UKC

Here's one for gear....I have a down jacket and a gillet or vest whatever you want to call it. Is there any companies that will re fill them and also how much down can a jacket loose before it loses its effency?

In reply to Boulderdash86: I'd try Mountaineering Designs in Cumbria (I found via Goggle) who clean and re-furbish down jackets and bags. I've only used them for cleaning my sleeping bags but they were great.

Calski

In reply to Boulderdash86: has it been washed and tumble dried, it may just be flat

it shouldnt lose that much down, ever

In reply to gear boy:


Indeed, and if it has, it may not be worth re-filling if it's only going to leak again...

The other possibilities are that it's been stored damp, and the down had degraded and no longer lofts as well, or it's had massive amounts of use, and been repeatedly stuffed and re-stuffed into a tiny stuff sack so that the down clusters have fractured.

Or it may just have been crap down in the first place...

As for losing efficiency, well, if you lose down, the item will just be less warm. It will still work, but it won't be as warm as a new jacket of the same type; it will be about as warm as a different jacket with about the same amount of down filling in it...

In reply to Boulderdash86:

I spoke to Mountaineering Designs and they offer the whole chibang service depending on your needs - I have a very old TNF jacket that has lost lift in some areas and they said they would clean it and refill bits if necessary and that the whole lot would be no more than around £70 which given I was thinking of replacing it not a bad deal.
They were reccommended to me by a nice lady in Needlesports.

In reply to fozmeister: Thanks for all the ideas - will prob get it refilled and washed - cheaper than new.

In reply to Boulderdash86:

I managed to puncture an Alpkit sleeping bag after a year.

Alpkit sent me a repair kit and I asked if I could buy some down. They mentioned that even though it looks like you've lost a lot (my hair was full of down in the morning!), it's not as much as it seems.

They suggested taking apart a down pillow as a cost effective way of replacing down if I really felt the need to.

You can get a small duck down pillow from John Lewis for £15.