<p>These seem ideal for saving space when moving stuff to college but I’ve heard they can sometimes leak which renders them not so useful. One of the biggest brands appears to be “Space Bag” but this is the brand I’ve heard about leaking.</p>
<p>For those of you who use these bags -</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Is this the brand you use or do you have another brand you like better? </p></li>
<li><p>Have you had issues with leaking and if so was it because of a defective product or do you think it just wasn’t closed properly?</p></li>
<li><p>What’s the most useful size - extra-large, jumbo, etc., combo of multiple sizes?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I bought the costco package and filled up many of them with cloth items stored in the basement, I just noticed that they are mainly NOT all squished tight and shrunken any more, they were when I put them in place, allowing me to 10# in a 5# bag space, but now they are not air tight :(</p>
<p>I use the brand space bags with great success. I have found that if they are going to leak I usually see it start happening right away and I just revac and seal. Be aware, I have found just about everything I put in them gets wrinkled like heck.</p>
<p>We use Space Bags, mostly to shrink bedding down so it will fit in the car on the annual trips to/from school. We find the bags work well the first time we use them, and less well with each subsequent use. We also find that we have to be careful loading and sealing the bags to make sure they work as advertised.</p>
<p>^^^ Agree. When they work they do an excellent job. But we have not found them to last for multiple uses. We used them for sheets; comforters, mattress pads…</p>
<p>in addition to what is posted above about leaking, we had an issue with not having access to a vacuum to suck out the air when re-packing to bring home from college dorm/apt…
so they are some use still for getting more in less space but not perfect.</p>
<p>you can always get they with a 20% off coupon at BdBath&Beyond.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. It sounds like there’s room for an improvemed design in them but they may be useful for at least a few times. I’ll probably give some a try. I like quality items though and would be willing to pay more for a better product if one existed but I’m not hearing of anything necessarily better than the “Space Bag” brand - right?</p>
<p>Space Bag has some bags that are “Vacuum or Roll” in case you don’t have a vacuum. Haven’t tried rolling them yet, but it might be worth getting those. The difference, I think, is the location of the valve.</p>
<p>I’m curious as well as to how these space bags work with comforters and pillows. We didn’t use them last year because we wanted son to have the nice soft fluffiness of his pillows and comforter. As he didn’t even use his comforter last year, I’m thinking of space bagging it this year, but don’t want a pricey comforter to turn into a flat blanket. And I definitely don’t want soft pillows to turn into hard rocks, either.</p>
<p>So, does your fluffy stuff get back its fluffiness once it’s released from the Space Bags?</p>
<p>Down compresses and decompresses very well, just ask anyone who ever stuffed a down sleeping bag into a little backpacking stuff sack.
We didn’t bother with the vacuum seal bags. Got the really jumbo ziploc ones and did the roll and seal thing with them.</p>
<p>Ok, I’m sendng my son back to college today for summer research and I used the space bags again. Two Exlarge spacebags.</p>
<p>All fit into one suitcase: Queen comforter / sheets / one pillow / Jumbo bath towel / 6 prs jeans / 1 pr dress pants / 1 dress shirt /10 shorts / 14 shirts / 14 underwear / 12 socks. Then had extra room for 2 paris of shoes and toiletries. :)</p>