Primaloft?

If you have read any of my insulated garment reviews and wondered why I bitch so much about what is used by the garment's designers this may help. Know what you are buying! There is a distinct difference in the field and it is EASILY noticeable between the Primaloft insulations. NO one that is using Primaloft for climbing should accept anything but Primaloft 1. If you do you are simply getting RIPPED off by cost cutting. If it isn't Primaloft 1 it isless efficient and most importantly in this case less EXPENSIVE insulation for the garment's manufacture.



It would be nice to see independenttests of the insulation other's use as well. Arcteryx Coreloft (which I think are very good btw) comes to mind. Hard data would be better than what I *think* how ever.



"Clo is used by insulation companies as a standard measurement of warmth. Like most imperial measurements such as the yard, foot, or inch, the origins of a clo value are quite curious. At its origins, one "clo" represent the amount of insulation required to keep a man in a business suit comfortable in an indoor room at 70 degrees F. Not very specific, right?

In the modern world, one “clo” is the comfortable temperature of a clothed resting person in a room at 70 degrees F. The clo value is mathematically related to the R-value, so there is no longer an overarching generality for the measurement. "



Primaloft One0.92 dry / .90 wet,clo/oz



Primaloft Sport
0.79 dry /.72 wet, clo/oz



Synergy .73 dry / .61 wet,clo/oz



ECO .68 dry/ .60 wet, clo/oz



800 fill down having a clo/oz of about 1.1.



-800+ fill power down is 1.68 clo/oz at the density used in most UL manufactures products



PrimaLoft ONE®

.92 clo/oz./yd2 (test data by
Hoehnstein Testing Labs in Germany)

· Available weights: 40g, 60g, 100g, 133g, 170g,200g
(grams per square meter)



Q: Is PrimaLoft close to being the equivalent of down?



A: You can get anywhere from 450-fill-power down to 900-fill-power down. Look at pinnacle (superior) down products—900 at the top of the pyramid, 450 and 500 along the bottom. Then look at the pinnacle synthetics, and PrimaLoft One is the best synthetic insulation you can buy. The pinnacle synthetic only crosses over to the down chart near the bottom end of the down pyramid. We usually equate PrimaLoft One as the equivalent of down in the 500 to 550 range. (others say more like 450) You could not replace a 900-filll-power down garment with PrimaLoft One and expect to get the same performance in dry conditions. However, wet down doesn't even come close to the bottom end of the synthetic pyramid in regard to thermal performance. As soon as you get down wet, you lose a lot of its thermal properties.



More here:



http://www.primaloft.com/en/performance/products/primaloft-one.html



http://www.primaloft.com/en/performance/community/blog/primaloft-down-comparison.html