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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Space Bags

While Space Bags have been around for sometime, I had never given them a try until this last year. I decided that I wanted to use them to help storage for fabric, household items, and on our boat. But I didn't just try one, I pursued buying boxes and boxes of multi-sized Space Bags. And within a short time it looked like I had found a new way to organize a closet in my sewing room, as well as my linen closet, and various storage spaces on our boat that held clothing and linens.


















I was quite impressed with the ease to fill these bags and vacuum out the air. The directions clearly advised to not over fill a bag, and I could easily tell when over stuffing could cause a problem with a Space Bag. But within a short time I realized that if a bag was moved, even one lightly filled, the bag could easily break it's seal and would need to have the air vacuumed out again. Soon afterwards, I learned that with multiple times of vacuuming ou the air, the seal would loose the ability to seal, and the bag would become useless. I also experienced many bags where the plastic zipper would break, rendering the bag useless.

From my experience, I've concluded these bags really are not helpful for fabric storage, nor for clothing or linens. Well, they might work if you only need to have your item sealed for a short period of time and didn't have the need to ever open the bag and re-seal it.

Sorry, but Space Bags are not on my recommendation list. I was very disappointed in this products, regardless of the size of bag. But my bad experience isn't a common experience, so I'll at least advise to use caution.....maybe if you want to try them, start with one bag and use it for awhile, before you buy a lot of Space Bags.


This photo shows one of my Space Bags, with fabric, that had been vacuumed sealed, to where it was quite thin. It wasn't overfilled, and it wasn't even moved, but after several months of storage, at room temp, it puffed up.


5 comments:

Mary said...

Agree wholeheartedly. Living in FL where it is very hot and very humid except in "winter", we have real problems with mildew in closets even with the air conditioning blasting. I decided to try them as well (and luckily only bought a few) for our sleeping bags and cool weather clothes. The ones that are designed to use with those big plastic storage bins seemed to be okay for one-time use, probably because the sealed bags were inside a stable, sealed storage bin. However, after unsealing once and then resealing them, they were useless, so I never attempted to use them for my fabrics.

Beena said...

I have never used these, nor heard one way or the other anything about the quality until now. I had thought about using them for my closet. I will skip that, now! Thanks for the info.!

Micki said...

I've used them...they are great!
Micki

Teaquilts said...

I too had bad luck with space bags. Purchased to store left over batting and recycled tyes. The bags stayed compressed about a month for me - I did move them around a couple times during storage. Vacuum seals came off some bags and others tore. A big waste of money in my opinion.

CJ said...

Huh, interesting review and comments. I have had them in use for awhile now, moved them from one house to another and have had no problem. I have 3 of them stacked in my closet and all are still sealed. There is one in each of the kids closets with their baby quilts and afghans and embroidered pillow cases from grandma, still sealed and thin. I bought the assortment at Costco and haven't even used all of those bags yet.