Vacuum Compression or Packing Cubes - What Each Solves

Different problems

A packing cube solves findability. Clothes go in by category, the bag stops being a single heap, and a compression-zip cube squeezes out some air as a side effect. The compression is real but limited, because it is your hands doing it against a zip.

A vacuum system solves volume. A pump draws air out through a check valve and the clothing stays compressed because the valve holds. On lofty items the manufacturer rates the saving at more than 50 percent, which is a different order of result from a compression zip.

Where each one fails

Cubes fail when the problem is genuinely volume. Four cubes of winter clothing occupy roughly what four unbagged piles of winter clothing occupy, minus a little.

Vacuum fails on dense clothing. Jeans, books and shoes have almost no air in them, and sealing them wastes the compartment. It also fails on convenience: sealing and pumping takes a few minutes at each end, and a valve closed on a fold of fabric leaks overnight. And it does nothing for weight, so on a carrier that weighs hand luggage it changes nothing at all.

Using both

They are not alternatives. The sensible arrangement is cubes for the things that need finding — underwear, shirts, chargers — and the vacuum compartment for the coat, the fleece and the towel, which are bulky, rarely needed mid-trip and exactly what compression is for.

How the valve works and the mistake that breaks it is in vacuum compression explained. The models with a sealed compartment are listed on the home page.

Questions