Most sleep questions sound like bag questions and turn out to be pad questions, hammock questions, or rating questions. A bag’s printed temperature assumes a pad underneath it in the R 4.8 to 5.5 range, and the part of the bag under your body is crushed flat by your own weight, so the pad does the insulating there. These are the sleep-system questions readers keep asking in the camping and hammock forums, with the short answer for each one. Where a full page or one of our tools already works the numbers out, the entry says so and points to it.
Bag ratings, pads, and quilts
What R-value for 20°F camping?
Plan on R 5 or higher under you for a 20°F night on frozen ground. Sleeping-pad R-values add when pads are stacked, so an R 3 inflatable over an R 2 closed-cell foam pad gives you R 5 for the weight of two pads you may already own. Drop much below R 4 on frozen ground and the ground, not the air, becomes the thing stealing your bag’s rating.
I have a 30-degree rated backpacking sleeping bag but still get cold in above freezing temperatures — what’s wrong?
Usually nothing is broken. Most bags are sold on their limit rating, where a curled-up sleeper stays alive but not warm, and the comfort rating on the same bag typically sits 8 to 12 degrees higher — so a “30-degree” bag is often a 40-degree bag for sleeping warm. Add a thin summer pad under it and the ground takes several more degrees on top of that.
Answered in: Sleep System Temperature Calculator
Are quilts for side sleepers?
Yes — side sleepers are often the people quilts suit best, because there is no zipped underside and no hood to end up breathing into when you roll over. The catch is width: a regular quilt at around 50 to 54 inches wide can draft at the shoulders when you curl up, while the wide versions at 54 to 58 inches stay tucked. Pad straps and a draft collar matter more than the fill number.
I have a 2002 zero degree bag that uses Polarguard Delta synthetic insulation — is there a way to tell if my bag still has its mojo?
Loft is the test, because a synthetic bag carries no fill-power number you can retest at home. Spread the bag out uncompressed for a day and look at how thick it puffs up: Polarguard Delta is a continuous-filament synthetic fill, and after 24 years of stuffing and storage it loses loft for good. A wash and a gentle tumble can recover a little; a bag that stays visibly flat should be planned on as a much warmer-weather bag than zero degrees, whatever the tag says.
Hammock or tent — and what goes under you
Hammock or tent — which is actually lighter and better for backpacking?
Weighed as full systems, the two land within a few ounces of each other, and insulation is most of the weight either way. On the hammock side, our comparison’s lightest hanging setup — the Kammok Roo Double with its straps — measured about 24 ounces, and a light tarp like the DD SuperLight adds 490 grams (about 17 ounces) before an underquilt goes under it. A tent setup trades the underquilt for a pad and poles; neither side wins until you weigh the whole pile, not the hammock or the tent alone.
Do I need an underquilt, or will a sleeping pad inside the hammock work?
A pad inside the hammock works, and it is the cheaper start — it also still works on the ground if you ever have to go to earth. Its limits are that it shifts under you through the night and leaves your shoulders and arms off its edges, while an underquilt hangs uncompressed under the hammock and wraps the sides a pad cannot reach. Either way you need something: a sleeping bag’s insulation crushes flat under your body, and campers feel the cold from below in the 60s Fahrenheit, not just in winter.
Answered in: Hammocks Compared
Staying warm and dry in a hammock
How do I stop rain running down my hammock straps and into the hammock?
Tie a drip line: a short piece of cord tied onto each suspension strap, just inside the edge of your tarp, with the loose ends hanging down. Rain tracks along webbing by surface tension, reaches the knot, and drips off the hanging ends instead of continuing into the hammock. It is a two-minute fix that weighs almost nothing, and it only works if the knot sits under cover — a drip line out in the rain just gets rained on from above.
Keeping feet warm in a hammock — what techniques actually work?
Feet get cold first because they sit at the end of the underquilt, in the thinnest part of the footbox, farthest from your core. The fixes that come up again and again are dry, loose sleep socks — tight socks restrict the circulation you are trying to help — a small pad offcut or a folded sit pad under your feet inside the quilt, and sleep clothes changed into dry, not the socks you hiked in. If your feet are cold going in, warm them first; insulation holds heat, it does not make it.
Answered in: Hammocks Compared
How do you hang an underquilt so it doesn’t sag in the middle?
A sagging middle means an air gap, and an air gap is a cold spot your body has to heat all night. Tighten the main suspension until the quilt presses against the bottom of the hammock with no visible gap — set up right, an empty hammock sits lifted a few inches by the quilt’s tension. Then cinch the end cords so the ends gather without bunching, and check it with a hand underneath while someone lies in it; adjusting an empty hammock and hoping is how the sag survives.
Answered in: Hammocks Compared
I can’t get comfortable in my hammock (6’4″, ENO Double) — what’s wrong?
At 6’4″, the hammock is the first suspect: the ENO DoubleNest in our comparison is 9 feet 6 inches long, and that is short for a tall sleeper trying to lie flat. Length is what lets you lie diagonally across the fabric instead of curving along the centre like a banana, and the asker behind this question got comfortable in an 11-foot hammock. Hang angle matters too — around 30 degrees of strap angle gives the sag a flat diagonal lay needs.
Answered in: Hammocks Compared
Keep reading
These questions belong to our Shelter & Sleep hub, where the full sleep and shelter guides live. Run your own bag and pad through the Sleep System Temperature Calculator to see the coldest night your system should actually plan on. The gear behind the hammock answers is scored in Hammocks Compared and Tarps Compared — the rain layer every hammock in these questions still needs over it.
Talk it over with other readers. The Shelter Tactics Community on Facebook is where readers compare notes on knives, lights, packs, and the rest of the kit — and where your questions help decide what we research next. Join the group →