Dry Cleaning Down

So I recently loaned some gear to a good acquaintance who had never been camping. When I was asking about getting the gear back, she happily informed me, that out of the goodness of her heart, she was having a down sleeping bag, a synthetic sleeping bag, and a tent, all dry cleaned!

So, definitely she has good intentions, but now I am pretty concerned about my gear. Everywhere I have read says not to dry clean any sleeping bags, much less down sleeping bags. Does anyone have experience with this? Will it completely ruin it or is it a matter of decreasing the overall life of the bag?

Most of the gear I loaned her was "extra" but I use it to loan to people who go backpacking with me, and it is still worth a decent amount of money. I haven't really been in this situation before. When I loaned it to her, I figured there wasn't really any major way they could damage anything, except putting a hole in it by accident, and that can always be patched. I didn't really expect her to choose the only way of potentially ruining the sleeping bag...

Back in the early 1950s my mother sent the family's down sleeping bags to the local small town dry cleaners, not knowing any better. They survived and were a bit warmer and a lot less smelly. The bags were bought in 1941 and had been used for 6 weeks or more every summer, so they certainly were in bad shape. They never had performed to their advertised temp of 32*. My parents got another 5 years' use out of them.

About all you can do is to see what the down bag looks like when you get it back. I suspect the main issue will be that because of the loss of oils in the down, it may be more prone to absorb moisture. There might be a way to recondition the down. I did a little googling but didn't find anything except that some down coats have to be dry cleaned. Your main issue may be that the sleeping bags need a lot of airing out to get the residual chemical smell out.

I don't know about the synthetic bag; it will probably be OK. I'd be worried about the tent, though--set it up in the back yard and test it with a hose to see if the waterproofing or seam sealing has been damaged by the chemicals.

If you're lucky, she will have sent the stuff to a firm which knows how to clean sporting gear and will have washed the sleeping bags! That's far more likely to be true today than back in 1952!

You may need to renew the DWR on the sleeping bag outer shells. Try a squirt or two from a water spray bottle and see if the drops bead up. If they soak into the shell instead, use a water repellent spray (such as Revivex). Making sure the DWR on the outer shell is OK may make up for losing oils from the down.

It looks as though you'll need to add some words of warning to future gear borrowers, like please do not attempt to wash or clean the gear, other than sweeping out the tent. I wouldn't have thought about it, either!

Please let us know how the stuff came out!

According to Feathered Friends: NEVER DRY CLEAN YOUR FEATHERED FRIENDS PRODUCTS. Dry cleaning strips down of its natural, protective oils, clogs the pores of technical fabrics and will void your warranty.

I'd recommend contacting a place like Feathered Friends or Western Mountaineering and ask them how you can fix (if at all) your friend's well-intentioned mistake.

I'd worry more about the tent. I grew up in a laundry and there is a lot of lore about dry cleaning and down. Back then, we used carbon tetracloride as the solvent which was pretty harsh, but was still easier on delicates than water/detergent. Now days, dry cleaning can mean several things including spot cleaning the bag's shell. Chemicals can range all the way to "liquid carbon dioxide" depending on the laundry's equipment.
I wouldn't worry about the down bag so much. Down is very tough stuff. I wash my down bags with regular laundry detergent, throw them in the dryer til dry and fluffy and that's it. One of my favorite bags was bought in 1984 and is still my favorite, probably dry cleaned along the way at some point. Most of the time I hang and hand wash the shell using Dawn and warm water/sponge...its quick.
Anyway, if you know the dry cleaners your friend used, call them and ask. They probably get down comforters all the time and know exactly what to do with them. It's likely the new processes are safe.
The tent....different story. Might have to set it up and hit it with your water hose. Still, today's dry cleaning is much gentler and the launderers usually know what they can clean and what they can't.

Good news! She called me this morning and let me know that her boyfriend had been putting it off and had not actually taken anything to the cleaners yet! The benefits of procrastination!

Thanks everyone for your response. I didn't really even consider that it might damage the tent, but I guess it makes sense that it could be vulnerable as well. Either way, I'm glad to not have my gear be a test subject to see which item is most or least damaged by dry cleaning.

In the future, I'll have to be more careful about what I tell people to do with the gear, especially if they have never been camping before. Thanks again!

Hooray! No more worries! Praise (in this case) for the procrastinating BF!

Wow....dodged a bullet!
I wash down bags, no special treatment, no big deal, whenever. They can handle it. Think what a goose goes through. LOL
Tents...not so much. They have coatings that can't stand heat or solvents. The seam sealing tape is heat applied and peels right off if you wash it wrong. Garden hose in the back yard....all you need.

I have an old Campmor versatile tarp that has started to lose the polyurethane coating. I ran it through the washing machine to see what would happen and big chunks of the coating came off. If you look at the how to's for McNett Gear Aid Tent Sure repair coating, they recommend a mix of water, Isopropyl Alcohol and detergent to remove the old coating. It would appear that polyurethane coatings do not respond well to washing. I don't know that any of this applies to silnylon or silpoly.

Sorry, my attempt to edit resulted in a double post, grrr!

I've never done anything to clean a tent other than sweep it out, wipe the walls/floor with a damp rag, and at the end of the season hose te outside off and let it dry very thoroughly. There's no need to involve either a washing machine or detergent. I did attempt to vacuum the dog hair out of a tent I was selling, but last I heard from the buyer, it was still there.

My understanding is that once the polyurethane coating starts to deteriorate (usually noticeable from the nasty smell), the only thing you can do is discard it. Getting the old coating all off and trying to apply a new coating are, I understand, not worth the effort Of course I've had only silnylon tents in the more recent past. There is a spray product with which you can beef up the silicone (which is impregnated into the fabric and is not a coating).

Dan McHale sings the praises for Tent Sure by McNett for rejuvenating backpacks. Has anyone tried it on a tent?

Yes, we used it on our Sierra Design Stretch Dome, our older car camping, winter/pulk sled tent. We followed the directions, removing any old coating with a scotch brite pad and isopropyl alcohol. We let it dry thoroughly and used talcum powder to keep it from sticking after the initial drying. No problems, and the tent floor has stayed dead dry through several heavy rain events . We used a spray product on the fly, but could have used the brush, also. I have enough left to do another tent floor, and plan on using it soon on our BA FC2. I would do the tent fly, but plan on using Nikwax Solarproof on the fly to help inhibit aging. As far as I can tell, a good product if the directions are followed. I would hesitate to apply it with high humidity and poor ventilation

PS: The floor of the tent was leaking badly before the application. NOT a pre-emptive strike.