How to Choose a Warm Quilt for Your Climate

What makes a quilt warm, not heavy

A warm quilt works by trapping still air against you, so loft does the warming, not weight. Loft is the height the down springs back to after you shake the quilt out, and the taller that loft, the more insulating air it holds. Two separate numbers control it: fill power, which describes the quality of the down clusters, and fill weight, which is how much down is inside the casing.

Weight on its own tells you very little. A heavy quilt filled with low-loft fibre can sleep colder than a light one filled with good goose down, because the fibre collapses and the air pockets go with it. Every decision below is about protecting loft.

Fill power and fill weight

Fill power tells you how warm the down is per gram. Fill weight tells you how much of that warmth ended up in the finished quilt. Our Hand Select Mother Goose down sits at 900 fill power, our Premium Polish goose down at 850, our Polish goose down at 750, and our European duck down around 700.

A higher fill power reaches a given warmth with less down inside, which is why a 900 fill power quilt feels lighter on the bed than a lower grade at the same warmth. It also means fill power alone cannot tell you how warm a quilt is. The same down put into a 1 blanket quilt and a 7 blanket quilt gives you two completely different beds.

Labelling is not a free-for-all here. AS 2479-2007, published by Standards Australia, specifies the purity, composition, classification and labelling requirements, including percentage tolerances for down-content claims, for down and feather fillings in quilts, pillows and sleeping bags. Fill-content claims such as "100% down" are also regulated as representations under the Australian Consumer Law's prohibitions on false or misleading conduct, which the ACCC administers. That is why our quilts are named for what is genuinely inside them, such as 95% White Premium Polish Goose Down, rather than a rounded figure.

Where the cold actually gets in

Two quilts with identical fill can sleep very differently, because the casing decides whether the down can stay lofted everywhere. In a sewn-through quilt the top and bottom fabrics are stitched straight to each other, so at every seam the loft drops to nothing and you sleep under a grid of cold lines.

Baffle boxed construction puts a strip of fabric, a wall, between the top and bottom layers, so each box holds its full height right to its edges. Channel construction runs the same idea in long tubes, which also lets you shake down towards your feet or your shoulders. We build quilts baffle boxed and channelled for exactly this reason, and the Single Bed Baffle Boxed Quilt 7 Blanket Warmth shows the height a wall lets the down reach.

Are warmth ratings a real measurement?

Our range runs from 1 blanket warmth to 7 blanket warmth, a scale describing how many blankets the quilt stands in for. Like any product description, warmth claims sit under the Australian Consumer Law prohibition on false or misleading conduct, which the ACCC administers.

The practical result is simple. Compare warmth numbers within one maker's range, where they are applied consistently, and don't assume a number from a different range means the same thing on your bed. Our guides to the Australian warmth 1 to 7 ratings and to thermal resistance and tog set out the reasoning behind ours.

Matching warmth to your climate

The quilt that suits an unheated Hobart bedroom in July is not the one that suits a Brisbane winter, so start with the room rather than the label. Australian winter runs June to August, and the variable worth weighing first is whether the bedroom is heated overnight.

An unheated room in the southern states, or anywhere inland and elevated, is where the upper half of a warmth range earns its keep. A heated bedroom, or a humid coastal winter further north, usually calls for something well below the top of the scale.

This is a sensible order to work through:

1. Measure the bed and choose the size that gives real overhang on both sides.

2. Pick the warmth number from the room and the sleeper, not from the season on the calendar.

3. Choose the down grade your budget allows, remembering grade changes the weight for that warmth, not the warmth itself.

4. Choose construction and casing last, since both protect the loft you have just paid for.

Couples rarely land on the same number, which is why we make His & Hers two-sided quilts with a different warmth on each side, such as the His And Her Super King Quilt 5 And 7 Blanket Warmth. Stuck between two numbers? Contact Us before you order and we'll work it out with you. We make quilts, pillows and mattress toppers, with pillows in Australian standard, USA standard, King and European sizes, and delivery is free Australia-wide and free to the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore.

Measure the bed before adding fill

If you already own a warm quilt and still wake up cold, measure the bed before you buy more warmth. A cold night with adequate fill is often a drape problem: with two sleepers and a quilt that only just covers the mattress, every roll lifts the edge and pumps cold air in at the sides.

Going one size up often fixes the actual cause, where going several warmth numbers up only adds warmth you may not need. This matters for buyers wanting American bedding sizing too. We make the US sizes properly, including the US Queen Size Comforter 7 Blanket Warmth, and they ship tariff free to all our customers in the United States!

What we make, and where

Our quilts are handcrafted at our Para Hills West workshop in South Australia, at N2, 21 Beafield Road, using German Batiste casing supplied by Weidmann of Germany. Owner Shane Grimwade managed Superior Quilts Co from 1993 to 2001, then purchased the business, and Supreme Quilts first opened for business on 1 August 2001. That is over 30 years in the bedding industry. We are Australian owned and operated.

The casing matters nearly as much as the fill, because a tightly woven down-proof fabric stops clusters working their way through, while a loose weave sheds down and loses loft over the years. We import our own supply of downs and cases in containers, supplied by Cedrob, and our Polish Mother Goose down comes from the White Koluda Goose, a government regulated supply under strict control of a unique reproduction system. Geese in Poland are bred on family farms with average flock sizes of 3,000 to 6,000 geese. For all our imported downs we provide our Veterinary Health Certificates, which show the downs are free from avian flu along with other known diseases and sterilised to strict Australian standards. Our Mother Goose downs are collected from the breast only and then sorted by hand, and all the downs we source are a by-product of birds raised for meat.

Worth checking on any quilt you are comparing:

• A declared fill composition: a down and feather percentage split, not a rounded marketing figure.

• Both fill numbers: fill power and the actual fill weight, so you can tell warmth from lightness.

• The construction named: baffle boxed, channel or walled, rather than "quilted".

• The casing named: the fabric and its origin, since down-proofing lives in the weave.

Care, lifespan and cost to own

We don't publish a single price, because size, warmth number and down grade each move it, so the price sits on each product page, and all Australian purchases include GST. The figure worth reading beside it is lifespan: a premium European goose down quilt will comfortably last between 10 and 15 years with basic maintenance, which makes the real cost an annual one.

Air the quilt and shake it out to bring the loft back, keep it in a cover, and wash quilts and mattress toppers every three to five years rather than every season. Pillows are the opposite and want washing every six to twelve months. Under the Consumer Goods (Care Labelling) Information Standard 2023, which the ACCC administers, bedding must carry adequate care instructions in accordance with AS/NZS 1957:1998 or ISO 3758:2012, so follow what is printed on your own label. Our guide to washing goose down quilts covers the detail.

Contact Us with your bed size, whether the bedroom is heated overnight, and how each of you sleeps, and we'll tell you which quilt we would put on that bed!

Frequently asked questions

Does a heavier quilt always sleep warmer?

No. Weight tells you how much fill is inside, not how much air that fill traps. A high fill power goose down quilt reaches the same warmth with less down, so it sits lighter on you. Weight only tracks warmth when you are comparing two quilts of the same down grade.

Should I choose duck down or goose down?

Budget usually decides it. Duck down is generally more affordable and goose down commands a higher price, so our European duck down is the most affordable Class 1 filling we use, while our Polish goose downs run from 750 up to 900 fill power. Both reach the same warmth number, but the higher fill power gets there with less down inside, so the quilt sits lighter.

Is down suitable if someone in the bed has allergies?

We can't give medical advice or make health claims about down, so ask your doctor about your own situation. What we can tell you is exactly what you would be sleeping under: tightly woven down-proof German Batiste casing, and Mother Goose down with a turbidity of 1000, which means it does not get any cleaner. Ask us anything about the materials and we will answer it plainly.

What can I do with a warm quilt that has gone flat?

Flat is usually loft that needs recovering rather than down that is finished. Air it in dry, shaded conditions and shake it along its channels. Our guide to refluffing a down quilt or pillow sets out the method. If the loft still does not return, a proper wash is the next step.