importance of insulation

THE IMPORTANCE OF INSULATION TO THE OUTDOOR INDUSTRY

It must be very important because so many companies are trying to develop insulations or enhance existing insulations by some method. This occurred to me when I was speaking to the owner of Cocona Company. What was further obvious to me is the fact that this fellow is so fixed on what he believes makes not only insulations more efficient but all fabrics as a direct result of adding his chemical to fiber. Just nonsense.

Since he sent me samples of fiberfill that was “enhanced” by the addition of his chemical I thought it best to call him and explain why I would not ever consider using it versus just ignoring him. I told him the Lamilite has demonstrated for 30 years that wet people getting into a wet Wiggy’s sleeping bag experienced being warm, sleeping and when waking up they were, as was the sleeping bag; dry. I then asked him how his product could improve on this action. He said “the chemical would dry out the microclimate and increase the effective moisture transmission rate”. Actually when viewing one of his videos he clearly shows that his chemical causes the vapor to condense and spread out. In the case of Lamilite the moisture stays as a vapor and is driven out of the sleeping bag by the heat that is contained within the bag. The reason there is so much heat in the bag is because Lamilite keeps it there. Causing condensation would not be a good idea since it then would take more heat to drive out the condensed moisture. However, that is what the heat retained in the bag does even when it is liquid, but he did not accept that which has been proven time and time again. This concept he just could not accept. Of course he is a laboratory guy and not a field guy. He also did not comprehend what the contradiction is.

He is the latest in what seems to be a growing list of people who believe based on no foundation of knowledge that they have a new super duper insulation or a method to improve what exists. Why all of this effort when there is one product that meets every aspect of a perfect insulating medium. The effort is being made I believe because there is a need to try and replace that perfect insulating medium since it is only made in the USA and the bulk of the outerwear  companies manufacture in Asia.

Since polyester fiber is made in Asia primarily, chemical formulations can easily be made there to mix with the polyester as Cocona does and it can be extruded into filaments and then chopped. There are fiber processors there as well so the chopped fiber does not have to travel very far from where it is made to where it is processed in to a batting and then to a quilter and finally the cutting and sewing plant. Shipping costs and time saved as well as cheap labor.

Historically the upper priced manufacturers that were in the USA such as Sierra Designs, North Face and Kelty to name a few would never use chopped fiberfill for their bags or clothing since they would then be competing specifically with cheap sleeping bags made with chopped fiber so when this perfect insulation came along that is what they used. That is until they chose the chopped fiberfill since the perfect insulation was only made in the USA and they would not have it shipped to Asia.

What makes a perfect insulation? It should be oblivious to moisture, resilient, durable, machine washable, easy to work with, and most importantly have a density that will only allow the moisture as a vapor escape but not the heat, and finally able to retain heat better than any filling that came before it or since. This product is available today and has been available since 1967/8. Obviously the perfect insulation I am referring to continuous filament fiberfill.

I have in previous articles named every product that has been introduced into the market place and have watched them all fail. Many companies like Cocona have come along with a chemical that when added to fibers and made into fabrics will keep you warm and always dry. These machinations have all demonstrated lack of ability to work as well. They enhance nothing except their pocket book if some one buys it.

I sometimes wonder how many in the industry read my articles because I have noted the movement away from the bogus waterproof/breathable materials to more pores materials that “breath” and the same goes for some insulations most specifically Primaloft saying that their insulation (I consider that reference by them a stretch) is breathable. I agree it is vapor permeable because it is so light in weight it has very little density. You might as well be wearing a screen fabric as that is how dense their fiber structure is. These companies will try any ploy and they actually work in cahoots with the marketing companies in an effort to hoodwink the general public into thinking that they have something really marvelous and they like to say technologically proven to work, in a laboratory, never in the field.

What is unfortunate is the simple fact that all of these machinations are failures and equally unfortunate is the simple fact that the marketers of insulated products in the outdoor industry refuse to use the perfect insulation; Climashield which I use to make Lamilite; both forms are available to the industry.

But since insulation is so important they who sell the finished products will continue to work with the uneducated groups who have no foundation of knowledge in the insulation business to come up with the next failure.