UKC

Hello,

I am trying to decide which belay parka to buy for next winter and I am tempted with the Outdoor Research Perch belay parka. The insulation is Primaloft gold. I've read that Primaloft loses it's loft quickly when compressed. Can anyone give me more information about that or about the jacket in particular if someone has ever used it? Can I still expect to be able to use it for a long time?

Thanks.

I can't comment on Primaloft but i have some experience of Climashield insulation, which may be of some help.  I made a camping quilt using Climashield Apex 100 and it started life being 19 mm thick.  After two weeks use (i.e. being compressed to 10% of the lofted volume  fourteen times), I measured its thickness as being 15 mm (approximately).

That works out as a 1.5% loss of loft, each time you stuff it into its sack.  Extrapolating that to a month's use, you might expect synthetic insulation to be half the original thickness, or only half as warm.

That seems in line with observations that have noted 47% loss of insulating abililty over a three-week backpacking trip.  See https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/101420/page/2/#comments for lots of technical info (one might want to look back at page 1 as well).

It seems to me that various treated down products are increasingly competitive.

Loss of loft on a backpacking trip is due to 16 or so  hours a day in a compressed state, the fibres do not have enough time to recover.

The belay jackets I have for mainly weekend use have had minimal loft loss. Proper airing and storage loose is the key.  The outer covering is trashed before the insulation.

It would be interesting to know if any of the 47% loft loss over three weeks was recovered after a period of proper storage or a wash.

This is something I've just been looking at as my old Flux jacket with Primaloft Silver Eco (brilliant, love it and pretty resilient outer fabric to boot) definitely doesn't have the warmth or 'loft' that it used and other than stashing and usage I've looked after / washed it carefully. As stated, your synthetic jacket will lose warmth through general use but you can help it by not squishing in the pack or dry bag (unlike me), not wearing in daily life too much (like me) and by storing loosely on a hanger.

Yeah, just don't use it and it'll be fine.