DIY UQ question: Polyester batting vs. Climashield

[Oldgoat61]

Last year, in my first foray into hammock camping, I pieced together an underquilt out of soft Tyvek, double-sided carpet tape, and a $10 queen sized comforter from Ikea. The Tyvek is on the bottom, the comforter is folded in half on top. As I completely lack sewing skills I did not cut the comforter at all so it's pretty long. Total cost with shock cord and all bits was ~$35 IIRC.

Pros of this super-cheap UQ: cheap, surprisingly warm (still toasty @25F!). I think part of the warmth is due to the Tyvek's effective wind blocking.
Cons: Very bulky & hard to compress. Not light (44 oz I think...used a whole roll of tape!). The fatal flaw is that it is narrow (38"?) for my wide shoulders and it can't effectively block breezes that sneak under the tarp.

As I still lack sewing skills and am saving my pennies for a proper TQ, I am going to do another taped-Tyvek UQ to fix the flaws. Weight isn't much of an issue for me with this but having it pack smaller would be nice.

• Here's the key question: How does regular, run-of-the-mill polyester batting compare to Climashield, warmth-wise? Will a layer of 5 oz Climashield perform better than the double layer of maybe 0.6" of polyester batting I'm using now in the comforter? Or should I go for 7.5 oz? I'm aiming to still be warm at 25F.

Here's a picture of the existing UQ with the Warbonnet Blackbird I used it with last year. I've now switched to a wide Trailrunner from Simply Light Designs which is awesome:

DIY underquilt reduced.jpg

[MinnetonkaBoater]

My take would be to make another so you have two. Your first works for relatively cool weather, now set yourself up a different temp. My first project was an underquilt, and I was not a sewer. It turned out just fine even though I had to rip a couple stitches to correct mistakes. I will tell you this, ClimaShield is fantastic! You do not have to quilt it, it will stay put on it's own. I did a 2.5 + a 3.6 (They were out of 5.0)and I am toasty into the 40's. Ripstop by the Roll gives approximate temps for the different weights. It is bulkier than down, but very light, and oh so much cheaper. I have a large pack so compressed size doesn't matter to me.