more nonsense on the market

CHANGE TO WIGGY’S HOME PAGE

Recently a number of people were interested in reading my life story in business and I had to tell them to search for it in the commentary and it was 5 chapters that spanned about 2 months. That was a chore so I asked my web site guru to make it more easily available for people to read. He had to change the home page to accommodate my request. You will find the link under the picture of Rudy and myself.

WARMTH?

Is there no end to the total and I mean total lack of knowledge known to people in the outdoor industry with respect to warmth as pertains to humans? Companies seem to be offering almost on daily basis products that are going to keep people warm in some manner or other. The people in the employ of these companies truly have zero knowledge of the subject and how to accomplish their objectives. Unfortunately that is par for the course.

Today I am highlighting one product from a company that makes ground pads.

NeoAir^® XTherm^™

More warmth per gram than any other air mattress in the world.

Air mattresses do not keep you warm sleeping bags do, but the air mattress under the bag will keep you cold. The air within the mattress will keep you afloat if you are in water. The air within the mattress will be whatever the air temperature is if you put it on the ground. In summer if the air temperature is 75 degrees the air in the mattress will be 75 degrees. However, if the air in winter is 2 degrees the air within the mattress will be a cool 2 degrees. It does not matter what the weight of the mattress is it is by no means what is claimed.

The XTherm^™ air mattress delivers the greatest warmth-to-weight ratio available in any air mattress by far, with a softer, textured no-slip fabric for better next-to-skin comfort and a quieter rest. Multiple, reflective ThermaCapture^™ layers give the XTherm^™ air mattress true four-season warmth without the weight or bulk usually found in a winter-worthy mattress. Stuff sack and repair kit included.

Paragraph two repeats the greatest warmth to weight ratio etc. Now they have incorporated layers of “thermacapture” which is ? probably a reflective film which reflects nothing.Four season warmth if you live in Key West Florida and only use it there. This company has so much confidence in their product they even supply a repair kit. This suggests to me that you should not buy the product when the manufacturer already knows you will have a problem.

• Loading... 4$ Unmatched Warmth-to-Weight: Patent-pending, reflective Thermacapture^™ technology traps radiant heat while Triangular Core Matrix^™ construction minimizes convective heat loss–all without the bulk, weight or durability issues of down and synthetic fills.
• in in iExcellent Comfort: 2.5 in (6 cm)-thickness, soft-touch fabrics and baffled internal structure provide unrivaled stability and support.

• Highly Packable: Free of bulky, conventional insulating materials, the XTherm^™ mattress packs to the size of a one-liter water bottle.
• Ultralight: Advanced materials and a tapered design reduce weight without compromising warmth.

In the event that the manufacturer of this product reads my commentary he should know that you cannot trap radiant heat even though in this mattress product there is no radiant heat. Also there is no convective heat movement, so there can- not be any loss. These people just like to sound intelligent. Without some form of insulating material sandwiched between the shell material there is no insulation!!! I do believe any and all who are really foolish enough to waste their money on this product will be sorely disappointed except if it is used in their swimming pool.

The published price is $199.95

Manufacturer is Thermarest if you did not already know.

A number of years ago when the earthquake occurred in the San Francisco area the factory that made Polar Guard located in Oakland was damaged so North Face Company could not get fiber for sleeping bags. This opened the door for other companies in the outdoor industry to start making sleeping bags to fill the gap. The company noted was one of them. They lasted a few seasons I believe and when North Face was up and running they went out of the business. There were several companies that followed suit.

The reason was simple the bags did not work very well. At the time my source of continuous filament fiber was an east coast factory. West coast firms wanting the continuous filament would not ship from the east coast to the west coast because of freight costs so they used what was available chopped staple fiber and made outlandish claims which were false so what they made died on the vine.

As I have previously stated those charged with making sleeping bags at these companies never took the opportunity to learn about insulations and how they could work depending upon how they had to be used. The end result as I see it is a new generation of people with less knowledge than the previous generation not that the previous generation had much knowledge to begin with. So you get people making claims such as is about a ground pad.

The list of none functioning products that are being offered to consumers these days is tragic as far as I am concerned.