birding-aus

Sleeping Bags

To: "'Chris Ross'" <>, <>, <>
Subject: Sleeping Bags
From: "Tony Russel" <>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2011 10:43:31 +0930
I think I prefer to sleep in a bed !

Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: 
 On Behalf Of Chris Ross
Sent: Saturday, 18 June 2011 5:08 PM
To: ; 
Subject: Sleeping Bags

Greg,

before you do anything about your sleeping bag, spend $5-$10 on a closed 
cell foam sleeping mat, place that between your air mattress and your 
sleeping bag and 90% of your problems will be solved.  If you don't like 
lying on the foam add a towel or something in between.  I've slept with 
this arrangement at Sturt national park in sub zero temperatures and 
been totally cosy.  Camping stores like Ray's outdoors will have them 
and they are literally about $5 and are equally as effective as the 
multi hundred dollar self inflating foam matresses like Thermarests.  
They are only 6-10mm thick but that is enough to keep you cosy.  I sleep 
in conditions like this every month during winter.

Sleeping bags work by trapping air between the insulation material, but 
when you lie on them it is squashed out and you have zero insulation.  
Closed cell foam is what it says it is, the cells are closed and the air 
is trapped and can't be squashed out so it continues to insulate if you 
lie on it.  Air in an air mattress doesn't help you as it it is not 
trapped, so convection continues to work and you lose heat from below.  
Regular foam like you find in a cheap foam mattress is open cell foam, 
it's not the same and is bad as an air bed.

To fine tune your setup, get a silk liner, it keeps your bag a lot 
cleaner and clean bags insulate better, if your body oils get on the 
insulation it tends to be less effective, particularly down, polyester 
is less affected.  .  Next throw an old wool blanket over the top it 
acts well as a barrier to keep moisture from condensing on your bag.  
Pulling in the draw cord at the top of your bag also helps, and stops 
air escaping there.  Down bags are generally the best for cold 
conditions, but quality synthetic bags are pretty good these days and 
are still work OK when damp and are easier to wash.

regards,

Chris Ross
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