I don't know why I am posting this, since people have their experiences and that trumps all, reasoning be danged. But I'm hoping the advocates of less is more can give some reasons other than "layers of warm dry clothing keep your body heat from warming up your down which then warms you back up". That may indeed be the reasoning but I have a hard time making sense of it. Now first, I am not all saying it does not work for you. As one who mostly takes the opposite approach, and has not yet tried "less is more", I am just seeking explanations from those who do, if available.
Now, I tend to be a layer up kind of guy, not just to keep warm within a quilts rating range, but to push certain systems way beyond their ratings. Like the time( 1 ex. of many) I used a Golight TQ rated at 20F(still use it many years later) that many people claimed was in no way a 20F quilt. Maybe 30 or 35, but not 20F. It is a long/wide version, and weighs about 20 oz. I have seen a lot of 20F TQs that weigh 2 to 4 more oz than that, I have one that is 7 oz more(but doubles as a coat/serape some added weight from that) so maybe 30 is more accurate for that Golight? But I have used it at 6F and was toasty. With layers and VBs. I really don't think I could have been as warm or warmer if I had instead removed those layers, but I could be wrong.
OTOH, I have slept recently in the 20s and 30s with just cotton PJs, and been at least warm enough, with quilts rated 20-30. But, I was not at 10F or 0F, and doubt that I could go there with out either layers, or vapor barriers, or both. So I have questions, seeking understanding.
Q1: When I read: "If you are cold, take some clothing off", I wonder: assuming either dry down or synthetic clothing is available(fleece, CS, PG, Primaloft etc), if your quilts are 20F but it is 10F and you are cold,would you guys remove that insulating clothing and expect to warm up? Have you done this? Or does that theory just apply if you are cold in 20F quilts at 30 or 40F?
Q2: If you are already almost naked inside your quilts, and are cold, what do you do now? I would either put on a warm jacket or layer it above me inside my TQ or Pea Pod(if I still had one)
or below my hammock inside my Pea Pod, HHSS or maybe even a regular UQ. Or add VBs or space blankets. But what do the "sleep naked" folks do once they are far from home or car and are cold? There is nothing more to take off, and folks seem to think that adding a down jacket makes the quilt less able to feed your body heat back to you, so what do you do? Other than a hot water bottle?
Q3: This just concerns theory, though sometimes something just works for me even though I don't know why and don't need to. Still, if someone knows the theory, isn't the idea of insulation to keep body heat within the body, or at least next to the body? Preventing it from traveling away from the body and out into the surrounding air? Hence, a 4" quilt can prevent that that transfer better than a 2". It keeps the cold air further away from our skin with a layer of dead air, an excellent insulator. 4" thick is more dead air than 2". It prevents the cold outer air from replacing the warm air right next to our skin. If by wearing layers you prevented warmth from leaving your body and warming up your colder quilt, wouldn't that mean you are warmer, since you held onto that body heat instead of warming up your cold quilt with it?
If that is correct, couldn't a layer of clothes be such a good insulator that a quilt would not even be needed? It is hard for me to understand why a 2" layer of top quilt would not be made warmer by adding a 2" layer of clothing, with loft now being 4" total, as opposed to being made warmer by removing that 2" layer of clothing and going back to 2" total insulation. No one ever suggests to the person who is cold in a 3" quilt that they should go to a 2" quilt. But they probably will suggest(assuming no gaps or drafts etc) that person needs a 4" quilt. But with clothing, how is it that reducing the thickness of the clothing- maybe to zero- will warm you up like increasing the thickness of the quilt will?
I would love to hear folk's thoughts on how this works. But there might not be any good explanations, yet some folks know it works for them. And even though I have had good luck adding clothing to my quilts, the only way I will know if this oppsite works is by removing(rather than adding) clothing when I am cold and see how it goes.
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Originally Posted by rallywagon
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