Bubble wrap Inside liner ??

[Turk]

Gorgeous day here in SW Ontario.
I made a small shanty town in the backyard today. Set up all my tents, shelters and hammock to air out and breathe for the first time this year.

This attracted a neighbour of mine who turns out to be a retired master sgt.
We got talking about camping and shelters and general survival and such... and he made some comments about my array of sleeping bags airing out on the clothes line.

He made a comment I just had to run by you guys.
He claims that if you sleep on a thermarest under your bag, and then slide a piece of heavy-duty bubble wrap (cut to fit) inside your bag and sleep on that .. you can actually gain about 10 degrees of warmth, and it will offset the problem of down bags compressing beneath you.

Could anyone verify or deny this claim?
It seems like a heck of an idea anyways. You are creating a dead air space between your body and your bag, with another barrier between the ground and your bag.

Its certainly a cheap idea to trial test. I shall have to get some industrial strength bubble wrap from work and check it out. I am thinking about the kind that central air conditioners are packaged in. I am 175 lbs and can stand on that stuff without popping any bubbles.

How does this theory stand up?

[youngblood]

Sounds about right. Bubble wrap is an insulator but most campers use closed cell foam pads; they are pretty cheap, more rugged and provide more insulation for the same weight and/or thickness. CCF has tiny air pockets compared to the bubble wrap and many times more.

Youngblood

[Rage in a Cage]

If you use it as you described I believe you can gain 5 to 10 degrees. I did some similar tests with Reflectix and had some luck in raising the temp rating but decided to add a little more foam and leave the bubbles to Lawrence Welk. Youngblood is right about the negatives verses closed cell foam. Give it a go and let us know how it works for you.

[Major Slacker]

I weighed the Reflectix cut to the same size as a 3/8" blue foam pad. The Reflectix was heavier and didn't seem to work any better than the foam. It was also more expensive. Regular bubble wrap doesn't have the foil/mylar, so it might be lighter than the foam.

[tinny3]

I would just toss the thermorest and go buy a good ground pad. i have a Big Agnes ground pad that is insulated and 2-1/2 inches thick. and i think it is lighter than a 3/4 inch thermorest and also cost less. You can probably tell i am no big fan of thermorest. The big agnes rolls up into a coil about 1/3 the size of a thermorest. I would think bubble wrap would be bulky because you can't deflate it?