Posts Tagged ‘Bedding’
How much fill power is enough to keep me warm?
When considering the purchase of a quality down feather comforter the application should be considered. If you need the bedding for use in your home, it may not be necessary to get more than a 650 fill power.
If you intention is to use comforters for backpacking, where the weight and warmth are both important, you would consider a 700 fill power or more to keep it on the light side. Backpackers try to keep their packs as light as practicable and every ounce of weight saved would add up.
Keeping down feathers inside of your comforter
The fabric used in making bedding that contains down needs to be downproof. There are a variety of fabrics that are used in down bedding, but whichever one is used must be constructed so that the fine down fibers cannot penetrate it.
Pacific Coast Feather Company uses BarrierWeave TM technology to produce goose down comforters with fabric that achieves this. This technology produces a finer, softer, and more durable fabric that is up to three times more leakproof than the standard requirement.
The supply and demand of down
Raw down and feather supplies are like commodities that are sensitive to supply and demand. Down bedding manufacturers make up only part of the demand along with the makers of down apparel and sleeping bags.
The supply and demand is affected by the needs of consumers and manufacturers, which cannot be reliably estimated. During a downturn in an economy for example, demand for more expensive down comforters would be less, even though humans have a need to keep themselves warm, but would turn possibly to cheaper synthetic materials.
A cold weather goose makes me warm
As a rule, larger birds that live in colder climates have the largest down clusters with a corresponding higher fill power. Ducks and geese can both have high quality down because the age of the bird and the climate in different parts of the earth has an affect on quality.
The quality of the down that is used in bedding products such as down feather comforter is measured by its fill power. Fill power is the determined by how many cubic inches that is filled by one ounce of down.
Softness with Support to Match
It’s not always easy to find a happy medium, and that’s especially true when it comes to bedding material. People demand a mattress that isn’t too firm because comfort remains a top priority. On the other hand, a mushy mattress that gives way under the slightest bit of pressure can be bad for the back and joints. The key is to find a balance between the two – a perfect equilibrium that’s one part comfort and one part support.
Feather beds are the sensible solution, as their downy softness is unparalleled. At first blush, one might expect a feather bed to err on the soft side, but baffle box technology keeps the material in place to ensure support. Some down comforters have a tendency to become bunched after extended use, but that’s never a concern with a high-quality feather mattress topper.
What’s in a pillow besides feathers?
Feathers and down are different because feathers have quills and down does not. Feathers are two dimensional whereas down is three dimensional. For the purposes of bedding, smaller feathers are used for products like featherbeds and blends of feathers and down pillows.
Feathers are the outside covering of most birds and have a range of less than 1 inch up to several feet in length. Waterfowl feathers are rigid and can range from two inches to five or more inches in length, with the shorter lengths used for bedding.
Dust mites are allergens
In bygone days our forbears discovered that a natural occurring insulator to cold air found on geese and ducks – down – could also keep his own kind insulated. Down is a by-product of meat consumption of ducks and geese that are most commonly eaten in Europe and Asia.
Before down can be used and made into down blankets and other bedding or clothing it needs to be cleaned and sanitized. People with allergy’s are normally allergic to dust mites that can collect in down and feathers and not to the down itself. The use of a pillow protector on new or thoroughly cleaned pillows generally eliminates problems associated with many allergies.
Goose down comforters make for warm nights
As I sit down at my computer, cold weather is hitting various parts of the US and in not many days our furnaces will be running more. On long cold winter nights when we get ready to retire for the evening, we are greatly comforted knowing that warm bedding waits.
Owning natural bedding products such as goose down comforters, you can have confidence knowing that you have made the right decision. There is no need to sacrifice quality with something as important as sleep, which we do as much as one-third of our lives.
The merits of down
Now that winter is fast approaching and when you crawl into bed your sheets are icy cold, the natural solution is to add more blankets and snuggle in. But then, in the middle of the night, you’re much too hot and you end up throwing off the blankets, and the air is freezing! This frustrating dance between hot and cold could all be avoided with a look into down comforters.
There is a variety of down for comforters: goose, duck, synthetics and others being fairly common. Goose down is considered by many to be the most comfortable as well as the most insulating. But it’s lightweight and breathable, so you’ll never be too hot. Goose down comes in bigger, thicker clumps than duck down, and it doesn’t have an unpleasant smell like other forms of down can have.