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  1. #1
    Crawldaddy's Avatar
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    moisture saturation on down

    Ive had my hammock/PeaPod hanging for several days. Its well covered under my tarp so rain does not get anywhere near it. However, weve had endless rain/drizzle/fog during that time. Each night Id crawl in and the Pea Pod would feel more and more damp. Im wondering if the 100% humidity is actually soaking the down to a point where I should have some concern. I suppose weighing it before and after the hang would determine moisture content, but I was wondering if anyone else has had that concern and did they have any points to consider?...
    thanx, Bill

  2. #2
    New Member RLD's Avatar
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    just the damp in the air we get it a lot in the UK use a gore tex bag to put it in and you may fined it will be ok

  3. #3
    Senior Member BillyBob58's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crawldaddy View Post
    Ive had my hammock/PeaPod hanging for several days. Its well covered under my tarp so rain does not get anywhere near it. However, weve had endless rain/drizzle/fog during that time. Each night Id crawl in and the Pea Pod would feel more and more damp. Im wondering if the 100% humidity is actually soaking the down to a point where I should have some concern. I suppose weighing it before and after the hang would determine moisture content, but I was wondering if anyone else has had that concern and did they have any points to consider?...
    thanx, Bill
    OK, there it is again. I would like to see more opinions on this as well as more details from your experience.

    First, for your info: This hammock has been hanging in your backyard with no apparent external moisture getting on it? As opposed to maybe some condensation getting on the shell and then you are packing it up with damp shell every day, forcing the wet into the down? Really, I'd like to know for certain about that before I comment any further.

    Oh, and is this a fog situation or simply all of this endless rain we are getting?

    BTW, my Pea Pod, like my JRB MWUQ, has a most excellent DWR shells. I have had quite a bit of external moisture get on these shells without the down getting wet. But, that may be a dif situation than just hanging in the rainy weather for days.

    And it would be a good idea, like you said, to weigh the pod so we could have a better idea of if your down is actually getting wet.
    Last edited by BillyBob58; 09-18-2009 at 21:08.

  4. #4
    Crawldaddy's Avatar
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    Sorry for any vagueness. Im actually leaving the hammock hanging all day, every day and night. So's I can just hop in it at night. No external 'wet/rain' moisture is getting on the Peapod. But the air is so thick with fog, humidity, rain, for such a long time (going on 4 days now) that Im concerned with the down eventually getting saturated. Im positive the shell on my Peapod is Not DWR. Just ripstop nylon. In fact, I recall Ed mentioning one time it might be a good idea to spray the shell with Scotch guard to give the shell some semblance of water repellancy. And then in winter, wash the Pod so the shell becomes more breathable during the cold season. But I dont wanna do that, cause the loft becomes less and less with each wash. (besides- its a hassle) I do have the JRB undercover weather shield that was their prototype in the early days, but I dont think that would prevent permeating of small moisture particles from being absorbed into the down. what do you think?

  5. #5
    Senior Member gargoyle's Avatar
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    My recommendation would be ..DON'T LEAVE YOUR STUFF OUTSIDE ALL DAY, EVERYDAY.

    On another note ..down gets dirty and retains oils from your body, so washing is recomended. But HYOH.
    Ambulo tua ambulo.

  6. #6
    Crawldaddy's Avatar
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    that would normally even make sense for an old mountain redneck like me gargoyle, but what if Im doin a 10 day frog strangler in a remote area and cant leave cause Im findin lots of gold? ohh, fyi.. my Peapod rarely touches me since its outside of the hammock, i have an inside ridgeline making it more like a bivy... but youre right about down bags gettin dirty. ...but then, if Im findin lots of gold, who cares if my peapod gets ruined... dang! did i say that??
    Last edited by Crawldaddy; 09-18-2009 at 19:14.

  7. #7
    Senior Member BillyBob58's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crawldaddy View Post
    that would normally even make sense for an old mountain redneck like me gargoyle, but what if Im doin a 10 day frog strangler in a remote area and cant leave cause Im findin lots of gold? ohh, fyi.. my Peapod rarely touches me since its outside of the hammock, i have an inside ridgeline making it more like a bivy... but youre right about down bags gettin dirty. ...but then, if Im findin lots of gold, who cares if my peapod gets ruined... dang! did i say that??
    Oh I can see where you are coming from allright. I occasionally do trips that involve long difficult hikes into a base camp. But then once camp is set up, we pretty much leave it that way until time to hike out. It would never occur to me to tear down the quilts/pods every AM and then rig them up again that evening. If that's what is required, it surely seems a huge hassle. Plus, there is still the chance that it might not make that much dif, if shells and even down have some moisture that would then be compressed in a stuff sack. But if that is what it takes, so be it. But that is not a selling point for down.

    This subject has come up before ( why I said "here it is again"), but mostly associated with severe fog and then packing up every day. The reason I find it a real subject of interest is my own experiences, or at least the experiences of my friend. On the last two 1 week trips, he has expressed concerns about the exact thing you are describing. On the first trip, it was at least in the normally soggy Olympics, though the trip was relatively dry for that area. Lot's of drizzle, some light rain on most days and nights, some fog, but not all that bad.

    I had a HHSS and a synthetic bag, and had zero issues. My friend had a down bag, and I think maybe a pad(not sure), inside his HH. Neither of us ever had any rain or apparent moisture on the outside of our HH, much less inside. We broke camp and packed up after the 1st night, then stayed put after that. By the day we hiked out, he said he was starting to worry about loss of loft with his bag, and an apparent dampness.

    The next trip was to the much less humid Rockies, but it was colder with precipitation (rain, sleet, snow) on the last two days. We stayed 1 night in first camp, then 2 nights each in 2 following camps. So we only broke camp twice(both dry) plus breaking camp in the snow to hike out on the final day. This time he had a summer Pea Pod and the same down bag. And on the final day, he complained about the same concerns in both bag and pod as he had the year before with the down bag only. In both cases he was glad we didn't have several more days of camping in somewhat wet weather. And if we had had more days, he would have been really hoping for a sunny dry out day.

    For whatever reason, I had no problems though I was using a Pea Pod plus puffy clothing for warmth, no bag or top quilt. I stayed toasty and did not NOTICE any dampness or loss of loft.

    What caused the decreasing loft for my friend, specially on the less humid Rockies trip? Zero apparent external moisture, and no extreme soaking fog. Could it have been body moisture condensing in the bag and pod during sleep? Or just external humidity somehow getting into the down and condensing? Temps were mid 20s to mid 30s at night, 40s-50s in the daytime( Rockies- but high 40s lows to 60-70 daytime in the Olympics). No drying out in the sun on either trip.

    On the Rockies trip with my Pea Pod, why did I not notice any problems? At least as far as the pod's UQ goes, I did use a space blanket/VB. So could condensation actually be the cause? But come to think about it, my friend used a pad under the hammock and inside the pod, so that should have also served as a VB, at least somewhat.

    Is it lack of DWR on the Pea Pod? I thought the pod was DWR, it sure acted like it one time when my tarp stake ripped loose and a lot of wind driven rain hit the shell, but the down apparently stayed dry. I have e-mailed Ed for clarification on this issue.

    Have you slept in the pod during this time? ( Maybe body heat would help somewhat to keep things dry?) Have you had a chance to weigh the pod? Though I guess weighing is not needed if you can plainly observe the pod is not as thick as it was.

    This problem is of some concern for long trips. More than one person here has reported using down on long trips yet keeping the down bone dry, with plenty of loft. Though I don't remember if they had ability to dry in the sun periodically or had generally dry trips. But if down can loose it's loft just because it rains all day for multiple days and is super humid, even though no external moisture even gets on the shell, that is a potential significant problem, IMO, for long trips where bail out would be difficult.

    Again, I am anxious to determine if it is simply a matter of lack of DWR, though I am not sure if DWR would help all that much if we are not even talking about rain getting on the shell, but instead the cause is humidity.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Knotty's Avatar
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    I'm with you BillyBob58. Despite all the wonderful attributes of down, I ended up going synthetic on my last bag purchase (a Mountain Hardwear Lamina 20) because of dampness worries. This whole humidity thing is more complicated than it seems on the surface.
    Knotty
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  9. #9
    Crawldaddy's Avatar
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    Alot of good thots and questions Billy Bob. Im also thinking continued long time use in inclement weather. Ive never had much luck drying down on warm sunny days. It always needed a good clothes dryer to do it right. I wonder if the the Jacks or Ed have done any extensive studies on this. Im thinking at this point that the longer you have down exposed to the kind of humidity we are talking about, the less the down will loft. Hopefully I wont ever be stuck in that kind of situation, but its good to know worse case scenarios.

  10. #10
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    i think down will absorb moisture from the air over long periods of wet weather, still should insulate fairly well, just not maybe 100% unless it gets soaked, which would probably require more than days of humidity. don't think it's gonna hurt it, just dry it out fully before you put it back into storage

    does it seem to be less warm?

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