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What is the consensus for the life of a waterproof jacket as mine seems to expiring after five years.
Depends on how often you wear it and how hard a life it has.
I get 2 - 3 years, tops.
Have you followed the manufacturer's instructions? Over-washing is bad, as is infrequent washing. Detergent needs to be non-bio and definitely no fabric conditioner.
I'm a softshell convert and happy to put up with getting wet after around 3 hours of rain.
They last me until they are crashed and ripped.
I have washed as per instructions and rinsed it in the shower on ocassion.
Depends completely on usage.
Five years for a waterproof jacket seems like a fair life to me
New jacket it is then.
What's the matter with it? You can reproof them to make them (mostly!) waterproof again...
I washed it using a reproofing wash but it totally leaked on Saturday. Then again the last time I got so wet was when I fell in the sea.
Depends on how much of a flogging the wind gives it IMO.
I shredded a cheap one while sailing in the tail of a cyclone once. Been much fussier about quality since. ๐
Fairly interesting blog for any gear geeks...
Replaced my walking jacket the other day which was 6years old, on chatting to the bloke in the shop he said a good jacket is expected to last 5-8yrs.
Cheers, Steve
In reality you should have a selection of jackets ,lightweight waterproof (own brand type coating/ membrane) ,full on mountain jacket , synthetic jacket with selection of mid layers ,base layers would account for 95% of UK activities ... got my mountain jacket paclite goretex is 12 years old and still great
Great article! Thanks for posting! ๐
I have Goretex jackets that are 20 years old and still work.
Thanks for the article Charlie.
Matt has quite a few interesting posts, it's definitely worth checking out the rest of his blog.