uses for Thermoflect and other shiny materials

[WV]

It's warming up outside - temps in the thirties - and humidity is high. It rained all night. This is perfect weather to see how much water vapor can pass through the holes I punched in the Thermoflect. I used plenty of insulation under the hammock, enough for much colder weather, plus a good warm down TQ with the Thermoflect as an outer layer over the TQ. I sewed a nice long footbox into the T-flect, so it stayed in place and fully covered the bottom 24" of the down TQ. With all this, I slept very warm, which I like. Fortunately, my insulating layers didn't get clammy. In the morning I could tell that they had moisture in them, but there were no areas that felt wet - not even the TQ footbox. This is pretty good performance by the perforated T-flect. Not perfect, but definitely worthwhile, especially when you consider that the added insulating value of the T-flect was helping to make me warm enough to give off all that moisture.

Coincidentally, today there's a thread on condensation under tarps posted by Roadrunner72, and HappyHiker's contribution to that thread has links to two short pieces on the very phenomena we're talking about. It's well worth the effort to give these two a bit of study. ("Read with muscle!") They are particularly helpful in understanding the role that emissivity plays in the perfomance of Thermoflect. I also like the fact that the second article was posted by "Frost."

[OutandBack]

It's warming up outside - temps in the thirties - and humidity is high. It rained all night. This is perfect weather to see how much water vapor can pass through the holes I punched in the Thermoflect. I used plenty of insulation under the hammock, enough for much colder weather, plus a good warm down TQ with the Thermoflect as an outer layer over the TQ. I sewed a nice long footbox into the T-flect, so it stayed in place and fully covered the bottom 24" of the down TQ. With all this, I slept very warm, which I like. Fortunately, my insulating layers didn't get clammy. In the morning I could tell that they had moisture in them, but there were no areas that felt wet - not even the TQ footbox. This is pretty good performance by the perforated T-flect. Not perfect, but definitely worthwhile, especially when you consider that the added insulating value of the T-flect was helping to make me warm enough to give off all that moisture.

Coincidentally, today there's a thread on condensation under tarps posted by Roadrunner72, and HappyHiker's contribution to that thread has links to two short pieces on the very phenomena we're talking about. It's well worth the effort to give these two a bit of study. ("Read with muscle!") They are particularly helpful in understanding the role that emissivity plays in the perfomance of Thermoflect. I also like the fact that the second article was posted by "Frost."

Wow David, That is fantastic results for those conditions.
I stand corrected on your idea of punching holes to improve this materials breathability.

The number of uses for this little quilt you have made are building in my mind.
Summer TQ
TQ protector for those day when dew lands on everything(protecting your down from surface wetness)
TQ protector for that sideways rain we sometimes get in the Spring.
TQ temp range extender for winter.

Other possible uses, Peapod? winter sock?

I would love to see a picture of your project piece if you have one.
-Bob

[WV]

Here are some photos to give an idea of the spacing of the holes produced with a #19 needle.

[HappyCamper]

WV! You are the bomb! Just what I needed to see.

I'm wondering how much I need to worry about pulling and tearing it with the new holes, since I move around a lot at night.

[akx]

Such cool ideas/experiments!

A great analogy I once heard to describe radiation/emissivity:
Both a wood stove and a clothes iron are hot to the touch, but the wood stove radiates heat, whereas the clothes iron doesn't. If you put your hand a foot away from the stove you feel warmth, but not from the iron.

My understanding is that you want to have your radiant barrier (the item that reduces the radiation of heat) next to an air gap.

Not sure if that's a great explanation but with some background in heat transfer of low-emissivity films I find the physics of the Thermoflect really interesting.

[WV]

Temperature outside is 27° F., but inside my sock/tent it was likely in the thirties. I used perforated Thermoflect over my down TQ and slept nice and warm, but awoke about 5 to find the underside of the T-flect very wet. Got up and removed the T-flect to inspect it carefully and found it was only wet in an area about 1 sq. ft. at the head end, obviously where I had been breathing directly on the underside of it. I must have pulled the top quilts up too high during the night. The rest of the area was dry, as was my down TQ.
This qualifies my favorable conclusions on this material a bit, but only a bit. One difficulty I see is that when extremely damp conditions or faulty deployment of the TQ do cause condensation under the Thermoflect, it's going to take longer to dry it out than it would with a fabric that allows capillary action to move the moisture to the outside. Of course, I just turned the T-flect inside out and hung it up in a 50° F. space, where it dried in half an hour, but I had been thinking of sewing up a light top quilt with a thin layer of Climashield Green between Thermoflect on top and silk on the bottom. I may still do that.

[Boothill]

just wanted to put a "bump" on this thread and see if anybody else has been doing any testing or DIY'ing with these blankets now that we are more into the "hanging season"

boot

[heywoodja]

Moved this to DIY - Just finished my DIY version of a Thermoflect UQ. I followed the IXC UQ directions modified to just create the bottom layer. The other difference is that I did not sew but glued in channels using Goop glue. I used material cut out from the neck grove to glue the dart together. The glue worked great but only worked to glue the blue side to a blue side.

Thermoflect seems to have 3 layers - blue layer is soft absorbing material, middle is aluminum and the outer layer is a plastic film. My test will use the blue layer on the outside so any moisture will collect and can be easily poured or shaken for removal.

I am only planning to use this into the middle 50's on a trip to the BWCA and will let you know how it works.

[Streetdoc432]

where can I buy the thermoflect material? I can get the stuff in scrubs at work, but I wanna make a UQ out of it..

[WV]

where can I buy the thermoflect material? I can get the stuff in scrubs at work, but I wanna make a UQ out of it..

I have some from the group buy I can sell you. Send a PM if you're interested.