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Big Agnes Air Core Ultra Sleeping Pad, Insulated, 25x72 (Wide Regular)

£19.995£39.99Clearance
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An insulated winter sleeping pad can keep you warm in two ways: by limiting radiative heat transfer with reflective foil or by limiting convective heat transfer with synthetic or down-fill insulation. Don’t let the R-value of a sleeping pad go by the wayside! In the list above, I mentioned several other sleeping pad options that will work well for side sleepers, but the lower R-value ultimately kept them off the list. The following link will take you to a video by BA on how to replace the diaphragm, and it looks like a pretty simple task: Before I get into what I learned, I will share a short video I made that if you view it first, my discussion below will make a lot more sense. The video is of one of the smaller diameter center tubes next to the larger diameter side tubes. The Nemo Tensor Insulated Sleeping Pad, like the previous models mentioned above, does have a non-insulated version with a 1.6 R-value, which again, doesn’t make the cut for a good 3-season sleeping pad in my opinion, so the insulated version wins again. Why this sleeping pad is great for side sleepers

Down is by far the most expensive but offers an unbeatable weight-to-warmth ratio. Synthetic is more budget-friendly and reliable but will be heavier and often bulkier. Utilizing the borescope provided significant insight into the design details of the insulation approach used with this mattress design. Sleeping pads with an R-value of four and up will almost always have some kind of insulation inside to help keep you warm. Here are the different types of insulation you can choose from and in some cases get a combination of: Reflective Foil Standard size for most sleeping pads is 20” x 72”, but as side sleepers we may require a little additional space to maximize our comfort. Because we tend to shift from side to side, having a wider sleeping pad helps us stay on our pad and not roll off onto the cold ground. If you are a side sleeper that stays put, then a standard size pad might work great for you. I don't expect I'll take it much below 40°F and will generally be well above that. Will the insulated pad be too warm in the summer? I don't see a denier listed for either but presumably the heavier, uninsulated pad uses a slightly heavier fabric and is more durable. I use a sleeping bag, not a quilt.BA advertizes that the insulation used in the Insulation Air Core Ultra is WRM HL. The WRM HL used in this mattress is a high loft synthetic insulation that I couldn’t find any specific information on to see how it compares to other synthetic insulations on the market today, but when you handle the deflated mattress you can feel that the insulation is physically present. Foam sleeping mats with an average depth of 2 inches will typically have an R-value of 1.5 to 2.2, and so by adding one to your air mattress, this is how much you can increase your R-value. Is it worth doing? If your sleeping pad or bag isn’t very warm, then absolutely. To give you another perspective on the width of the insulation strips inside the mattress I have included the picture below where I have a light inside the tube and it allows you to see the strip of insulation bonded to the top of the tube. At 6 inches deep and with a flat surface on top, this is as close as you can get to your mattress at home while you are camping. I am a side sleeper and you can let around 25% of the air out of it and still sleep like a log. I like to do this with all deep sleeping pads as I just tend to sleep better. A wide range of sizes is also available for the Tensor Insulated Sleeping Pad. It offers both mummy and rectangular shapes, plus short, wide, and long versions. One of these configurations is sure to be perfect for you, whether you want to cut ounces by going with the short mummy version, or you are big and tall and need a long, wide version.

After doing leak testing and not finding the culprit I sent it to BA for repair and they promptly replaced it with a new one of the same. It was worse. Testing it at home it started slowly losing air the second day until it was unusable by the third. Before I get into the details of the Insulated Air Core Ultra design, I wanted to comment on how comfortable the mattress is to sleep on since this is the primary reason for buying a mattress. As I mentioned earlier, I have been using an earlier version of this design for a number of years and have always found it very comfortable. While my old mattress size was a 25 x 72 and the mattress I am reviewing is a 20 x 78, I found this mattress to be just as comfortable as my old mattress. So from a sleeping perspective I am a very happy camper sleeping on this mattress. Mortified, I put it in storage and this was seven years ago in 2011. Cut and fast-forward to 2018 and as I'm going through excess stuff I come across it. I called CS at BA and now find they have this new model replacing the flop. Explaining the sequence to the CS rep, he sends me the warranty replacement form and requiring me to attach a pic of the old mattress with claim number written in marker near the BA company logo. No sending it in; just fill out the form and attach the picture to the form, voila! This newer bright orange pad sure inflates easy and has worked so far. It does move around a little on a cot. On the tent floor it does fine.

The one thing that I have found when considering the size of an inflated mattress is that the actual useable area can sometimes be less then the advertized size. When a mattress has design features like the tubes that make up the Insulated Air Core Ultra, the radius on the outer edge of the tubes around the perimeter of the mattress really are not that useful in providing support, especially when the mattress is inflated at a higher pressure. This tip is sure to be controversial but take it or leave it. I believe a quilt is more comfortable for side sleepers due to your ability to maneuver around inside all while keeping your quilt in place. For this to be true however, you need to have a quilt with a sleeping pad attachment system. One of the advertized features of the Insulated Air Core Ultra is that it is made from more durable lightweight nylon rip-stop fabric that has a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material laminated to the rip-stop to provide for ultimate durability. The double rip-stop fabric being used is supposed to have 25% greater tear strength and durability. I didn’t do any physical tests to try and verify these claims, but from a subjective perspective the material does feel robust and appropriate for this application. Here is a detailed view of the repair kit that is included. It contains a single larger 2 x 2 inch patch, two 1-1/4 x 1-1/4 inch patches, a set of instructions for applying the patches and a spare diaphragm for the inflation valve. It’s nice to see that BA used quality materials from 3M for their patches.

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