountaineering and a lightweight one for activities where you are really pushing yourself or for ‘just in case’ use, but if you are buying your first serious waterproof, just get a durable one.

Similarly, keep your nice jackets for front-line use – wearing them day-to-day will massively reduce the lifespan of any product. The other thing you can do is buy a windproof and wear that when it’s windy – a waterproof is for when it is raining.

or one can just buy something with an unlimited warranty like OR or EB … sorry folks but i keep on plugging this line …

a family member just brought back a 30 year old EB jacket … he called em first to make sure they were OK with it … they gave him a decent credit and he spend even more money there

the rain jacket is the piece of gear most likely to fail for most folks … and when they do you might find out some “lifetime warranty” (of the product) aint worth the paper theyre printed on

;)

some personal experience with eVent…

has been my go-to hardshell for skiing, ice climbing, snowshoeing, and hiking without issue for 3+ years. had to reapply DWR about as often as i do with my other shells. if the manuf makes a difference, made by Wild Things in 2013. seam sealing is on point, zippers could be better, but otherwise great. not as waterproof as some of the new goretex (pro especially) once the DWR starts to go, but never an issue because i stay on top of reapplying it. i have replaced it with pertex shield+ and neoshell jackets, but eVent worked great until i put holes in the jacket.

in response to some comments above, i have never heard of DWR wearing off different fabrics at different speeds. would like to see some testing/data behind this, because the membrane (eVent, goretex, neoshell, whatever) is not what touches the DWR…DWR is applied to the face fabric (some type of nylon on most shells). some proprietary DWR is better, some reapplication DWR is better, but they all wear off eventually. also, DWR lasts a good amount of time if you apply it correctly and take care when cleaning/storing the jacket. i wipe out dirt/oils from the inside after trips, spot treat the outside, hang at home, and roll up inside out when packed. when cared for, i have never had an issue with any of the major materials. specific construction/QC issues have come up, but manuf have always taken care of any problems.

This thread has me all confused. Event is supposed to have a HH of like 20-30k when new right? But Richard is suggesting that due to the obvious leakage, the HH could be less than 1500. Is he suggesting that the HH of a jacket could drop from 20k to 1.5k? How would that even happen?

Eric, you suggest OR a lot but they don’t make any rain jackets other than the helium that an UL backpacker would be interested in. If they made a minimalist 3 layer jacket with a reasonably durable face fabric, which is totally doable in 9-12 oz, then I would be all over that with their warranty.

I have a patagonia storm racer, a 6 ounce 3 layer jacket, I’m hoping that it holds up better than most 2 layer jackets like the helium. I agree with you about having a lightweight jacket for trips with less rain and a heavier jacket for trips with lots of rain.

Justin,

It happens most often from torsion stress. First the glue dots separate and then membrane micro-tears.

justin …

the “non UL” rain jackets have the OR torso flo pit zips … thats why their 3L jackets except for the helium wont go down below 10 oz …

and that torso flo system is the best ventilation short of an actual poncho for when your DWR eventually wets out

if one wants the lightest fanciest newest rain jackets with the most hyped materials one shouldnt look at OR

if you want a jacket that simply works and is covered by the best warranty in the bizznizz so you dont have to make one of these “my rain jacket delaminated/leaks/died with moderate use after a few years and XXXX company wont cover it” threads on BPL … then OR is your company ….

;)

Wow, eVent really sucks. I’m sorry, I don’t consider a fabric waterproof if it *requires* a DWR layer to *keep water from touching it*!!!

eVent Membranes: it’s waterproof as long as there is a temporary coating on the membrane that prevents water from actually touching our membrane!

OR has a great unlimited warranty, but what about GoreTex and their “Guaranteed to Keep You Dry” promise?

So I think I need to get two different jackets:

• A beater jacket for skiing. I suspect that even an OR or GoreTex jacket will get micro-tears with the occasional heavy falls incurred while skiing, right? It would be a waste to buy an expensive GoreTex jacket for skiing.
• A nice GoreTex 3-layer jacket for actual waterproofness. And I would be treating this delicately.

How do I know if a GoreTex jacket has 3 layers? When I feel the inside of a GoreTex jacket I don’t know if it’s the membrane itself or the 3rd layer.

Just to confirm, a GoreTex 3-layer jacket does NOT need DWR to stay waterproof, right? It’ll just breathe less. But the DWR can be completely obliterated and the GoreTex will still stay waterproof, right?

The Gore membrane won’t let ester in with the DWR gone but it will be as good as a wearing plastic bag.

If you want truly durable waterproof without DWR your options are a nonbreathable ventilated shell (e.g. a poncho) or try OutDry Extreme. Both can take a beating and won’t stop being waterproof, though the latter is newer tech with an unknown lifetime.