Waterproof or Water Repellent?

It seems unimportant! You want to buy a raincoat and when you see the words " waterproof " or " water-repellent " you think that this is a raincoat that can easily be worn for hours in the rain, without the rain leaking through the fabric. After all, it is not called a ' raincoat ' for nothing.

However, this is not always true, there is a big difference between waterproof and water-repellent and we would like to explain this to you briefly and concisely.

Water-repellent

A raincoat made of water-repellent fabric is ideal for lighter, milder rain showers and will keep you perfectly dry in them. However, during prolonged heavy rain showers, this jacket will leak at some point. There is a lot of difference between various types of water-repellent fabrics, one keeps out more and longer rain than the other. A water column of 0 - 1,000 mm may be called water-repellent.

Unfortunately, many stores sell jackets as 'raincoats', but this is often a water-repellent jacket that hardly keeps out any rain. You often only find this out after you have worn the jacket during a rain shower and for this reason you are no longer allowed to exchange or return the jacket. The best thing to do is to test the jacket by holding it under the tap. This will quickly tell you whether a fabric is resistant to water or not.

Waterproof

A raincoat made of waterproof fabric will keep you dry, even during long heavy rain showers . Waterproof means that no water can penetrate the material. However, even in raincoats made of waterproof fabric there are size differences in how much water they can hold back.
Water columns indicate the classification of the material in water resistance. In general, a water column of 1,000 mm is considered waterproof, but there are also materials with a water column of 28,000 mm, however, these materials are often not pleasant to process in rainwear. A water column indicates the number of mm of water that a material can tolerate per m2. You can assume that if a jacket is called waterproof, it is perfectly resistant to rain showers.

Waterproof seams and zippers

Whether a raincoat is waterproof depends not only on the material, but also on the seams and zippers. Rain can get through the seams of a raincoat, which is why most raincoats have taped seams. This prevents rain from leaking through the seams. Water can also get into the jackets through the zippers, so when buying a raincoat, pay close attention to the measures that have been taken to ensure that water cannot get through the zippers. This can be done by using waterproof zippers, but also by using an extra flap over the zipper that ensures that water cannot get to the zipper.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We are happy to provide you with appropriate advice.

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