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Articles - Dry Suits - a guide to care, wear and tear!
Care for you dry suit and it'll keep you warm & dry for longer
Canoe & Kayak UK Editorial - Posted on 29 Jun 2009
Caring For Your Suit
Although most immersion suits are built tough, as with all paddling equipment they do require a certain level of care, especially the zips, to stay in top condition and keep you dry and warm season after season.
Rinse And Dry
We’ve all done it, got off the river after a long day on the water. Changed in a freezing car-park and then screwed up our sopping kit and stuffed it in to a dry bag, where we then leave it to sit until a week’s time when we’re going paddling again. This is bad for your suit, very bad indeed.
What you should do is carefully fold your suit up, so that the zip remains flat. Then when you get home give the suit a rinse in fresh water, this is doubly important if you’ve used it in salt water, and then turn it inside out and hang it up inside to dry. Don’t hang it in direct sunlight. This will allow any dirt or grit that has got inside your suit, and often gathers in the sock area, to fall out. Once your suit is dry give it the once over and brush of any remaining grit, then turn it back the right way round and store. Remember never fold a suit across a zip, as this can break the teeth.
Lube It Up
Both brass-coil zips require regular lubrication to keep them in good condition. Check with your manufacturer what type they recommend (they usually supply a small tube with the suit) and apply as recommended. Latex seals also benefit from regular application of a silicone protectorant, such as Seal Saver.
Open or Closed
Brass coiled zips should always be stored open, but Ti-Zips should always be stored closed.
Wear and Tear
Immersion suits have a tough life, not only do they have to put up with the demands of the river environment, water, rocks, mud, undergrowth etc. They have to cope with what’s going on inside too. When we paddle we exert ourselves, when we exert ourselves we sweat and give off heat. This can make the inside of a suit a pretty steamy place, a paddler may complain of getting damp in their suit, but unless they’ve been unlucky enough to have holed their suit its usually from perspiration. It’s not uncommon from the acids and salts we produce when we sweat to attack the suits fabric over time. A quick rinse with fresh water after use will help prevent this.
The sock area of a suit is very susceptible to damage, if you don’t follow the care guidelines above then any grit that you’ve brought in to the suit on your feet/inner socks is soon going to be rubbing away at the inner membrane of your suit sock. Suits are best worn with proper river shoes, and even a pair of neoprene socks, to protect the suits socks. Sounds obvious, but we’ve certainly seen people wearing them with sandals, or nothing at all.
Breathability
All the suits we tested are built from breathable materials, but in the environment we play in and with the additional equipment we use in conjunction with them, frankly makes this area a bit of a nonsense. The layers we add around them – buoyancy aid, neoprene spraydeck on top, plastic kayak on the bottom all reduce the area that could effectively breath by about 80% of the suits surface. Combined this with the fact that no fabrics (except some ultra light membrane stuff) can breath at the rate we as paddlers work at you are never going to get an immersion suit where breathability is great - period. Tests on fabric breathability are generally lab based, with static conditions where the inside and outside temperatures are at perfect levels (not what you'd find on the river or ocean) and in many cases are based on garments where air flow can take place, both outside and in, and suits don't do this. Combined with the adverse conditions that we use them in the best policy when considering suits, in our opinion, is for water-proofness, good quality weaves, durability and the ability to be active and move.
Warranty or not Warranty
Looking at a few of the more popular paddling forums it seems like many of us have some pretty unrealistic expectations with regards immersion suits. If we follow the care guidelines above, it is certainly not unreasonable to expect a suit to last for many seasons, even with heavy use. Most manufacturers take warranty claims very seriously and will exchange or repair any product that is faulty without question. If however the problem has resulted from reasonable wear and tear, (for instance grit wearing out a sock or pin pricks from brambles etc). Or improper maintenance or care (leaving it in a bin liner after surfing) then they’ll happily repair it for you, but with a minimal charge. It’s a pretty labour intensive process to check a suit out. Firstly it has to be pressure tested and sprayed with water, to find any leaks. Then the section will need to be untapped, before being unstitched. The new section then has to be restitched and then retaped before being packaged up again and dispatched back to its owner..jpg)
If you’re returning a suit to a manufacturer for any reason it’s only polite to give it a rinse, ensure it’s grit free and dry before packing it up.
Check out our head to head dry suit test here
If you have any dry suit care tips, or want to discuss the subject further head to the canoe & Kayak UK forum
Although most immersion suits are built tough, as with all paddling equipment they do require a certain level of care, especially the zips, to stay in top condition and keep you dry and warm season after season.
Rinse And Dry
We’ve all done it, got off the river after a long day on the water. Changed in a freezing car-park and then screwed up our sopping kit and stuffed it in to a dry bag, where we then leave it to sit until a week’s time when we’re going paddling again. This is bad for your suit, very bad indeed.
What you should do is carefully fold your suit up, so that the zip remains flat. Then when you get home give the suit a rinse in fresh water, this is doubly important if you’ve used it in salt water, and then turn it inside out and hang it up inside to dry. Don’t hang it in direct sunlight. This will allow any dirt or grit that has got inside your suit, and often gathers in the sock area, to fall out. Once your suit is dry give it the once over and brush of any remaining grit, then turn it back the right way round and store. Remember never fold a suit across a zip, as this can break the teeth.
Lube It Up
Both brass-coil zips require regular lubrication to keep them in good condition. Check with your manufacturer what type they recommend (they usually supply a small tube with the suit) and apply as recommended. Latex seals also benefit from regular application of a silicone protectorant, such as Seal Saver.
Open or Closed
Brass coiled zips should always be stored open, but Ti-Zips should always be stored closed.
Wear and Tear
Immersion suits have a tough life, not only do they have to put up with the demands of the river environment, water, rocks, mud, undergrowth etc. They have to cope with what’s going on inside too. When we paddle we exert ourselves, when we exert ourselves we sweat and give off heat. This can make the inside of a suit a pretty steamy place, a paddler may complain of getting damp in their suit, but unless they’ve been unlucky enough to have holed their suit its usually from perspiration. It’s not uncommon from the acids and salts we produce when we sweat to attack the suits fabric over time. A quick rinse with fresh water after use will help prevent this.
The sock area of a suit is very susceptible to damage, if you don’t follow the care guidelines above then any grit that you’ve brought in to the suit on your feet/inner socks is soon going to be rubbing away at the inner membrane of your suit sock. Suits are best worn with proper river shoes, and even a pair of neoprene socks, to protect the suits socks. Sounds obvious, but we’ve certainly seen people wearing them with sandals, or nothing at all.
Breathability
All the suits we tested are built from breathable materials, but in the environment we play in and with the additional equipment we use in conjunction with them, frankly makes this area a bit of a nonsense. The layers we add around them – buoyancy aid, neoprene spraydeck on top, plastic kayak on the bottom all reduce the area that could effectively breath by about 80% of the suits surface. Combined this with the fact that no fabrics (except some ultra light membrane stuff) can breath at the rate we as paddlers work at you are never going to get an immersion suit where breathability is great - period. Tests on fabric breathability are generally lab based, with static conditions where the inside and outside temperatures are at perfect levels (not what you'd find on the river or ocean) and in many cases are based on garments where air flow can take place, both outside and in, and suits don't do this. Combined with the adverse conditions that we use them in the best policy when considering suits, in our opinion, is for water-proofness, good quality weaves, durability and the ability to be active and move.
Warranty or not Warranty
Looking at a few of the more popular paddling forums it seems like many of us have some pretty unrealistic expectations with regards immersion suits. If we follow the care guidelines above, it is certainly not unreasonable to expect a suit to last for many seasons, even with heavy use. Most manufacturers take warranty claims very seriously and will exchange or repair any product that is faulty without question. If however the problem has resulted from reasonable wear and tear, (for instance grit wearing out a sock or pin pricks from brambles etc). Or improper maintenance or care (leaving it in a bin liner after surfing) then they’ll happily repair it for you, but with a minimal charge. It’s a pretty labour intensive process to check a suit out. Firstly it has to be pressure tested and sprayed with water, to find any leaks. Then the section will need to be untapped, before being unstitched. The new section then has to be restitched and then retaped before being packaged up again and dispatched back to its owner.
If you’re returning a suit to a manufacturer for any reason it’s only polite to give it a rinse, ensure it’s grit free and dry before packing it up.
Check out our head to head dry suit test here
If you have any dry suit care tips, or want to discuss the subject further head to the canoe & Kayak UK forum
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