Hammock Gear's NEW Quilts at 950fp & 850p ARE THEY WORTH IT
Hello friends! I am down the rabbit hole of TQ/UQ for specs I currently own two sets of HG quilts (TQ in 850fp DWR in BOTH 20* short & wide and 40* with 1 oz. overstuff in short) and (UQ in 850fp DWR in BOTH 20* short and 30* short). So. The question is. Is the weight savings of the non-DWR treated NEW 950fp worth it compared to the 850fp? When I put in my specs it was going to be about 30.02 ounces for my set of TQ 40* +1 oz overstuff and UQ 30* compared to my existing set at 38.03oz and 48.32 oz.
Fill Power in 850-900-950 HG quilts, and an answer to DWR treated down
taraH, the difference between the weights of the economy quilts and the premium quilts is a matrix of the weight of the fabric AND the fill power. The higher fill power quilts need less down in them to achieve the same temperature ratings as the lower fill power quilts. There is a 10% difference in the amount of fill in the Premium quilts due to the superior insulating properties of the higher fill power down, so it takes less to achieve the same R-value. I just pulled this from another website explaining down fill:
"Where High Fill Power Makes Sense
Premium fill-power down commands a premium price. It’s used to keep jackets ultralight and ultra packable. So if you're trying to save weight and space in a pack or you want a super sleek winter jacket, a 900-fill-power jacket is worth considering. If overall weight and bulk aren’t important to you, get a super puffy jacket and don’t worry if it only has 500-fill-power down.
Fill Weight: An Important Spec You Rarely Find
A 900-fill-power down jacket that has only 30 g of down fill won't be warmer than a 450-fill-power jacket with 100 g of down fill. In theory, 50 g of 900-fill-power down would be the same warmth as 100 g of 450-fill-power down; it would also compress to about half the space. Very few jacket makers report fill weights, though. And any simple formula for warmth calculation won't account for differences in how the down fill is distributed within baffles and around the jacket."
They are talking about jackets, but the concept is the same. A 950 FP quilt is calculated at about a 10% difference in insulating efficiency from an 850 FP quilt, so a 950 FP quilt needs 10% less down to achieve the same efficiency as an 850 FP quilt. We didn't change our fill weights when we upgraded the economy quilts from 800 to 850 FP, so our economy quilts are now an even better value and should be much more efficient at trapping warmth. The same with the premium quilts, when we went to 900 FP from 850 FP for the base quilts, we did not change the fill weights for the increased efficiency of the down being used, so those quilts which are already overstuffed are now filled with even more down than they need to be to achieve those ratings.
There is also a difference in the quality of each Fill Power. We are supplied a 90/10 down to feather ratio in all of our fill powers. The most common ratios for 800-950 FP are 70/30, 80/20 and 90/10. The higher cluster to feather ratio makes a big difference in the same fill power warmth, something that is a 900 FP down but is 70/30 down to feather ratio is actually about as efficient as an 800 FP 90/10 ratio down. From another article on down:
'Down to feather ratio is the amount of down inside a jacket, versus the amount of feathers. The higher the number in favour of down, the warmer the jacket.'High quality jackets should have at least an 80-20 down-feather ratio, because down does a much better job at trapping air than feathers. Basically, feathers are like fluff – you know when you’re reading an article and most of it is fluff, and then the actual interesting information is only 30-40% of the article? That’s the feathers. The higher their amount, the lesser quality the jacket is.'
As far as DWR goes, our 900 FP down is still DWR treated at this time. DWR treatment has its followers, and its detractors. Once you launder a quilt a few times, even using something like NIKWAX down proof or something similar, the DWR coating on the down washes off. It can also lower the down's ability to loft and lower it's Fill Power rating, as the finer clusters are now coated and not as fine as they could be. Some people love it, some people don't care, some people don't want to pay the extra for something that will wash out over time. We will still be filling our 900 FP quilts with DWR treated 900 FP goose down for the time being, but we do not advertise it as we plan to discontinue it.
