How much damage can be done to a down bag stored for a long time in its stuff sack? I'm guessing it's been in there for more than a few years..

Often wondered. Do the manufactures stores them in a dry open environment, or cram them into the smallest space they can till they sell 'em. Dunno, Only way to tell would be to pull it out, hang it up and see if it lofts.

what they said - probably stored for towards a year anyway possibly longer before sold.
I assume it can reduce its ability to loft if it gets crushed - though I also assume the higher the loft the smaller the bits [ Though i have no idea if this is true]- and wont loft

I think the only way to know will be to open see if lofts and then test it in the real world to see .

I assume it can only loose some degrees of warmth rather than be rendered useless

For the record I have never owned anything down so am literally guessing.

It'll probably be okay - give it a good shake then pop it somewhere warmish for a couple if days. Synthetic tends to suffer more harm than decent down if stored compressed.

Guy in the shop thought I was mad when I insisted on packing up the the bag that was hung up for display rather than accepting the one in the stuff sack out the store room I imagine few retailers take this into consideration though.

At least in the cotswolds near me they are all stored in the larger storage bags rather than stuff sacks.

TheBrownDog wrote:Often wondered. Do the manufactures stores them in a dry open environment, or cram them into the smallest space they can till they sell 'em. Dunno, Only way to tell would be to pull it out, hang it up and see if it lofts.

Rab don’t fill their sleeping bags until they arrive in the UK, so perhaps some truth in that*. I know TNF, Rab, MHW and ME send all their down bags in those pillow sized bags, bit of a pain to store in a crowded stock room!

*perhaps also cheaper to do it this way if the down comes from Europe

Thank you for all the replies. I shall find out on Wednesday and let you know the results!

May be worth putting it in tumble dryer with a tennis ball on a lower heat, help bring back the loft??

I read somewhere that the manufacturers receive their supplies in bales of highly compressed down. This sort of makes sense in that it reduces the volume required for transportation. If this is true then it's likely that it's repeated compression and release of the down that damages it.

I suspect that the OP's bag will just take longer to loft to its maximum.

FWIW we just store our bags and quilts completely loose - the winter rated bags occupy half a wardrobe We do have the luxury of space for our kit though.

right, I've picked it up.

it's a Fairydown Explorer S - no year of manufacture on the label and no temp ratings anywhere. My Google-Fu is weak and hasn't managed to turn up much other than the company now trade under MacPac and are very well regarded makers of camping gear.

Seems to be in good condition and there seems to be some fluff left in it. I will indeed try the tumbledryer with a wossaname or two in to aid in the fluffing

What the label does say is 90/10 Down and it got weighed at 1.3kg in it's stuff sack. I'm currently trying to guesstimate a lower rating for it

What the label does say is 90/10 Down and it got weighed at 1.3kg in it's stuff sack. I'm currently trying to guesstimate a lower rating for it

At 1.3kg, there's quite a bit of down in there. Trouble is, without knowing what the shell material weighs you won't know just how much and without knowing the fp you've no true idea as to a rating. However, given that it's 90/10, I'd take a stab at 600 or 650fp and 800g of down. Allowing for the fact that it may not loft fully, I'd say a conservative comfort rating of -5.

Thanks Stu. I did think it was going to be at least around 0. Looking forward to testing it out.

I may pick up some wash and waterproofing if I'm going to chuck it in the tumble dryer, I may as well do something useful too.

I may pick up some wash and waterproofing if I'm going to chuck it in the tumble dryer, I may as well do something useful too.

I wouldn't. If you're going to wash it it anything, it either wants to be proper down wash or pure soap. Ideally, you also want an industrial sized dryer for that as well. If you do wash it, treat it very carefully when wet as the weight can quite easily tear the baffles.

Gian (Alpinum) posted a formula a while ago to convert loft to temperature rating.

Let the bag fully loft then measure its thickness in cm. Divide this figure by two (because there's the top and bottom), let's call this value L, and plug it in to this formula:

T = 17.5 - (3.5 * L)

Probably won't be too far off. Very roughly 5cm gives a rating of zero and each extra cm gives an extra 3.5C of warmth.

Bearbonesnorm wrote:

I may pick up some wash and waterproofing if I'm going to chuck it in the tumble dryer, I may as well do something useful too.

I wouldn't. If you're going to wash it it anything, it either wants to be proper down wash or pure soap. Ideally, you also want an industrial sized dryer for that as well. If you do wash it, treat it very carefully when wet as the weight can quite easily tear the baffles.

right, I think i'll put that on hold for the time being. (we have an 11kg load tumble dryer if that's big enough?...I know it's pretty big, you can easily fit a king size winter down quilt in there...) I was thinking of some nikwax down wash and reproof...not good enough?

I was thinking of some nikwax down wash and reproof...not good enough?

If it's down wash it should be okay ... not sure about the reproof though. Your bag probably wouldn't have had any type of proofing / DWR treatment.

Just remember that washing it isn't likely to improve the loft and you do run some risk of hurting it.

I've got an old (1970/80's?) ME Dragon series down bag which I 'borrowed' from my parents about 10 years ago. It's still warm-ish despite spending at least a couple of years stuffed in a tiny dry bag. The only care it gets is the occasional wash and tumble dry. It does seem to loft a lot better with me sleeping in it for a night than it manages on it's own.

I wash my bags/quilts mostly after about 100 nights in them. No matter how careful I was, they loose loft after good use.
Washing them with nikwax has always brought life back to them.
I tumble dry them in my modern but regular sized tumble dryer in the lowest setting. Then hang them for at least a week with some irregular shaking.

Having bought down from down gear producing companies, I can confirm that the down comes in compressed pillows. Twice I bought from different companies, the down in both cases was compressed to about 1/4 of what you would compress it to fit it in the stuffsack the gear comes with.

thanks for the info Alpinum.

I'll have a look for some Down Wash and Waterproofing bottles from NikWax and gather up some courage to use them. There's very little chance of me needing it before the summer has been and gone.

Had a really good inspection of it last night, it seems in remarkably good condition. I gave it a good shake and I get about 4 or 5 cms loft per side, I'll leave it hanging in the spare room and give it a few more periodic shakes over the next week. Hopefully it'll see me down to 0 with no issues.

It's a bit bigger and heavier than what I was after, but for £20 I thought it was worth a punt :)