With proper care, how long can a Gore-Tex jacket stay waterproof?

William
Taiwan

Expert Answer:

The actual waterproofness is not affected significantly by"care" when it means maintenance, but it is affected by "care" when it means how you use the garment.

Gore-Tex — or any other membrane or coating — should stay waterproof until you wear holes in it, or somehow damage the membrane. This wear may be caused by pack shoulder straps, or chafing between your legs as you walk, and is more obvious at seams because they are stiffer and stand up as ridges that take the brunt of the wear. The membrane can also be damaged without much visible external evidence in the fabric itself. This damage seems to occur with general rough treatment — climbing on abrasive "picky" rock, and bushwhacking, especially in thorny vegetation. How long you have the garment before damaging it this way is entirely up to you — some people take 10 hours to do the damage, others take 10 years. You can get an erroneous impression that the garment is leaking if you give it inadequate maintenance care. Maintenance is needed to avoid a loss of breathability that could cause condensation that is easily mistaken for leakage. The garment must be kept clean by frequent washing, and the DWR (Durable Water Repellent) finish replenished as in the instructions on the label.

I consider that wear-related leakage and soiling-related condensation should be regarded as fair wear and tear, and not the sort of things that should be covered under warranty. After all, these are things you did to the item by using it, not things the manufacturer did or didn't do. "Lifetime" should mean the wear lifetime of the garment, not your lifetime!

For the record, my Kokatat Gore-Tex drysuit is six years old, and has probably seen at least 200 days of hard paddling use. I've treated it carefully, and apart from a small area of seam that chafed and was fixed by smearing with Aquaseal, it does not leak. I can wear it all day in very wet whitewater, and I do not have to change my clothes when I get to camp.