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    “Still fully functional?”

    Joachim Stark
    Joachim Stark
    The purchase of a GORE-TEX jacket unlocks a whole new world for outdoor athletes: shielded against wind and rain, they can discover their outdoor passions. No matter if it’s raining or snowing, they can get out and get up that mountain. Equipped with GORE-TEX, not even the muddiest of forest tracks will prevent these athletes from getting out and onto their mountain bikes. Rain simply rolls off, water cannot penetrate, moisture vapor from sweat escapes and the wearer stays dry and comfortably warm. But then at some point, you start to wonder. Rain no longer seams to run off in streams but appears to creep inside the fabric: the jacket almost starts to look like a wet rag. Dirt sticks to the outer fabric and your T-shirt feels clammy and slightly cold. The jacket isn’t waterproof any more, there’s no question about it. But actually that’s not the question. The question is, or more precisely, the questions are: How old is the jacket? What has it been used for? And perhaps the most important question: has it been regularly laundered and cared for?

    Old means old and a hole is a hole. And regular cleaning means full functionality for longer.

    Three out of four of the complaints received by customer service at Gore are resolved within a few minutes. Usually, it quickly becomes apparent that the majority of skeptical wearers, or people that really are beginning to feel the cold, have not been laundering and caring for their garments. Correct and routine care and maintenance, like washing the garment and restoring its water repellent finish, will ensure the highest performance from a jacket and extend its useful lifespan. Gore’s primary objective is to make its products as robust as they can possibly be so that wearers can enjoy wearing their garments for as long as possible. In theory, that’s exactly what they do. Elaborate laboratory and field testing during the lengthy development phase provides confirmation of this. Nevertheless, the ravages of time, coarse rucksack straps, jagged rocks and sharp ski edges take a lot out of even the best of garments. You can’t make new out of old. But how old can still be good enough? And can an old jacket still be waterproof? Wanting to find the answers to these questions, ALPIN’s equipment editorial team asked their readers to send them their old GORE-TEX jackets. Ten of these jackets were selected for testing for waterproofness and wear and tear in Gore’s laboratories in Feldkirchen-Westerham (30km south of Munich). We wanted to find out which problems arise and where these originate when normal people wear their jackets in normal conditions over several years. The idea was that after these tests the jackets would be returned to their owners repaired (if possible), washed, and with their water repellent finish restored, in other words, ready to take on a new life.
    The ALPIN magazine and #GORETEX testing team.

    Olaf will see to it

    Journalist Olaf Perwitzschky and his team worked with Gore to fine-tune the test procedures. From our own experience we know that climbers (can) use their jackets for at least ten years. For instance, in 2014 I sold an Alpha SV that I had bought in 2004. I hadn’t actually worn it that much, but I did have it with me on two expeditions to the Himalayas and on various backcountry skiing, ice-climbing and alpine rock-climbing trips. It was still fully intact – apart from one tiny hole in the back which happened while I was climbing a chimney in the Wilder Kaiser.
    Each jacket experienced great stories.
    We agreed that to qualify for our trial the jackets of the ALPIN readers had to be at least ten years old. Over 130 readers responded to the request in the January 2017 edition of ALPIN by sending their applications to the editorial team. The history of most of the jackets made for interesting reading and everyone was genuinely surprised by the variety of the jackets. There was everything from a ten-year-old, lightweight GORE-TEX Paclite jacket to a quilted alpine monster from the 1980s – a wonderful display of the world of Gore garments and an incredible trip down memory lane for the GORE-TEX brand. As the expert, Olaf selected ten “winners” from amongst all the people who had sent their old jackets to ALPIN magazine. To say “thank you” (and of course to encourage readers to send in their applications in the first place), the owners of the ten selected jackets were given a brand new GORE-TEX jacket from Marmot.

    The hard way: testing

    Stefan Marschar, the “rain man”, let rain come down in buckets, gave rise to raging storms and pressed water into each and every fold in the fabric: “In the rain room I put the jackets through two different rain scenarios. This allows us to see what kind of conditions the jackets can support and also where and when water starts making its way into the layers of the jacket.”
    "Rainman" Stefan Marschar while doing a Suter test.
    In theory, GORE-TEX laminates remain waterproof for ever. In real-life-situations and after years of extensive use, leaks can occur – either along the seams or because of tiny holes caused by things such as thorns, flying sparks or the jacket getting caught in a car door. To what extent this is of relevance in active use is demonstrated by testing in the rain room and, perhaps to an even greater extent, in the Suter test. “The spray test can more precisely determine the quality of the water repellent finish by establishing how well the water rolls off the outer shell fabric. We use the Suter test when we suspect that a jacket might be leaking in places. At the high pressures used in the test we can quickly see whether and where water is able to penetrate the fabric,” Stefan says.
    Putting the jackets to an acid test in the raintower.
    Within seconds it’s possible to say whether the water repellent finish is still fully functional. This is a good indication of how well the jacket has been cared for and maintained. The less the garment has been cared for, the faster it will wear out: microscopic particles of dirt can make their way more easily into the fabric, causing mechanical damage to the laminate and even to the membrane itself. A good water repellent finish therefore not only has a positive influence on functionality, but also ensures that the jacket’s useful life time is longer.
    Spray test

    The insights

    Together with GORE-TEX product specialist Chris Eisenmann, Olaf and his colleagues from the ALPIN editorial team put the jackets through their paces in Gore’s laboratories. As a self-confessed product fanatic, Chris was nearly out of his mind with excitement when he first got his hands on the jackets. Getting to see such an incredible variety of jackets manufactured over three decades is not something that happens every day, not even to someone who has been at Gore as long as Chris. “Wow, this construction actually isn’t allowed any more. It doesn’t align with the instructions we give our brand partners to ensure that our products do what they claim they can do,” Chris said as he examined the hood of a well-worn Salewa jacket. “But 30 years ago a lot of things were different, although they probably made good sense at the time.”
    After the storm test.
    Over the years, fabrics and manufacturing techniques have evolved dramatically. This has now been made all the more apparent by ALPIN magazine’s initiative. Gore has seldom had such a great opportunity to take a trip down memory lane and get a real sense of its “garment” history: two layer, two and a half layer, three layer constructions, the z-liner system, different zipper generations, ripstop nylon, epoch-making colour schemes, wide and narrow seam tapes and conspicuous design details with large pockets or minimalist streamlined tailoring. Some of the old jackets were in surprisingly good condition, others, as was to be expected, looked somewhat shabby. From the tattered state of some of them it was clear that they had come to the end of their useful life. Other jackets – including a 14-year-old alpine jacket from Canadian manufacturer Mountain Equipment Coop and a 15-year-old jacket from Schöffel – were in tip-top shape. Even the DWR (durable water repellent finish) of the Mountain Equipment Coop jacket was still performing well: a clear indication of the fact that for all those years its wearer had looked after it extremely well.
    The Mammut retro style is on fleek.
    Although most of the other jackets had clearly been used extensively, some of them, a 15-year-old Mammut Extreme jacket, for example, was still perfectly fit for use. The interior of another Mammut jacket, a 28-year-old, fleece-lined alpine jacket, couldn’t be examined in detail but nonetheless the 1980s jacket could still be repaired so that it was ready for action again – stylewise outshining quite a few of its younger, less experienced contestants. Our thanks go out to ALPIN magazine for the great way in which we have worked alongside one another and to everyone who participated for their fascinating stories. We’d like to wish the ten “winners” lots of wonderful outdoor experiences with their new-old (and brand new) GORE-TEX jackets! Read our blog article "Put the best to the test" to learn more about how GORE-TEX tests jackets.
    Joachim Stark Joachim Stark

    Joachim Stark

    Joachim is and all-round mountain athlete: Alpine, ice and sport climbing; backcountry skiing; and mountain biking are at the top of his list of leisure activities – when he finds time in between his work with the media, photography, and graphic design and layout for companies in the outdoor industry. He has worked with GORE-TEX as a freelancer since 2012.

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