Washing your down sleeping bag will make it seem like new. Natural oils and dirt from grimy hiking pollute the down and make it lose its natural loft. Over time, the bag will look less puffy and those insulating properties go poof.
Whether you’re washing your winter bag prior storing it for the season or finally washing your nasty summer bag, the procedure for down is the same.
Western Mountaineering recommends hand-washing your sleeping bag in a bathtub at home, but you can also use a front-loading machine at a Laundromat. Most home washing machines are too small and could damage the sleeping bag (the turnstile thing doesn’t play nice, and lifting a bag out of a top-loading washer can rip the baffles).
Materials
- Down detergent such as those by Nikwax
- Lots of quarters
- Clean / new tennis balls
- Time
At The Laundromat
- Run the washer once to remove any bleach or chemicals. Yeah, it costs an extra $1.50, but it’ll be a lot more expensive to buy a new bag.
- Set the cycle to warm wash, warm rinse and add the special down detergent.
- Run at least two rinse cycles.
- Find a clean dryer without any burrs, sharp edges, or nappy chapstick
- If you have a big sleeping bag you might need to use a commercial size dryer. Stuff your sleeping bag into a dryer on low heat and run it for—get ready for this—four to six hours. Remember to add some clean tennis balls or balled up socks to add loft to the down / help it dry.
At Home
- Fill your clean bathtub with warm water and add the down wash.
- Put your sleeping bag in a stuff sack.
- Submerge the whole thing underwater, and pull the bag out of the stuff sack. This will prevent it from floating.
- Gently knead the bag with your hands until you’re satisfied it’s clean. Don’t overdo it.
- Pull the plug to let the water drain out.
- Fill it back up with clean water and rinse it at least twice.
- When you’re done rinsing, resist the urge to lift up your dripping wet sleeping bag as this will damage the baffles. Instead, push out as much water as possible with your hands by rolling up the bag. Do not wring!
- Throw it in the dryer (see #4/5 above).
“It’s extremely important to get the down completely dry,” says Leta Sharp of Western Mountaineering. “Make sure you can’t feel any lumps of down inside the bag, if you can, it’s not entirely dry.”
Keep a close eye on your rotating bag in the dryer. Look for hot spots and feel your bag periodically to make sure it’s not burning. Remove it from the dryer as soon as it stops so you don’t burn the fabric and you’re all set.
Did We Miss Something?
We’ve been using these methods for years, so maybe there’s some new way we’re not privy to. If so, set us straight.
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Tags: DIY, do-it-yourself, down sleeping bags, fabric tech
Usually I wash my sleeping bags at the laundry-mat as I don’t have a front-loader. I would like to wash my bag at my house but we don’t have a dryer (we hang dry everything). Is it still possible to wash my bag at home and dry it by some other means or does the sleeping bag really need to be dried via a dryer?
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I think the reason for drying it (with tennis balls) is to prevent the down from clumping, because clumped-up down leaves large un-insulated pockets where cold air can get through (making the bag useless, really). I guess if you can find a way to get the down to de-clump without drying, you’d be fine. But I think it’d be really labor-intensive. Like, I’m imagining having to knead the bag or bat the clumps with a racket for hours and hours …
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[...] Washing your sleeping bag: “Natural oils and dirt from grimy hiking pollute the down and make it lose its natural loft.” [...]
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