Cleaning and repair
Cleaning your hiking clothes
You should clean your hiking clothes infrequently to preserve its maximum usable lifespan. Generally, I would recommend you wash your clothes when clearly dirty or smelly, or at the end of every season if you hike frequently. For most garment types, use gentle detergent, cold water, gentle/handwash cycle, and always hang to dry.
Some clothing types require special detergent to maintain its technical properties. I would recommend Nikwax Tech Wash for rain shells, and Nikwax Down Wash for down puffy jackets. In these cases, follow the instructions on the bottle instead of the garment's care label.
In a pinch, you can use regular (gentle!) detergent on these pieces, but you may need a dryer to restore the durable water repellency on shells, and the loft of the insulation in puffy jackets. In the latter case, you are encouraged to throw several dryer balls (or tennis balls) into the dryer.
Cleaning and repairing your backpack
In general, nearly all backpacks are spot clean only. Wiping down dirty spots after each hike should be enough for most situations. For a very dirty backpack, you can try to restore it by soaking it a very dilute vinegar solution or with a very small amount of gentle detergent. Hang to dry out of direct sunlight. Ultraviolet rays damage all synthetic materials, especially Nylon.
If the item is a backpack, many manufacturers in the outdoor adventure space have generous lifetime warranties. If your retailer can’t help you, you should try to contact the manufacturer’s customer support first.
The first thing that will break is probably the purely cosmetic damage that occurs to stretch mesh water bottle pockets. This material is quite vulnerable to abrasion, and will likely develop small holes early in its life. For the most part, this isn't a problem, though it does look ugly. Over time, these pockets will lose their elasticity and start to sag. This is non-repairable without total replacement.
The second thing that is likely to break is the main zipper. A high quality YKK #10 zipper will probably break in around 5 years if you're unlucky, and 15-25 years if you are lucky.
Finally, the polyurethane backing of the main fabric will start to flake into small pieces, perhaps in 10-30 years, and the pieces will get stuck on your pack's contents. Technically the backpack is still usable, but the flakes are annoying, and the weather resistance will start to fail. Once you get to this stage, I would normally consider your pack to be at the ends of its normal useful life. If you'd like, you can intentionally delaminate the polyurethane and continue to use your pack.
While lifetime warranties for these companies used to be extremely generous, and Jansport's still is, nowadays these three types of damage to backpacks would be considered “normal wear-and-tear,” and would not be covered by most warranties.
Buckles should survive basically forever, unless they are destroyed by impact damage. Whether the warranty covers this is a bit of a coin toss. If the warranty process takes too long, or the manufacturer does not cover damage to the buckle, you may wish to take matters in your own hands, and order something a Sea to Summit or Gear Aid field repair buckle.
Local repair store recommendation
Need something fixed? Live in or around Toronto? Try Sport Sewing Shop!
Located near Woodbine and Danforth.
Phone: (416) 690-4669 Address: 1898 Danforth Ave Unit 1, Toronto, ON M4C 1J4
Open Tuesday to Saturday between 11:00AM and 6:00PM.
To my knowledge, this is the last store left in the city that is equipped to handle backpack and tent fabrics, waterproof shell clothing, and the like.
No affiliation.