Snugpak Elite 3 not very warm

[Moondog55]

Another thought.
If it still smelt of washing powder it may not have been rinsed properly; getting all of the soap or detergent out is very important; that said the China made Snugpak stuff doesn't seem to be as good as the British manufactured gear, but even that is rated high by at least 5C, I personally would derate any Chinese made gear by at least 10 degrees C

 

[Pattree]

@moondog. How did you get on with your Snugpak Chrysalis?

 

[Aristotle]

I have now machine washed the bag with soap flakes and dried it.

I rinsed it a couple times after the wash cycles.
Drying involved hanging it up outside for 24 hours, tumble drying a few cycles on a low heat with tennis balls and a running shoe and hung up in the utility room.

I need to test it.

 

[Aristotle]

Do any synthetic sleeping bags have realistic/more representative temperature ratings?

 

[Pattree]

Until this thread I would have thought so.

How do the manufacturers carry out this aspect of the quality check?
In what conditions were the ratings established?
I think we are stuck with personal experience and a thorough study of reviews. Which is of course one of the strengths of this forum.

@Aristotle Do let us know what you think after you’ve used your Elite.

 

[TLM]

As said before there is a EN/ISO standard on measuring the ratings. Even that might not be altogether realistic but at least using it would put all on the same measuring stick and give fairly good relative results.

 

[Pattree]

Age and health play such a major role that I think the best solution might be to adopt a British Army type sleep system consisting of two differently rated bags that fit together and give you choices.

In effect that’s what I shall do next week when I take out the Chrysalis 5 and a cheap three season pod that will sit under it. I shall have just the foot section of the pod zipped. If I feel cold, which I doubt, I can just zip up the pod.
For all that it may be bragging its rating the C5 is a good sleeping bag within its limits.

 

[TLM]

I was looking at "Tactical 3" in Leka and it looked nice and temp rating was about right but I had not realized - before checking- that their rating is not based on the STD used by many others. Have to put that on hold.

 

[Moondog55]

@moondog. How did you get on with your Snugpak Chrysalis?

It's not me who owns one, I only have their waistcoat/insulated vest
Looked at and didn't buy because too skinny by about 200mm in girth

 

[Aristotle]

Field (back garden) test:

Temperature was warmer than last weekend around 7DegC at 23:30, it was dry and was a bit breezy (I was in my French F2 tent with the side vents open).


I wore a long sleeve cotton base layer, a long sleeve merino base layer, a pair of fleecy jog pants and thick socks.

(I did have a heavy wool jumper and a Dutch surplus "softie" jacket in reserve)

Having been washed and tumbled, the bag was possibly displaying more "loft" and it felt softer.

I used the bag in full warmth mode -I had the neck baffle quite tight and the hood pulled down fully.

**Having seen reference to it on YouTube, I had the foot section folded over and fastened to reduce length/volume (at a shade under 6', the bag was then long enough if I bent my knees a little. I couldn't stretch out)**

I felt warm enough initially and for the time it took me to get to sleep fully.

At one point I woke up and opened the hood a little as I felt that I was a bit too warm. I woke again and fastened it up again.

In the morning, it raining lightly, temperature was just under 8DegC and I felt comfortable with the bag fastened up.

I felt that I had a good night's sleep.

It can be difficult to determine, but it did not feel that there was much warmth in reserve at 7-8DegC.

I will need to try the bag in colder conditions again.

 

[nurvware]

You know wearing too much clothing can effect how warm you sleep as your body cant warm the air in the bag with all the layers. A easy option i often do is to heat a bottle of water to use as a hot water bottle / pre heat the bag and then dring the water the next day. I also own the softie 3 and 4 and use a OEX thermal liner. The liner adds a couple of degrees and is nice and comfortable. I can use the liner as a sleeping bag and the sleeping bag more like a quilt over the top of me when im hammocking.

 

[TLM]

You know wearing too much clothing can effect how warm you sleep as your body cant warm the air in the bag with all the layers.

All the heat energy you are losing will be in the bag. At a slightly lower temp though with more clothing (and a bit less, yes).

That logic does break down at some point.

 

[ged]

Agreed that a lot of sleeping bag manufacturers are optimistic with their ratings - some of them to the point of fanciful.

Keeping warm all night is an art form. My personal take on it is hot water bottles. Lots of them. And preferably an arctic bag, but with hot water bottles in my arctic bag I get much too hot unless it's minus 20 outside.

Usually I have at least four two-litre PET fizzy drink bottles with good solid screw caps.

I fill them with water at about 60 degrees C. Not more than 60C - that would damage the bottles, and I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night soaked in burning hot water (which will very rapidly become cold water, possibly life-threatening).

I put three of the bottles together in a thick padded bag. They will stay hot all night. I tend to put the bag of three at the bottom of the sleeping bag near my feet.

One goes in another thick padded bag on its own. In the absence of anything else to cuddle while I go to sleep, that will have to do.

If I wake up a bit chilly, I'll pull one of the three bottles out of its bag. Rarely happens.

Come morning there'll be plenty of warm water for washing too.

To guess sixty degrees, I mix approximately equal quantities of cold and boiling water. Obviously I don't try to mix it in the PET bottles. A funnel helps enormously in filling them.

If it's going to be dangerous to get wet I put the padded bags in dry bags. I check that the caps are sealing well but in a few decades of using these things I have had the odd leaking bottle. As they're so flimsy the PET can crease with handling. If there are nasty creases in the PET making it turn milky white it probably won't be long before it leaks there. Time to get a new one. They're all of 25p each including content at Aldi.

Of course you can get rubber hot water bottles from Woolworths or wherever, but the water is tainted after it's been in them and they don't last very long in my experience. I have a couple of stone bottles that I use at home, they must be more than fifty years old but they're too heavy to lug any great distance and they don't hold nearly as much heat as a 2 litres of water anyway.

 

[bearbait]

I have found that it is good to start off a night in a sleeping bag with warm feet. To this end I have a pair of Rab Down Booties. They're lightweight and and fairly easy to kick off during the night if you get too warm. They have removeable soles so you can use around camp / bothy too. A nice pair of clean dry thick wool hiking socks would be a good alternative to booties.

I also use a Silk Sleeping Bag Liner which adds a little to the warmth in the bag. Lightweight and crumples up to the size of a fist. Easy to wash and dry. I know that some people don't like liners as they get tangled in them.

I wear little clothing in the bag itself: generally a Merino long-sleeved T and Long Johns. For any extra warmth needed I place it under and / or over the bag. Too much weight on the bag, though, can cause heat loss through drop in the insulation properties of the trapped air.

 

[Aristotle]

You know wearing too much clothing can effect how warm you sleep as your body cant warm the air in the bag with all the layers.

Sleeping bags and clothing do follow the same laws of physics as everything else, though....

 

[Moondog55]

As the above post, insulation is additive and up to an inch [ 25mm] of clothing is the old normal inside your sleeping bag, Andy Kirkpatrick does recommend putting a thicker down parka over the top because heat rises but I have worn my Everest parka with a full 2 inches [ that's 8Clo or 12.4 TOG minimum] of torso insulation inside my own summit assault bag many many times.
I think the advice to sleep as close to naked as possible comes from the old days of woollen clothing where if tended to soak up water from rain and sweat and all that accumulated water had to be dried out by body heat before the clothing started to add to the warmth of the sleeping system. That hasn't been a problem for decades and if your clothing is wet or damp it is easily fixed with a big plastic bag as a vapour barrier

 

[Pattree]

My daughter has Raynauds syndrome. She, more than anyone, knows that if she gets into a sleeping bag feeling cold she will not get any warmer.
She and I both carry proper miniature hot water bottles. They are flatter and more flexible than the various bottles described here. They pack easily and do exactly the job that they were designed to do. They give a high insulation sleeping bag the chance to retain some heat rather than act like a cool box.

Edited to add:
The miniature hot water bottles have a capacity of less than a pint so can be prepared very quickly.

 

[Moondog55]

That is a separate issue tho

 

[Aristotle]

Having only used the Elite 3 a couple of times since spring, it hasn't really been tested in low temperatures. It was comfortable in a tent in Scotland this week over windy 10DegC nights.

I would regard it as a well-constructed sleeping bag, other than the zip snagging almost every time it is closed.

This should probably be named the Elite 2 (season), but at a claimed 1.6Kg, it would not be well regarded.

I does appear that the Trespass 300gsm from Argos is just as warm and compact.

I wouldn't recommend buying one for 3 season backpacking use.

 

[ged]

Having only used the Elite 3 a couple of times ...

I would regard it as a well-constructed sleeping bag, other than the zip snagging almost every time it is closed.
...

Many items of insulating gear, if they have zip fasteners, have baffles or baggy insulation around the zips to prevent them from leaking heat there. Closing a zip which is protected in this way is yet another bushcraft skill - art form as I sometimes call them - which can be learned. Sometimes. But sometimes the danged things seem to be designed for maximum inconvenience. Not much of the cheaper cold weather gear is made with rip-stop fabrics so it's important to be patient, and to try to persevere with finding the right technique. Otherwise the fabric will soon be damaged by being caught in the zip and the damage will tend to spread quickly, like a rotten apple in a barrel of good ones.