Store Compressed or Uncompressed?

[jeff-oh]

Another point to ponder in all this, How long is gear compressed from time of manufacture to consumer opening the package. Probably not vary long for cottage vendors, but for REI, Columbia, Land's End, L.L.Bean etc. Time from Manufacture, warehousing, shipment, more warehousing, shipment to store, shelf time, to consumer could be many months to a year or more for old stock items. And they are all shipped and stored compressed by the manufacturers.

For that matter how many years is Fiberglass insulation compressed prior to installation. Go down to Home Depot and that insulation is extremely compressed and stored that way.


I also found this from PHD. Their testing showed Down improved with compression cycles.: https://www.phdesigns.co.uk/cleaning...s-and-clothing

Down is naturally very resilient
Some years ago, when testing the effects of repeated compression on down and various synthetic waddings, we found that after thousands of compression cycles the waddings had all lost between 30% and 40% of their loft, as expected. By contrast the down was 5% loftier than before - the compressions had merely warmed it up! This illustrates that down is not the fragile touch-me-not substance some people think. Treated right, it will give good service for a very long time.

Basic Care Rules:
Store loose, not compressed
If it gets wet, dry thoroughly before storage
Keep clean if possible. Using a liner or wearing clothing inside a bag will help by absorbing body oils and sweat
If it needs cleaning, follow the advice below.

[scrope]

It doesn't sound like a complicated thing to test (for somebody who does actual down testing). We all know how down is tested to determine the fill power rating so it seems like a simple test to take some down and determine the fill power, then compress the crap out of it and leave it for a while (this can be potentially vary variable), and then uncompress the down and fluff it up and see what the new fill power rating is.

If the fill goes from 5" to 1", yeah, we got a problem. If the fill goes from 5" to 4.9997", I'm not going to worry about that. And it sounds like it's possible after many compression cycles to go from 5" to 5.1". Didn't expect that was possible.

I'm like everybody else in that I store all my sleeping bags and quilts uncompressed. I also don't worry about compressing them and putting them in my pack a week ahead of time. It appears that down bags are good for about 10 years and synthetic for about 5 years. I don't do enough camping to make a dent in the longevity no matter what I do so I just don't worry about it

But yeah, I still store them uncompressed

[Ozzitoolmetallicrue]

Uncompressed. Hung in a closet for me..

[Vanhalo]

I store mine in the Jacks 'R' Better plastic storage bags.

Screenshot at 2018-08-11 11:54:59.pngIMG_1182.jpg

Here is why:

[snwcmpr]

Plastic storage ... Breathable?

[Halfed]

I like cotton storage bags

[Scott8691]

Nope. Not an argument for argument’s sake. I am gearing up to hike an 80+ mile stretch of the Appalacian trail in October. To prepare myself, I am hiking local mountain biking trails carrying my loaded pack, and adding some additional weight to simulate the weight of the food. This practice would be made easier if I felt I could keep my pack loaded between practices....

Have fun on your 80 mile stretch of the AT! Could you possibly use stuff sacks with clothes in them to simulate your quilts on your conditioning hikes? Then when it is time for the real deal, swap them out for your down items, add your food and start logging miles! Just a thought.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Grumpy Squatch]

The answer is no one knows because there are too many variables to test without spending tens of thousands of dollars that no user or manufacturer cares to invest for no real return. So, like "which engine oil is best in my car" we have an endless battle of the theories and anecdotes. The variables for compression and storage alone would cause endless arguing so no one would believe the tests anyway. How compressed? Hand stuffed into a sack? What absolute force would be used? What relative volume reduction? Rolled or stuffed? Then there's the question of construction: would baffle design change the characteristics by reducing the movement of the down in response to compression? Would tests on a sleeping bag apply to a jacket? Unless I become a billionare and decide to buy $50,000 worth of identical down sleeping bags and rent a climate-controlled storage facility for 10 years so I can compress them all and remove one monthly every month for 10 years no one will ever answer this. And even then we will have settled the arguing for one model of one brand of sleeping bag that will probably be out of production by the time results are released.

From what I have read I choose to believe that actual down suffers little from compression while feathers suffer greatly. Since most of what we have is a mixture of both, some damage occurs and some loft is reduced by both compression cycles causing new breaks in feather shape and in long-term compression causing permanent changes to feather shape. Do those changes actually cause real-world performance degredation? Who knows - that's a whole different set of debates about whether we can measure insulation performance in a meaningful way anyway. Modern loose-fill synthetics like "Featherless (Marmot) and ThermoBall (North Face) probably behave like down and compress well. Sheet insulations like Climashield Apex probably behave more like feathers.

So, like many people, I store my down and synthetic gear uncompressed because I have the space in my house and I compress the heck out of my quilts and gear when I hike without concern because I cannot stand trying to pack around an uncompressed quilt in the bottom of my pack that slithers around like Jell-O. And then I replace my gear every so often and don't worry that much about it.

[OneClick]

From what I have read I choose to believe that actual down suffers little from compression while feathers suffer greatly.

I have a custom 1300FP unicorn feather quilt coming soon. It suffers from neither!

[Grumpy Squatch]

I have a custom 1300FP unicorn feather quilt coming soon. It suffers from neither!

Hung with OutdoorInk rainbow straps I assume. I'll chip in if you order the fabric printed with this:

416H3YjQypL.jpg