Down bags are great for occasional use, but the simple fact is that, even assuming you have no mishaps resulting in a wet bag and thereby losing ALL insulating ability, the more you use it, the more sweat and body oils get into the down. And that means failing loft and therefore insulation. To quote a specialist down cleaning company (Mountain Designs) .."[h=1]Cleaning Down Equipment - from:[/h][h=2]£35.00 (per item)[/h][h=4]Description[/h]
Avail yourself of this service to rejuvenate your down equipment and where necessary remove unwanted stains and odours. If required, we empty your bag of down and clean the shell and the down separately, then refill the bag. This only applies to bags which have been on expeditions and are heavily retaining, for example, moisture, body odour, grease and cooking fuel. However, the general mountaineer's down equipment can be cleaned without going to this extreme. Both systems are guaranteed not to damage your down.
At the same time you can have any damaged down replaced, or simply have your bag upgraded with additional down.
IT should be noted that they list 8 cleaning categories for down equipment - from level 1 @ £35, to level 8 @ £376................Plus postage both ways... Of course, you could hand-wash it yourself in the bath - but from bitter personal experience over the years I really wouldn't recommend it! And if anything goes wrong during the process - which it will, guaranteed! - it invalidates the very limited warranty down manufacturers provide for the first year of its life.
I'll come clean - I also currently have a top-of-the-range down bag (a Valandre) which I sometimes use as well as my wiggy's bags. The current equivalent is probably the Valandre Thor, costing approx. £800+. Nice bag, equivalent in real-life temp rating to my Wiggys Superlight (current price $150-165). To me, that means sleeping throughout the night - apart from the odd "comfort" break - without feeling cold in base layers. Bear in mind the "extreme" rating often quoted by manufacturers is for fit young soldiers, fully dressed in multiple cold-weather clothing layers, able to grab 2 hours of sleep before being woken up by the cold.
Yet interestingly the Thor weighs 2.9kg, the Wiggys 2.1kg. Sure, the down bag packs smaller, though it is only kept in a stuff sack in transit; at home it is left fully open, as compression damages down. My wiggys bags all store fully compressed.
An interesting factoid. THe warmer you are, the less often you need to get up in the night for comfort breaks - ie to pee. Once the body starts to get cold, it wants to jettison unwanted fluids that it has to keep warm in order to maintain core temp. Hence the midnight trips outside, or inside using a pee bottle. I could tell you the story about an unfortunate lad who had a mishap with a bucket he was using in the middle of the night in a Swedish forest in winter, dumping about 2 litres of urine onto his down sleeping bag, but it'll only set me off giggling again.
