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Re: [at-l] padding



At 12:21 AM 11/10/99 -0500, you wrote:

>Many winter campers take two mattresses... a full length foam pad and a 3/4
>length standard thermarest.  This has several advantages:
>
>(1) you get the most insulation where you need it the most.
>(2) if your thermarest starts leaking you still have the foam pad and are less
>likely to freeze to death.

There's another advantage.  The air within the thermie circulates between your
warm body and the cooold ground, loosing heat to the cold ground.  This happens
because of the _open_cell design which permits said circulation and your normal
nightime movements.  The addition of a _closed_cell pad under the thermie 
provides
an addition barrier to heat lose because each cell is closed, trapping the 
air within it.
The warmer air trapped inside the layers closest to the heat (you) can only 
loose heat
through...darn..what's the word.....like a heatexchange  system in a 
house...shoot.

Well it obviously too early for such tech stuff outta my brain,,,it made 
perfect sense
when it was explained to me but I bet I've screwed it up<sigh>  Any one who 
understands
'muddle'....please translate!
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