From: unger@mitem.com (Tom Unger)
Newsgroups: rec.backcountry
Subject: My problems with LiteLoft.
Summary: I now own a down sleeping bag.
Date: 6 Sep 92 05:28:52 GMT
Organization: MITEM Corp

This is the story of my experience with one of the new LiteLoft
sleeping bags.

In the spring my girlfriend bought a Moonstone Optima, a 15 deg
LiteLoft sleeping bag, with a 25 deg liner (bag plus liner = -10 Deg).
I though this was a nifty setup, much better than my old down bag that
just was not keeping me warm on those winter nights.

As you may know, LiteLoft is a new synthetic fill that is lighter and
more compressible than polargard.  3M claims it's almost as good as
down, which I doubted.  However, it does have one major advantage
which is important in the wet conditions that I often camp in: unlike
down, LiteLoft does not lose it's loft when it gets wet.

So I bought the same bag that my girlfriend bought and took it out on
a couple trips.  In terms of warmth for weight, the new bag was
defanatly better than polargard, but not nearly as good as down.  The
bag was warm, but not nearly as warm as I expected it to be.  On
Rainier in 30 deg temperatures I used the liner (making a -10 deg bag)
and was toasty warm, but not as over warm as expected.  In early
August I used the bag by itself (15 deg) bag in 50 deg weather and had
to zip it all the way up to keep warm.

That didn't seem right so when I returned home I got out a tape
measure and measured the loft -- about 2.5 inches.  The original spec
was about 5.5 inches.  Our two bags stacked on top of each other were
about as lofty as my old down bag.  The LiteLoft had lost half it's
loft.

We had taken them on 5 or six short trips, slept in them 10 or 15
times.  Back home we unstuff them as soon as possible and store them
hanging in a closet.  We never washed the bags, but they weren't
particularly dirty.  I don't think we abused them in any way.

So I took the bags back to the store where I bought them and laied my
bag out next to a new bag.  The difference was clear -- the
salesperson agreed that something was wrong.  They sent the bags back
to Moonstone for analysis and gave my girlfriend a loaner.  The
helpfull salesperson hoped that Moonstone would be able to tell us
what had happened to cause the bags to lose their loft.

Three weeks latter Moonstone sent two new replacement bags, but no
explanation of what happened.  These, apparently, are the only two bags
that have been returned.  The salesperson had hoped that it would be
something like a bad lot of LiteLoft, or manufacturing problems.
Something that could be explained.

Without better explanation we hesitated to take the replacements,
they too might deflate.  We were going to New Zealand in the fall and
would have trouble returning the bags from there - we needed something
we could rely on.  For my girlfriend, this was the second synthetic
bag that lost it's loft within a couple months after purchase (North
Face).  I've had similar experience in the past, but have been happy
with my down bag.

So we shopped around and ended up buying two new down bags from
Feathered Friends.

So I wonder what happened.  I can't think of anything we did to the
bags that would damage them, but it is strange that both our bags lost
the same amount of loft.  Did this only happen to our bags or has it
happened to others who have just not noticed yet?  Do you know that the
original loft of your bag was and what the current loft is?  Who's bag
keeps them warm down to the rated temperature of the bag?
				   
			      Tom Unger
				   
				   
				   
				   
				   
				   
				   
Newsgroups: rec.backcountry