As per the title - I’ve got a down sleeping bag, and I’m not sure how to wash it here.
I’ve got a typical Taiwanese laundry set up: top-loading washer/spin dry unit, and then I hang the clothes to dry. What will happen if I put a down sleeping bag in that thing? Could that work?
Or, should I go to a laundromat for the front-loading machines and dryers?
The last time I tried this, I took one to a cleaning service that claimed it was no problem. However, the sleeping bag was basically destroyed (the filling/insulation clumped up into a few matted pieces). I don’t want to have a repeat of that.
Well, it depends on which kind of sleeping bag do you have. If it’s all synthetic and/or cotton, by all means, stuff it into the washing machine and hang it to dry (make sure you will have a couple of sunny (or at least, not rainy) days before doing so, or your sleeping bag may end up smelling like stinky tofu.
A feather sleeping bag may have to be dry-cleaned.
Please don’t do that: it’s much easier, but dry cleaning strips all the oils off the surface of the down, which are essential in helping it to loft properly. Use a small amount of wool wash or similar mild detergent for woolens, wash the bag by hand in a bathtub (pay attention to the seams and edges, by hand, and then walk on the rest of the bag like crushing grapes). Later, dry in a tumble dryer on low with a couple of tennis shoes inside to smash the lumps that will try to form .
Wet down is very heavy and will possibly rip the internal seams that build the baffles and so on in your bag, so don’t hang it up.
if it’s not essential to loft well, like you never use it for cold weather, then dry clean away, but don’t be upset if it’s never the same again…
My mountaineering bag is 30 years old and good as new after three washes.
Edit: Yes, down soap is much better than woolwash, if you can find it. A front loading machine also washes sleeping bags quite well, but a non-agitator top loader might work too, IF you could ensure that the bag didn’t get any strings caught somewhere. and spinning to get rid of lots of water is great too, even for a handwashed bag.
(I used to work in a mountaineering store, and also made and modified bags for people.)
There’s lots of info about cleaning down bags online and you can buy down cleaner at camping shops here. If you have a front loading washer, you can wash at home. Otherwise, at the laundromat. The tricky part is finding a good dryer that isn’t too hot and is large enough. Most of the big commercial ones you see at dry cleaners are gas dryers, and they get too toasty. If anyone knows of one, I’d be curious to hear as my bag is badly due for a wash. I recently asked at a camping shop (100 Mountain) and they said they didn’t know of any good place in Taipei but had a recommendation for Kaohsiung. Also, I wonder if you couldn’t just wash in an Asian-style top-loader here on gentle cycle. They agitate a lot less violently without the tall central spindle that most NA top-loaders have.
You need to do what you did before but you need tennis balls (or shoes or balled up socks or whatever) to break up those clumps that you got. You could probably rewash the destroyed bad one more time and break up those clumps. It probably wouldn’t hurt to get the special down soap with it.
I have also wondered about the top loading machines in Taiwan since they don’t have the agitator but there have been several times where a drawstring got knotted up with basically everything in the load. It wasn’t washed on gentle but I wouldn’t risk a 200-300 USD down sleeping bag in one.
After a little more forum hunting, I came across quite a few posts saying it was okay in a top-loader without a spindle. Run the machine on gentle cycle and check that only the whole outer drum rotates, not the central part. Of course not all bags are created equal. Some may have more fragile baffles. Even if you wash by hand at home you could still spin dry for a while in your washer before carting the bag off to the Laundromat.
The last time I took a sleeping bag to a dry cleaner (I think - my Chinese was abysmal in those days) they destroyed it - it came back with all the fill congealed into a couple of clumps of matted down. Alas, that bag was thrown out long ago; perhaps the tennis ball trick could have saved it.
Thanks for all the suggestions, and Tiger Mountaineer, thanks especially for the forum hunting. The washing definitely isn’t going to happen during the rainy week we’re having - maybe I’ll try a nearby laundromat with front-loading machines and dryers. Any ideas about how to gauge if the dryer is too hot or not?
I’ll get some of the appropriate soap next time I’m in the Main Station area.
It’s less urgent than it once was anyway. My wife needs to use it for a trip this weekend, and she was insisting it needed to be washed (I don’t think so, but I’m not going to be the one inside it); however, once I dug up a bag liner, she decided that was an acceptable and definitely more convenient option.
Can’t dry clean down. Read above. I just went to check the nearby coin laundry. Their dryers look big enough and have a low setting but are $10 for only 5 minutes!
