OK, so we all know to do every thing possible to keep our insulation dry, but sometimes we mess up. Especially at home where we might not be as careful because, you know, we are not going to die of hypothermia or anything. We can just go inside.
But yesterday I got an impulse to hang up my OLD HHSS rather than my bridges. Never a tarp when I am on my back porch, though I need one sometimes because of wind. But, not with the HHSS, as the wind is already blocked. Normally, rain won't do much damage because of the roof, but it can splash up on an UQ. Again, the HHSS protects totally against that. In addition to splashup, sideways rain might also get my UQs with no tarp or UQP. But not normally.
But yesterday was not normal. While I was working on something in the house, a deluge blew in, sideways! We had a tornado watch and heavy rain with heavy straight line winds blowing right into my back porch, and right over the top of the hammock, hitting the windows and back door a good 6 or 8 ft beyond the hammock. I thought "Dang, should have brought that hammock in" and also "well I'm glad my untreated down UQs aren't getting hit with that". But I was wondering how much rain was getting over the under cover and down into the hammock.
I checked it last night in the dark, and really it didn't seem too bad at all. But when I looked again this afternoon, Holy Moly! There was a little water inside the hammock, and a small lake inside the sil-nylon undercover, with the sponge known as the HH Open Cell Foam pad, and the 4 oz worth of kidney torso pads sitting in that lake and soaking it right up. I would have been a bit panicky if I was 15-20 miles from my car in the Rocky Mountains! Plus, it was still very lightly drizzling, so forget drying out.
So, what did I do? What else, I laid down in the hammock! I did drain the lake out of the UC, but I did not yet fool with the soaked pad, which was heavy with water( later I squeezed it out some. And if I had been in the field getting ready to sleep out, I would have taken the pad out, rolled it up and squeezed it against my chest and rain gear. And tried to find something to dry out the hammock and UC. But I just got in there in my cotton shirt and jeans and had at it.
OK, it was only 55F. But a wet 55F. I immediately felt a hint of warmth in a few spots on my back, a few other spots were not very warm at all. But not uncomfortably cool either. I got out after a little while, and pulled the hammock out of the pad and UC, and got back in. Not good! Definitely unpleasantly cold. I thought the insulation wasn't doing much good until I removed it, big difference! How much? Hard to say, but definitely warmer with wet insulation than with no insulation. Now my cotton jeans and shirt were quite damp. I stuck my hand down into the insulation and there was more water in the UC, probably squeezed out by the weight of my body in the hammock.
I left the under pad hanging out side of the hammock while I did some chores and went for a walk, hoping it would drip dry a bit. It did, a bit, but was still wet when I gave it another try. This time I tried to measure the difference with a meat thermometer, which made me nervous because it has a sharp tip, I was afraid of poking a hole in my hammock. But I tried. Laying in the hammock and pressing the probe against my butt and kidney area(carefully) outside the hammock, I was averaging about 71F. When I put the wet insulation back on and placed the probe between my back and the insulation, I was running in the mid 80s to a high of 91F, depending on where I placed the probe.
I was surprised, it felt to me like more dif than that. But then I realized I had been holding the probe firmly against my back with no insulation on. But when I tried to do that(pressing firmly against my back) with the insulation on, but my arm under the hammock- holding the probe- would cause a gap. So, hard to do a real apples to apples test. I guess I should have measured again with no insulation, not pressing so firmly against my back. But hard to be precise with that, and anyway I didn't do it.
Here is the part that really surprised me: I put a zipped up fleece jacket under the wet OCF pad. Now I went first from 1:unpleasantly cold with the damp, un-insulated hammock, 2:to just OK, maybe kind of warm in a few spots with insulation on, to 3: toasty warm! But I still could not measure the difference, the thermometer still showed about the same temps as before the jacket was aded. I could definitely FEEL the dif the jacket made, 10F or more was my guess, but I could not measure it, I was still getting mid 80s to 91 max. Compared to 71F with the probe pressed very firmly against my back. (EDIT: 71F with probe pressed firmly against my uninsulated back)
But regardless of what the actual differences might have been, there is no doubt that even the very wet insulation, even if no where near full ability, was still a good bit better than nothing. If I had been in the field, I probably- after squeezing out- would have hung the pad under the hammock without the sil-nylon UC, and maybe added a hot water bottle in the hammock, in an attempt to dry the pad out from body heat + hot water bottle, assuming no sunshine. Plus, allowing the water to drip down from pad to ground.
But, best bet: stay dry if you can!
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