I find that most writing about Gore-Tex gets the mechanism of breathability wrong. Often I’ll see references to humidity or air pressure. I also see tons of statements that Gore-Tex can’t breathe if the DWR fails.
None of that is correct. Water moves through Gore-Tex via evaporation, and the driver is heat. As long as it is warmer on one side of the membrane than the other, moisture will move toward the colder side. This works even if both sides of the membrane are in direct contact with liquid water.
The ePTFE of Gore-Tex is like an open-cell foam, or an extremely dense net, whose holes are small enough to exclude liquid water drops, but huge compared to water molecules. It is not one-dimensional; it has thickness. It creates essentially a thin captive atmosphere within the membrane, through which water vapor can move.
If the membrane is immersed on both sides, water will be evaporating into the captive atmosphere within the membrane from both directions. Water vapor will also be condensing out of that atmosphere in both directions. So if one side is warmer than the other, there will be a net transfer of water from the warm to the cold side. On the warmer side it will be a bit easier for water to evaporate; on the cold side, a bit easier for it to condense.
In Gore-Tex the inner side of the ePTFE is mated to hydrophilic polyurethane (PU). This is to protect the ePTFE from oils and grease from our disgusting skin. So water vapor is soaked up by the PU, and once the PU is saturated, the water starts evaporating from the PU in both directions. But again, as long as there is a heat gradient, it will result in net moisture movement from warm to cold.
You notice this if you wear Gore Tex lined gloves on a motorcycle with heated grips in rain. Your hands get steamed, effectively, and the inside of the glove ends up wet through.
I recently learned in order for a product to have the Gore-Tex label, not only do you have to license the process/formula from them, but you have to send engineering samples to them and they perform their own independent testing before allowing you to actually sell the product.
There’s no doubt part of the success is the chemistry of the product, but the required independent testing to very high standards also likely plays a large part in the quality of the final products.
Not only that, but Gore will honour their “guaranteed to keep you dry” warranty. I had a Gore-Tex jacket that the manufacturer refused to replace after it delaminated about 3 years after I bought it. One call to Gore and I got the purchase price of the jacket in a prepaid credit card sent to me after sending them the jacket.
This is good to know. I bought knock-off goretex ski gear because I wanted a very specific style that only exists in a cheap brand (and I mean cheap, like $50 for jacket and pants). I was very surprised at its performance but I’ve only used it a few days so far, so no idea about the longevity.
No, I could have explained more clearly. I mean it’s good to know there is still value in the goretex brand (quality control, warranty) now that the patent is expired, when making the decision to buy goretex vs. a knockoff.
GTX in shoes generally does not last very long. In my experience in about a season or so there are patches/ cracks that let the water in. I guess something to do with the stresses of using a soft membrane meant to wrap around human body to support the weight of said body...
I believe that the durability of Gore-Tex in shoes might depend much more on the quality of the shoes than on the material itself.
I have used Gore-Tex only in shoes, but in various kinds of high-quality shoes (i.e. not cheap), either made by a less known Swiss company, or by brands like Adidas or Asics.
In all cases, I have used daily the shoes for 3 to 4 years until I had to dump them, always due to an excessively worn sole, not because of problems with Gore-Tex.
My personal experience cuts it more along the lines of what the other materials in the shoe are. My main hiking shoes are leather Meindl Islands (on my second pair now since something like a decade - the first would probably have worked if it wasn't for an unfortunate accident). They have a decent leather upper and if You keep maintaining it, the leather alone is probably doing most of the job.
On the other hand, I think I went through by now about 3-4 pairs of various running/hiking lighter plastic shoes (Merrell, Reichle, Salomon) and in those the membrane is the only thing keeping the water out. Unfortunately, it's generally sewn deep into some plastic mesh, so no way to tell / maintain it even if You'd like to. And one tear in the membrane means that all the water that seeps into the surrounding mesh "will" always find the way into the failed part of the membrane. Unfortunately, the rest of the membrane then tends to still do its part in slowing the moisture on its way out. So it drains / dries much slower than shoes with no membrane.
I have a pair of motorcycle boots with Gore Tex liner for about 10 years and they're still good for hours of rain. I also have no complaints about my Ecco shoes, but they only last a few years of wear.
Yeah, I commented on it below. Goretex (well, any membrane in general) is kinda crap in mechanical stress. If You can put it under some mechanical reinforcement (generally the case in motorcycle boots where You got some hard panels for protection) or don't mind some extra weight when You laminate it to some decent rub-resistant fabric, it lasts decades. None of that is unfortunately done in regular plastic running/light hiking shoes
> There’s no doubt part of the success is the chemistry of the product, but the required independent testing to very high standards also likely plays a large part in the quality of the final products.
This is the main advantage to it imho. I hike all day in Northern CA for work, so good rain gear is needed. There are plenty of options without GORE-TEX that are satisfactorily rain proof, but the ones with GORE-TEX are almost always better quality and have a better warranty. The REI Rainer is a good example of something that is generally good enough at keeping water out, but its relatively poorly made compared to their XeroDry jacket that includes GORE-TEX. It just leads to the end product being higher quality.
From what I have herd (but I was unable to find any written source at this point) the sampling only applies to the Gore-Tex Pro Shell brand. Meaning that products needs to be sent in and certified by Gore before they can be sold under that name.
I don’t have any sources to back this up, but I’ve heard that Gore Tex Pro is actually complete fabrics supplied by Gore. “Regular” Gore-Tex has the face and backing layers added by the manufacturer, where Gore Tex Pro comes with the face and backing layers. The Pro fabrics also require being sewn in a “Gore certified” factory. A lot of this is just rumours and hearsay picked up from living in a resort town, lots of discussions about Gore Tex!
The sampling for "regular" Gore-TEX (read: layers added by manufacturer) makes sense from a product standpoint.
If your selling point is waterproofness, and waterproofness can be destroyed by bad assembly... assembly is directly linked to your perceived product value.
Gore-TEX and other waterproof breathable (WPB) membrane fabrics are ridiculously oversold to people who don't spend much time outside. The amount of breathability they offer is ludicrously low compared to something like unzipping a jacket zipper or pit vent. If you're moving at all, a WPB jacket means that you'll be drenched from the inside due to sweat, and all that water repelled by your jacket ends up on your pants and shoes. Then people think they need WPB head to toe, which is like wearing a big ziploc bag.
I had a friend come on a hike with me wearing a three layer Gore-TEX jacket on a warm, completely clear day. I think he began to overheat with it (wearing a sweatshirt underneath) while in the parking lot, before we even got on the trail. He ended up carrying it the entire way.
I used to bike commute and walk in the rain, long before even knowing Gore-TEX existed. Being warm is more important than being dry (if you're not in subzero temperatures). Wool and synthetics will keep you warm even if they're wet - I've spent a fair amount of time soaking wet but feeling fine. And stuff will dry out quickly when you're wearing it indoors.
If you're a mountaineer, sure - use Gore-TEX if being cold and wet is likely going to kill you. And don't forget all the other layers. But for normal people, we don't need it.
In the PNW, particularly here in BC, Gore-TEX was an absolute game-changer for hikers. Throw on a tank top or tee-shirt, then your Gore-TEX jacket, and you could climb basically any local mountain between March and October, rain or shine. Every local hike went from being a moist, uncomfortable affair to being a joy regardless of the weather.
I had the same experience, except in the Sierra Nevada which doesn’t have conditions as extreme as yours. I had one of the original Gore-TEX ski jacket shells from The North Face, but got rid of it after a few months because it was too warm. It was insanely expensive when it came out.
What about rain shedding off your jacket onto your pants? This has totally been an issue for me and in inclement weather I wear (non breathable) rain pants (apparently the right word is bibs).
Then again you only say to put on a t-shirt and a jacket, no mention of pants -- I guess that's one way to solve the problem.
You can wear waterproof breathable pants, shorts, or pants that get wet but stay comfortable. Unless you’re biking or doing a similar activity or it’s raining very hard, you probably don’t get that much water shedding onto your pants.
I absolutely agree. The breathability of goretex is extremely poor to the point that I consider it a scam. If it's not raining you'll be way more comfortable with plain fabric, especially wool. If it is raining, you'll be just as comfortable in a plastic raincoat (especially polyurethane) with pit zips, and you will stay dry a lot longer in a heavy pour.
Gore-tex shells don't breath at all unless you keep up the DWR layer on the outside such that the rain beads off. However, if you do regularly maintain the DWR layer, the garment is waterproof anyways without Gore-tex, and more breathable. Moreover, the membranes don't really last a long time, a few year old gore-tex jacket will have a broken membrane, but the nylon outside shell will still look new. I'd guess that about 95% of Gore-tex shells in actual use are no longer waterproof or breathable due to the combo of a split membrane, and worn out DWR coating.
I agree that extreme mountaineering is the one use case where it makes sense. Also, usually with a new top quality outer layer for every trip or every few trips... Even then, there is probably better tech out there, like Columbia OutDry, which puts the membrane on the outside avoiding the need for PFAS based DWR.
My guess is that you do not live in a climate that resembles, say, the British Isles. Goretex was a total game changer in these environments (and as noted by other commenters, similarly in the PNW in N.America).
> If it's not raining you'll be way more comfortable with plain fabric, especially wool. If it is raining, you'll be just as comfortable in a plastic raincoat (especially polyurethane) with pit zips, and you will stay dry a lot longer in a heavy pour.
I grew up wearing both, and then later added waxed cotton. Sorry, just ick.
You can have my goretex jackets (Arcteryx, Berghaus, Mountain Equipment) when you pry them from the fingers of my not-so-cold, only-slightly-wet dead hands.
I am from the PNW and do a ton of hiking in the rain, this is how I came to have such a poor opinion of goretex. I’ll add that I sweat too much on a hard hike for goretex to keep up, which could be a physiological difference that makes it not work for me. Sweat will literally be pouring out the bottom of the shell.
For the light constant rain in the PNW, wool with the natural lanolin intact will keep me dry all day with incredible breathability. There are a few companies that make high end wool based gear. I’m also curious if you’ve actually tried a modern higher end polyurethane shell (not PVC) that has well designed vents all over it, or are you just talking about old fashioned PVC “oilskins” which lack good vents?
A couple of years ago, I did the Cape Wrath Trail (230 miles +/-) in the Scottish Highlands. 17 days with endless rain (+/-). I had a Mountain Equipment jacket and Rab non-goretex pants/trousers. Temperatures were mild. Can't imagine trying to wear wool (other than the smartwool t-shirt/fullsleeve tops I did wear). The GTX did wonderfully.
I would never wear GTX for trail running, for the reason you highlight. But then for trail running, short of a torrential downpour with cool/cold temps., I doubt I would wear anything waterproof at all.
It's a fair point that with venting, PU might be much better today than the PU shells of my youth, which were totally unvented.
Seems like you’re painting with a very broad brush. Ultralight 3L jackets like the Arc’teryx Alpha SL breath way, way better than a standard rain jacket. I actually A/B tested a standard 2L rain jacket vs the Alpha SL in hard rain while working hard and it was no competition. I was clammy and sweaty in the 2L rain jacket in about 90 seconds. I worked over 30 minutes in the Alpha and never got overly warm, and was totally dry.
When you’re mountaineering, sweat is really bad news. There’s a reason people wear $600 shells instead of $10 ponchos in the mountains.
I live in a super rainy city, had to get a Gore-TEX rain jacket because others would just soak through walking the dog every day. It's been great so far, no complaints about breathability either on 1.5hr walks. All day hikes might be different, of course.
This was true 10 years ago and still is for many jackets. but the latest generation of wpb fabrics including gore tex pro and polar tech neoshell actually breath really well, like you can get a shell you can bike up hill in and not sweat out now. It’s crazy.
Actually, bike commuting is ine of the hardest scenarios for GoreTex in my experience.
Biking in general tends to put Your heart rate pretty high. It depends on intensity of course, but a brief 30-60s sprint to overtake someone or clear a traffic light will take You from a comfortable aerobic zone well into anaerobic. That means "a lot" of sweat eventually. Walking/ hiking does that a lot less.
At the same time, on a bike commute You need durability under mechanical stress (backpacks with laptops can get heavy real quick). Aaaand on top of that, ideally it needs to be reasonably cheap (or last for decades) to be economically viable.
Personally, for bikepacking, I found that the only Goretex that works is the Shakedry membrane. This is their most barebones slimmed-down membrane. Super breathable, great water / wind resistance, but it's so ligh You look at it sideways and it tears. Definitely can't wear a backpack with that one.
On the other hand, my hiking jacket is a 3 layer laminate Goretex Pro that I've used for about 8y now with 25+kg backpacks. Great, durable, waterproof, but You are right- it's not breathable enough for bike(unless You open up all the pit zips, which kinda beats the purpose of a waterproof membrane).
This might be true in the midwest but definitely isn't for my area, the PNW.
Synthetics without a membrane will wet through, and I assure you no amount of wool sweater underneath will save you from misery when that happens (I love wool btw, literally half my wardrobe is wool sweaters).
Likewise, hiking through the wet vegetation you find in many of the forests here will soak through your pants even if it's not raining.
With snowboarding on Mt Hood, having a shell with a membrane is absolutely necessary on the days where it hovers between rain and snow. Probably the highest value outdoor equipment I've ever bought is a gore tex balaclava for weather like that. It's a huge difference.
Some of the new soft shell materials do a lot better than synthetics + DWR, but they still fail in conditions like the above.
So, similar to Chesterlon's fence, perhaps it isn't that all of us buying membrane clothing have been duped by marketing, but rather you simply don't know when it's useful.
Until now, I have used Gore-Tex only in various kinds of shoes, for many years.
However, in all those kinds of shoes, Gore-Tex has provided a very noticeable improvement, through their ability of keeping the feet dry even when having to walk through water or partially-melted snow.
Even when just walking through a city for the daily commuting, I have found this feature very valuable, especially when going to an office where I would not be able to change my shoes with a dry pair.
So I disagree that Gore-Tex is useful only in an extended outdoor setting.
You shouldn’t move wearing Gore-TEX in my experience. If you stop and it’s wet you put it on while stopped. You take it off when you start moving again. If you’re moving you’re going to be wet anyway (sweat) so no point trying to stay dry from the outside.
Best application is sleeping bag covers. Worst application is boots. Makes no sense.
That doesn't work in cold rainy conditions, you'll freeze without something to keep you dry, sweaty and warm is better than wet and hypothermic. You don't need breathable jackets but you need the waterproof.
Knowing more now about Chris Seaton than I ever did, ironic that this comment got downvoted. Chances are good he knew more about cold, wet, and moving than the vast majority of people on HN.
Gortex works amazing for snowboarding bibs. You do quite a bit of moving in those. You dont need to wrap your entire body in it for it to be effective.
My gortex snowboard jacket has side vents that work great when you need to cool off a bit.
Hard disagree. Goretex motorcycling boots are a godsend. You can easily get a lot of water on the shoes, and if you have waterproof pants that go over the boots, the water will not get inside.
Regular shoes that basically don't breathe are unusable when it's more than 20-25º C. It's not always practical to carry around two pairs of boots when out on a trip.
My pair of boots are usable in the rainy European winters at 0º C, all the way to the scorching heat of the Arizona desert. With regular shoes, I'd just freeze in the winter or have swampy feet in the summer. The wind speed sure helps in the latter, but it works against you in the former.
I used breathable boots but Goretex long socks (knee high) when doing infantry work in marshlands and wetted wood areas back in the military. It was a winning combination. The boot would get soaked and dry quickly, my feet kept dry. I'd put a lot of foot powder in my socks to avoid sweat ruining my feet.
The problem for me is the failure mode - step into something deeper than you thought, not able to stop and take them off, you’re going to be in trouble. Terrible failure mode worse than not bothering in the first place.
I would wear waterproof socks to dry my boots inside a patrol hide though.
This is also what I do on my bike. Waterproof socks instead of overshoes are much easier to use and work well for keeping feet warm and dry even when eg the boot gets completely soaked from spray or splashes.
Maybe for trail running, where you foot are constantly under water and the Gtx keeps the water inside. But for the daily walker in the rain, Gtx shoes are the best thing you can wear (eg the beat a well greased non Gtx Panamas), at least in my experience. Guess I'm at the height of stupidity.
In my experience mountain biking in central Europe, where most of the summer is dry and not so hot, and the rest of the year is damp and cool, Gore-Tex products work really well in keeping you dry when the outisde air is very humid.
I regularly use a gilet and a full sweater, these work amazingly well and are worth the price.
Besides the breathability, construction is top level for sports gear.
Just a side note, getting Gore-tex labeled product also means you get warranty from Gore-Tex, kinda like Patagonia label. My old ski jacket (Marmot) has de-laminated zipper that Marmot refused warranty on. I contacted Gore-Tex, they took the jacket in and send me a newer model of the same jacket.
It's pretty popular in Germany and the name and logo is often found on outdoor clothing. I always wondered if the name is the same in English speaking countries, or if it's different because of its negative connotations.
Apparently it's just a not too uncommon family name (Al Gore comes to mind) and also used as brand name in English speaking countries.
People get so upset about Toot and Coq and Gimp, but Gore seems totally OK. As a second language learner, no matter how long you learn, you will never know what's in a native speakers head.
> People get so upset about Toot and Coq and Gimp, but Gore seems totally OK.
For me (a native American English speaker) the context matters. When used in a name or as part of a longer name (e.g. Gore-TEX), it's totally okay. Actual gore can be upsetting, but the word itself is commonly used in content warnings and guides.
"Gimp" is different than "Coq" or "Cox" (a popular cable provider in the U.S.) in that it's considered offensive to the disabled (if the person saying it is not disabled), where homonyms for naughty bits are generally not taken super-seriously.
The author of Coq named it that way deliberately, which is why some people are annoyed by it. It's not that big a deal when it happens naturally, but going for such a pun in an academic/professional setting isn't really something to do.
For a while in Wellington NZ you'd see people walking around with Jackets saying 'Gore Techs' on the back. They were special effects people from Weta Workshops working on the Lord of the Rings films
The company has a very interesting organizational model. One I have seen in other employee owned companies where the supervisors and managers are chosen by the team (workers).
Setting aside the issues from waste during the manufacturing process and the messes that have been made (see 3M plants for example), is the actual Gore-tex product itself hazardous? Like, how much of the material do you have to eat, and how edible is the Gore-tex product? I get Teflon coatings scratching and getting mixed with the prepared food, but I typically don't go around gnawing on my clothing. Does Gore-tex leach anything that can absorbed by the skin while wearing it?
in the 80s on every ski trip, my parents would spray me down with scotch guard while i stood there in my cold gear. think of the scene from A Christmas Story with Randy in his overstuffed coat, but then imagine the mom spraying him down with a can of scotch guard. that was me.
does that count as being overused, or just as intended?
The title says this is expanded PTFE, which seems like it wouldn't need an additional PFOTS coating. I doubt it would shed similar small molecules to a PFOTS coating as it's a different material (polymerized tetrafluoroethylene).
I also doubt you would get similar endocrine disruption with PTFE polymerization biproducts since you won't have the "polar head/fluorinated tail" structure that PFOTS has.
Not exactly. Its properties come from PTFE, which is not water soluble. PFOS is a surfactant, like soap. You can’t make a jacket out of it — it’s water soluble.
PFOS was used in the manufacturing process. It’s quite problematic, but it’s actually the end product.
Is it more precisely: don't use PFOA or PFOS anymore, switching to less-proven-guilty chemicals with different lengths?
Either way, my concerns are mostly: how much fluorinated waste they release from factories and what happens at the end of product lifetime. Solid fluorinated compounds don't seem atrocious, as they can be reduced to safe minerals if burned properly unlike the spray-on compounds and factory leakage.
You may have to turn on your VPN to appear to be coming from an EU country (or maybe even from inside Germany, since this Youtube channel, Strg-F [literally "Ctrl F", so 'find'] is part of `Funk`, which is a German public broadcast station) but I found this half-hour-long documentary on PFAS and PFOAs, more generally, to be quite informative:
The video covers Chemours, DuPont, etc. and how there's a town in the US where the rain and soil is poisonous due to PFOA production in the past (and still on-going: not PFAS but other deemed-safe-by-corporate-lawyers PFOAs). The man who they interviewed had pet dogs that he would let outside and the husky loved being outside in the rain. However, the dog developed sores / lesions on its back and then died. Turns out the groundwater and basically the whole environment around the PFOA factory is highly toxic.
The video also interviewed a worker at a PFOA plant in Germany who has (had?) thyroid cancer, I believe it was, and suffers from many disrupted endocrine system effects. (He worked inside a PFOA factory where sometimes the chemical vapor would condense on the ceiling and drip down on to the workers. Again, the ground water and soil there is not safe for human or animal consumption.)
They also cover / touch upon the lawsuits that farmers with grazing cattle (that died off) tried to bring against PFOA manufacturers like DuPont, Chemours, etc. Unfortunately, most of those farmers are now dead due to cancers of various sorts (from consuming PFOA-laden groundwater, the same water which they were giving to their animals which died by the hundreds a few decades ago).
They also touch upon how difficult it is to recycle PFOA-containing fabrics: they must be incinerated at much higher temperatures to render the compounds inert and safe for disposal in the way that regular trash is disposed of after incineration.
It's interesting that the material turns into a fluffy mostly-air material when pulled hard. There's a long history of materials that suddenly change properties when processed mechanically in an unusual way.
Tungsten: one of the early breakthroughs was when General Electric figured out how to make ductile tungsten wire and coil it. Tungsten powder is compressed into slugs, which are forced through successively smaller dies. At some point, ductility appears. The rods can then be pulled through still smaller dies until very fine wire appears. This is how incandescent light bulbs were made. (Revisionist history of the light bulb: In 1840, Warren de la Rue invented the light bulb. Basic concept: use a coil of thin wire with a very high melting point. He used platinum. Worked fine, cost too much. Then there was a detour through carbonized paper led by Edison. Not as good, but cheaper. Then, in 1905, William Coolidge figured out how to make tungsten ductile. Now de la Rue's approach was affordable. Carbonized paper was abandoned.)
Steel: It's been known since ancient times that you could heat up a piece of iron and punch a hole through it, widening the piece at that point. That concept can be taken to an extreme. Within a narrow temperature range, you can push a piercer through a long steel bar endwise and turn it into a pipe.[1] That's how thick-walled pipe is made.
Food: The Beyond Meat process is more mechanical than chemical. The basic feedstock is peas. The trick that gives it a meaty texture involves extrusion with both steam and cold. The exact process is proprietary but not that complicated.
This is an area where development has historically required either a huge amount of tries or a lucky accident. Which makes one wonder what new tricks can be found that way by hooking up machine learning to hydrodynamic simulation.
Keep in mind that with Gore-TEX you still have to sacrifice a lot of breathe-ability. If you don't need something to be waterproof, you may be happier with a non-waterproof alternative. I've found that to be particularly true of shoes.
Yup, Gore-TEX shoes don't stay waterproof long enough to justify the cost in my mind.
If I know my feet are going to be wet for 6+ hours I go with my shoes-with-drain and waterproof socks, over N layers of thin wool socks depending on temperature. I have only replaced the socks twice because I don't use em too much.
I've found for offshore sailing or backpacking in the wet that Sealskinz (not gore-tex) are the best. Still wearing gore-tex bibs and top anytime there's any wet.
On expeditions in extreme conditions managing moisture is half the job. I read an interview with Børge Ousland (polar explorer, crossed the north pole in winter conditions on ski in 2019) about how he plans and executes expeditions. He use a thin wool sock, then a plastic bag(!), then a thick wool sock (or several wool socks) inside his shoes. So the inner sock will be wet by sweat, but the plastic bag stops the moisture so the thick wool sock and shoes are kept dry. Then at night he can dry the thin wool sock by keeping it close to his body. He also sleeps in a plastic bag inside the sleeping bag to keep moisture out of the sleeping bag.
It's quite interesting how these extreme expeditions work. They have to spend much of the time in the tent brushing ice off clothes, shoes, the tent itself, equipment and so on, because if the ice melts it will freeze again and shit will get ruined.
Yeah a lot of outdoor manufacturers have been trying to make more eco friendly waterproof gear that doesnt use PTFE. Patagonia in particular has been really trying hard to get rid of their use of them: https://www.patagonia.com/our-footprint/ptfe-polytetrafluoro... From what I understand the gear that doesn't use PTFE is unfortunately still not great or have the long term durability as goretex. Hopefully soon they'll figure out a good replacement!
which sorts of implants? i know, for another example, some orthopedic screws are actually calcium which are made to reabsorb, which i have 3 of myself from an athletic injury repair by an NFL team surgeon (maybe relevant if the materials change for type of repair).
The article doesn't mention (other than a brief nod to the brand) the other massive use of PTFE, none sticks surfaces originally under the Teflon brand, most commonly found on cookware. It truly is a "magic" material.
Teflon and other PTFE based none stick surfaces are now really quite controversial due to the toxic gasses they can give off of you heat them too high. And the manufacturing processes is potentially linked to a higher risk of cancer for workers.
The industry is now moving away from PTFE to other materials for none stick surfaces, however although they proclaim these are "safe", they have been studied far less. I believe some evidence is indicative of them also having serious issues.
Yeah, Adam Ragusea has a decent video[0] covering PFAS coating safety and production concerns; I hadn't realized how bad the factory side of things were prior to this - I only knew that overheating a teflon coated pan will destroy the coating, release toxic gas, and... kill any pet birds in your apartment :(
· Don't use high heat, ever; you will destroy the coating and release toxic gas
· Don't leave the pan to get too hot over medium/low heat either; if a teflon pan ever smokes, you have officially fucked up.
· Don't use hard/sharp utensils against the pan; you will scrape off the coating
· Don't clean the pan with abrasive scrubbers; you will scrape off the coating
· Do use soft plastic, silicone, or wood utensils; these shouldn't damage the coating
· Do wipe the pan after use, while the remnants of cooking are still hot ( honestly this is just a general tip; I always wipe out my carbon steel pan after use as well )
· Do use a soft cloth or sponge and warm / hot water to clean the pan when hand washing; just like seasoned pans, you shouldn't need to clean them with actual soap all that often, but a light once over every so often will not hurt at all and helps mitigate dust/general grime.
· Do soak the pan if you have somehow managed to carbonize food onto the pan; attempting to pry off stuck burned food can pull off parts of the coating.
Personally though I'd recommend a stainless or carbon steel ( cast iron if you don't mind the weight ) and seasoning it, or basically anything with a ceramic coating ( all cliff notes apply to ceramic as well, but due to general coating damage concerns rather than ptfe's production of toxic gas and generation of microplastic granules )
PTFE is a polymeric plastic. They don't fit this definition by the EPA "PFAS are found in the blood of people and animals all over the world and are present at low levels in a variety of food products and in the environment."
You could argue that the precursors to PTFE are included (but not really, since PTFE is made from a gas).
However you want to define your acronym of choice, it is disingenuous to conflate the fully fluorinated stuff (PTFE and PFA) with the partially fluorinated stuff (PFOA etc). They are very different beasts. All current evidence is that (after manufacturing) PTFE and PFA are as harmless as anything else out there. The partially fluorinated stuff is nasty.
Actually, Teflon on pans and cooking. Where is quite bad. It flakes off quite easily and you just ingest it. Go with ceramic, it’s much better for you.
I mean, we use PTFE as medical implants, which have undergone FDA testing. It's an incredibly inert substance. I'm thinking if it's OK to implant a piece of PFTE in your body for decades, it's probably not a big issue to ingest a flake that is eventually pooped out.
The don't make into your cells and tissues, because they're not digestible.
Anything bigger than a "small molecule" doesn't make it through the membranes into your bloodstream. Even individual proteins are too big, let alone a chunk of your frying pan big enough to see.
When talking about a small polymer, I was mainly commenting on microscopic flakes and lakes laced with "chemically inert" molecules that have devastating physiological effects.
Either way, what you claim is simply not true by any reasoning [1], though I do agree eating teflon flakes in moderate amounts should not pose much concern.
95% of all asbestos in use is of the chrysotile variety, which is Mg3Si2O5(OH)4 and doesn’t contain any iron [0]. It’s linked with human health hazards but is less dangerous than the crocidolite variant.
Crocidolite does contain iron (Na2FeIII2FeII3Si8O22(OH)2 per [1]) but it’s not the common type of asbestos and is known as blue asbestos and is found primarily in South Africa, Australia, and Bolivia.
I think given how dangerous asbestos is, it can’t statistically be reasonable to assume that it’s cancerous properties arise from something only found in a minority of the asbestos we use.
Peer reviewed papers aren't absolute truth either and one usually needs to be an expert in the field to see which papers are sound and which are not, if even possible. I'd even wager there's a lower percentage of bullshit to be found on Wikipedia than in peer reviewed papers.
> The industry is now moving away from PTFE to other materials for none stick surfaces, however although they proclaim these are "safe", they have been studied far less. I believe some evidence is indicative of them also having serious issues.
I've been moving away from PTFE in favour of cast iron cookware. Besides many other great properties, it is non-stick if used correctly.
The interesting thing about Gore-TEX is that is no longer patented, and is merely a licensed trademark that brands pay for. The Gore company certifies the designs, and it goes well beyond stretched PTFE. They require a final level of breathability, waterproof seams, various construction techniques, etc.
Bob Gore is known for being a savvy businessman, and this is one example of how to turn a 20 year patent into a 100 year revenue stream.
I've tried probably a majority of the major alternatives. Every winter sports company will claim their version of goretex is just as good, but they all fall short, usually waterproofing, or sometimes they just suffer from the garbage bag effect.
Either way, I've spent hundreds of dollars on too many copycats to ever bother with non-goretex again. It's not financially worth it
I agree with everything you said, and the Gore company is in the business of certifying the jacket will perform well.
That being said, for fishing where you are going to get fish guts everywhere, lots of people are now wearing this super cheap Frogg Toggs brand rather than rubbers. There is a place for super cheap PTFE gear.
Is this why I'm not seeing a lot of rain gear with Gore-Tex anymore? It seemed like it was pretty common about 20 years back which would coincide with the patent still being in effect.
Yes, GT is not 100% waterproof. It's also not breathable like cotton or untreated polyester.
However, the right path IMO is to compare GT to the alternatives, and when you do this it is absolutely clear to me that it's better. More waterproof than very breathable fabrics, more breathable than very waterproof fabrics. The former get you (very) wet from the outside, the latter get you (very) wet from the inside; GT gets you a bit wet from both.
Nobody has made the "perfect" fabric for wet conditions because it likely cannot exist. The fact that GT is not this mythical "perfect" fabric does not, for me, detract very much from it being measurably and experientially superior to the alternatives.
Skurka is of course correct that it’s easy to overwhelm the Gore-Tex membrane when you are working hard and perspiring. But this is not exactly breaking news… there’s a reason pit zips and soft shells were invented. Making a big point of this, sort of feels like shooting fish in a barrel.
Unfortunately if you read his other writing about Gore-Tex (and waterproof breathable membranes in general), it is clear he does not understand how the technology actually works. He refers constantly to ambient humidity, which is irrelevant, and even gets some facts about humidity wrong.
I'm an avid hiker/backpacker/runner and tend to agree re Gore-Tex clothing, but I do like having it in footwear for hiking in wet areas. It very obviously doesn't breathe as well as advertised, and I'd never want to wear a GTX jacket or pants while working up a sweat, but on muddy 20+ mile hikes with friends whose breathable mesh trail runners got wet and stayed wet all day, my feet have always been in way better shape wearing GTX hiking shoes. For shorter, sweaty trail runs, though, I'd take the mesh over Gore-Tex all day.
I’m nowhere near as accomplished as skurka, but I have some back country experience and I agree with him completely.
Cheaper waterproof (not breathable) layers with ventilation (pit zips on jackets and full length zippers on pants) is the way to go. Paying premium for GORE-TEX has not been worth it in my experience.
Maybe for hiking. When working hard in more extreme conditions like trail running in the mountains, ice climbing, etc the difference between those cheap shells and real gore-tex or alternative like eVent is striking
If you want a water resistant fabric with fewer chemical/environmental issues, look into Fjällräven's G-1000 fabric [1]. Instead of using PTFE, it's just a cotton-polyester blend waxed with Greenland wax (which is just beeswax and paraffin).
Isn’t it actually “water resistant” though? I spent a lot of nights cold and wet in gore-Tex gear. It would stay dry for a few hours but always soak through.
It is, but after a certain point the face fabric becomes saturated with water and breathability drops to ~zero. At that point your body’s own moisture can no longer escape through the jacket and you become wet from the inside.
That's true of the 3-layer designs (the inner layer is goretex but the outer protective layer can soak through eventually). There are newer products that are only two layers and goretex is the outer layer (under the "Shakedry" brand). Those don't have an outer fabric to saturate with water, so they stay breathable better.
Wow, I had no idea the US military is that well equipped. Somehow I always thought the military have to tough it out while the civilians get all the fancy outdoor tech.
You wouldn’t happen to have the official Marines Goretex washing manual handy, would you?
The US Army also issues Gor-TEX branded jackets and boots. You get them your first week in the Army, and every year you get a clothing allowance you can use to get new Gor-TEX products.
dwr != gore-tex wash. DWR is the cheaper/non-permanent waterproofing solution (likely containing PTFE) to add waterproofing to an otherwise non-waterproof jacket (or to make the outer layer waterproof)
Traditional gore-tex outerwear is made of 3 layers. The middle layer is the goretex, but the other layer is some fabric treated with a DWR that needs to be maintained for the jacket to work well (or the outer layer saturates with water and prevents the middle layer from breathing).
So yes, you need to treat most goretex jackets with a DWR periodically.
I don't see much Gore-Tex(tm) stuff around anymore. I was shopping for some rain gear and I don't think it came up. Are there better materials now or is it just too expensive?
In France at least, in sports outdoors shops, pretty much all high-end jackets and mountain shoes have gore-tex.
Some Salomon ones might have their own custom ~equivalent tech though, probably easier and cheaper to make new products as they control the whole process, no need for licensing & testing by the Gore-Tex company.
Important to note that the Gore-TEX membrane is made from PFAS, a forever chemical that is absolutely destroying the health of virtually every living thing on the planet. Correction: As of 2022, Gore-TEX will no longer use PFAS in their membrane [0] however PFAS will continue to be used in the durable water-resistant coating [1].
Why PFAS are so concerning:
1. PFAS and PFOA are known as forever chemicals because they virtually never break down under normal conditions and therefore bio-accumulate in all living organisms.
2. 99% of Americans are known to have toxic levels of PFAS or PFOS in their blood. Toxic levels of PFAS are found in rainwater all over the world - even Antarctica and Tibet. There is no rainwater anywhere in the world that is safe to drink.
3. There is no known safe level of PFAS/PFOS in the system. The EPA currently rates the recommended level at under 0.04 parts per trillion. The best testing methods can only measure as low as 4 parts per trillion.
4. PFAS are known to cause an incredible number of diseases including various cancers, obesity, liver disease, thyroid disease, kidney disfunction, and a wide range of fertility issues in both the parents and the children.
I've never been sold on Gore-Tex. It's not a great value for most people.
Shoes: good for a few outings (really nice on snow) but then lose their water repellency. If you have sweaty feet, your socks will get wet from sweat anyways. Just bring extra socks or wring them out periodically. Wool socks will feel warm even when wet.
Jackets: great in a downpour but if you're wearing pants, all the water just rolls off your jacket and soaks your pants. Use a weather forecast and just don't go or choose another location if it's going to be pouring out and instead settle for a much lighter water repellent layer for 100s of $$$'s cheaper that works in a light rain or snow. I use the OR Helium. Packs real small.
Otherwise, if your job requires you to stand in the rain all day, definitely invest the $$$.
What is wild to me is the only brandname use of gore-tex I have on my wardrobe is a pair of Converse All Stars. Talk about a shoe that really does not need water proofing.
It's a nice material, but recently nanospun fabrics like neoshell, ascentshell and futurelight have come out and I personally find they work much much better
I purchased a North Face jacket at their factory store in Berkeley, mid-1990s, the Gore Tex "Mountain Light" and a fleece "Denali" inner jacket.
It fit me really well, for a 30-year anniversary I decided to get a new one last week. They still make the same design.
The new one uses their nano-spun FutureLight fabric, rather than a three-layer nylon(?)/GoreTex sandwich.
It's much more soft, like a woven fabric rather than plastic hard shell, and it seems to be much less weight. I really like it.
I got to try out Marmot's take on next-gen shell technology a couple of years ago. Half the weight of my 20th century jacket, very effective. The particular jacket I tried didn't fit me as well as the Mountain Light, but I suspect that most people would prefer Marmot's version: more simple, lightweight, everyday tech.
Some things were great 30 years ago; the fleece Denali is essentially the same. The outer layer is much improved.
(And I noticed that the zippers are way better, overall. I bet there's been decades of improvement in plastics (sorry, "polycarbonate") engineering.)
The new stuff sounds great, but how durable is it?
Every time i've come across a new and improved breathable waterproofing technology recently, it comes with the significant downside that the fabric is a lot less durable. When it's raining, i wear my anorak. But when it's not raining, it's rolled up in a plastic bag and bungeed to my bike bag, or shoved into my satchel, or stuffed into a corner of my carry-on luggage. It probably does >10 hours carried for every hour worn! If a fabric can't stand up to that, sadly it doesn't matter how well it performs when i'm wearing it.
On my vintage jacket, the gore Tex membrane itself is less than 5 mils thick. There are freaky chemical burns on the front of it, ate through the tough external facing material, but didn't react to the Teflon. So I can see directly how the laminate was constructed.
I never got around to patching that... but yes there's tough stuff.
The Marmot gear I tried, the "Durable Water Repellent" (DWR) is claimed to be more durable than previous Gore Tex products. That's important because when the surface DWR is dirty with oils or abraded, it will wet out, saturate, and while the PTFE membrane won't leak liquid water, now it's not passing vapor either: you generally end up damp or worse. Condensation etc.
Which is why Gore Tex certification covered the whole process, the final product design.
I don't yet have decades of experience with current products. But honestly comparing them, the newer ones seem to be far superior build quality. That's hard for me to quantify.
The product reviews for the North Face FutureLight gear have noted how they hold up, scrambling over rocks and during Alpine style ascent.
Why did you correct to polycarbonate, a narrow category of plastics? Plastics is a very broad descriptor suitable for capturing all kinds of improvements in plastics and I don’t think any zippers are even made from polycarbonate.
Some companies, you can tell, have realised the word plastic has negative connotations and try to avoid it, normally they'll use the word polycarbonate instead, I think that was what they were playing on. (I myself hadn't realised it wasn't always possible to substitute in that way).
The North Face futurelight stuff I find very good, I haven't tested the rest as much.
I think it's definitely worth it for every day wear if you're in a rainy and or snowy place. I use it in the winter, and it allows me to be warm and not wet. Normally the snow would melt or there would be rain and soak my gear after a while in the snow, or I would get soaked from my own sweat, and it would be pretty miserable. I can even bike in the rain without getting wet. Gore Tex mostly works too but these materials are much more breathable and soft, so it makes it way more practical for everyday wear.
But I'm not sure how much that really matters... a regular un-fluoridated polymer like polyethylene that sticks around for a thousand years is not all that different in practice from a fluoropolymer that will stick around for a million years. If they're not recycled they go to landfill.
Maybe more to the point, I'd much prefer to contaminate the environment with inert chemicals with a million year lifespan than with toxic or bio-accumulating chemicals with a thousand year lifespan, and the good news is that the longevity of fluoropolymers is due to their total lack of reactivity.
Except there’s many routes ptfe can turn harmful. If it burns it turns into horrible stuff. Guess it shouldn’t be used in California.
And just as with polyethylene, additives like plasticizers and various other components added for processing can be a big issue. They used to use pfoa for helping process Teflon. Who knows what they use now.
All of this is true but it's totally unrelated to the fact that fluoropolymers are forever chemicals. Fluoropolymers themselves are harmless, even if their byproducts are not necessarily. And presumably the compounds of concern you've highlighted are actually not forever chemicals.
I found Gore-TEX to be not durable enough. I sometimes have to go through several shells to find one that’s made right. And we’re talking about technical shells that cost hundreds of dollars from reputable clothing companies. And these companies often get away with it because 999/1000 of the purchases are not used in intended environments. People will never find out that their shells leak.
Gore-TEX stuff is like all adventure products -- if they only sold it to people who really used it, their market would be < 1/10th the size and the price would be >10x.
So rejoice in well-funded, status-posturing, subsidizing rubes!
As someone who lives in SoCal I'm astonished by the amount of shoes sold here which are GTX. I always think they don't breathe as good as just normal shoes. Thoughts?
Anecdotally, they definitely don’t breath as well as shoes without, which is to be expected give n the properties of gore-tex. Since Gore-Tex needs to be kept clean and washed regularity, my theory is the shoes will perform well in a lab/testing but in the real world will get dirty and “plugged” up pretty quick. Shoes are gonna see a ton of dirt compared to a jacket. I avoid Gore-Tex foot wear unless it’s for a winter mountaineering and waterproofness is essential.
I think they are selling based on the brand name. I bought a few GTX versions before concluding that for me it isn't worth the cost. Clothes are much easier to wash and keeping clean so the membrane can perform.
Yep using that material makes the breathability suffer. No comparison to other water restiant materials which are worse. If I were in your region I would not buy water restiant shoes to begin with.
I'm surprised we don't have active waterproofing by now, like a tiny belt pack that maintains a really thin inflatable layer with just enough leakage to dry you off.
I guess people might not trust anything active in a situation where getting wet could be dangerous, but in a city it seems like it could be a cool way to make waterproofing that never wears out as long as the air pump works.
I've had and goretex gear in the military and for hillwalking. I've always found the footwear to be too hot and causes my feet to sweat so much I get borderline trench foot. Waterproof wise it's only slightly better than non-goretex.
My personal opinion is the price isn't worth it. For wet weather I'll stick with wellies, good socks and a poncho.
My feet get hot in my GTX boots, but they also get hot in almost everything else when I'm walking for hours on end. Overall, the boots are not the worst experience, and I can pretty comfortably wear them all day for a week, maybe because I tend to wear better socks in them.
Sandals and mesh sneakers are better in terms of heat, but not an option for many hiking trails (ymmv). And obviously not water proof.
I'm fond of cordura its sort of military material and waterproof and a lot of bags i've gotten in japan and taiwan are quite fond of this as well. Its a really strong cloth based design but sort of militaristic. big fan!
it's just too bad that once the inside of a goretex product gets wet it takes twice as long for it to dry. don't take goretex on long multi day excursions if there's a chance of getting soaked
None of that is correct. Water moves through Gore-Tex via evaporation, and the driver is heat. As long as it is warmer on one side of the membrane than the other, moisture will move toward the colder side. This works even if both sides of the membrane are in direct contact with liquid water.
The ePTFE of Gore-Tex is like an open-cell foam, or an extremely dense net, whose holes are small enough to exclude liquid water drops, but huge compared to water molecules. It is not one-dimensional; it has thickness. It creates essentially a thin captive atmosphere within the membrane, through which water vapor can move.
If the membrane is immersed on both sides, water will be evaporating into the captive atmosphere within the membrane from both directions. Water vapor will also be condensing out of that atmosphere in both directions. So if one side is warmer than the other, there will be a net transfer of water from the warm to the cold side. On the warmer side it will be a bit easier for water to evaporate; on the cold side, a bit easier for it to condense.
In Gore-Tex the inner side of the ePTFE is mated to hydrophilic polyurethane (PU). This is to protect the ePTFE from oils and grease from our disgusting skin. So water vapor is soaked up by the PU, and once the PU is saturated, the water starts evaporating from the PU in both directions. But again, as long as there is a heat gradient, it will result in net moisture movement from warm to cold.