FAQ

Delivery takes 3-5 working days. We find that  days to most main(ish) centres are the norm. If you live slightly off the beaten track it does take a day longer.

When public holidays come into play, remember, the couriers do not delivery except in very urgent cases.

The above is for Normal delivery. We can also effect an Urgent Delivery. It does cost more. Speak to us.

You may pay using our website system (Payfast) or you are welcome to send us an email for an invoice. Then you can do an EFT.

We only use Door-to-Door Couriers and we subsidize this so that 1 standard parcel will cost you R 100 fro delivery right to your door.

When we have to start sending more than one parcel, the cost does go up, however we try our best to minimize this. 

Typically 2 parcels will cost R 150 (for duvets, pillows and jackets etc). For the Feather Beds it is bit more - we look at R300 to ship a Feather Bed, purely due to its volume.

Only in South Africa.

We can arrange for outside the country but that is another ball game. Chat to us.

You are welcome to return an item.

Should it be within 30 days of purchase and the item is completely new, unused and/or unworn, we shall very happily refund you. Please note that the responsibility to get the item to us is yours.

Should there be a factory fault with anything you bought from us, within a reasonable time, we shall pay for the courier to fetch it. If this proves to be the case, we shall fix it or refund you. Entirely your choice. If the defect is due to damage from your side, you will be responsible for all costs.

A goose has two layers of feather covering. The outer layer is the Feather layer; this is exposed to the elements and the fibres are tough so as to withstand wind, rain, snow and hail – it protects the Down. There are a few different types of feather (from the large wing feathers – the types used for pens in the old days, to the small down-feather). The main characteristic of a feather is the quill – the little shaft one can feel when rubbing the feather between your fingers. Think of feather as the same as a jacket or outer shell. The Down is the layer against the skin of the Goose and it has one job: keep the Goose warm. It is soft and fluffy and the most insulative natural fibre known to man for its weight. One piece/unit of down is known as a cluster and it has many tendrils/filaments stemming from the centre. When fully extended it traps large amounts of air in the cluster and this is what causes the fantastic insulation.

Yes, you can. It seems some people are allergic to the dust or other nastiness in duvets or pillows – usually old ones or products where the aspect of Hypo-allergy is not a focus. At Ember Down we correctly clean, wash, sterilize and treat our filling so as to be completely Hypo-allergenic; meaning it is extremely unlikely that even the most sensitive of person would experience any allergic reaction to our products.A goose has two layers of feather covering. The outer layer is the Feather layer; this is exposed to the elements and the fibres are tough so as to withstand wind, rain, snow and hail – it protects the Down. There are a few different types of feather (from the large wing feathers – the types used for pens in the old days, to the small down-feather). The main characteristic of a feather is the quill – the little shaft one can feel when rubbing the feather between your fingers. Think of feather as the same as a jacket or outer shell. The Down is the layer against the skin of the Goose and it has one job: keep the Goose warm. It is soft and fluffy and the most insulative natural fibre known to man for its weight. One piece/unit of down is known as a cluster and it has many tendrils/filaments stemming from the centre. When fully extended it traps large amounts of air in the cluster and this is what causes the fantastic insulation.

Quality. Sharon and I are the owners and extremely proud of the product we produce. We are the original manufacturers and each and every product leaving the factory is personally inspected by either one of us – that ensures quality. We furthermore have gone to huge efforts to improve every facet of our production and end-product.

       We are in control of the entire production process, from the goose egg to the treated Goose Down.

       We have gone to the trouble to find a master cotton mill. They weave our Down-proof fabric especially for Ember Down from Long-staple, Single-pick, Cotton Percale into a 430 Thread Count super cloth. It is pre-washed for your convenience and makes for an ultra luxurious product.

       We use very high quality cotton to sew all our products. This cotton is what holds the product together so it makes sense to ensure top quality here – again it is easy to save money here and use ordinary cotton but in the long run, our reputation is what matters to us.

       We never use channel stitching in our duvets – this is where the duvet is only stitched in long channels and every morning you find all the filling has migrated to your feet – not very useful. We ONLY do Box-stitching (the duvet is divided into equal sized boxes and each box is sewn shut with the exact weight (hand weighed) of filling in that box. Or we do Baffle-box stitching in our Winter duvets – this is a very time consuming and expensive design but due to the amount of filling in a Winter duvet we find it this works best. Again: our reputation is what matters to us.

       We manufacture in South Africa. We therefore create jobs in our country and specifically in our part of country – Ficksburg. Many of our staff is single mothers and this has a special place in Sharon’s heart.

 The size and insulation of the cluster. A Goose Down cluster is much bigger than a duck down cluster and therefore it has much better insulative properties / weight.

One gets a lot more Feathers from a Goose than Down when harvesting. Our best pluckers gets about 60 grams of Feathers from a bird compared to about 23grams of Down.  Excellent quality Down is exceptionally difficult to cultivate – it takes a very good diet for the Geese to grow good, large cluster Down. Good Down is also very sought after globally and thus imparts a global price on the raw product.

We have a 50 Down/50 Feather ratio.

We really struggled to find a suitable quality down-proof fabric that suited the quality of product we want to produce. South Africa does not weave down-proof cotton anymore and some of the stuff sold locally did not live up to our requirements. We decided to go and look for the “Good Stuff” and we entered into an agreement with a cotton mill that could provide for our specs. We now use a 430 Thread Count, Long-Staple, Single-pick Cotton Percale Down Proof: I still think it sounds very sexy. This was a very exciting time for us and really lifted our quality of product tremendously. The fabric is pre-washed which has a significant cost implication but we believed that in the long run it could only enhance our reputation.

Yes, this is a fact of which we are very proud. Our factory is on the farm in Ficksburg. Here we manufacture duvets, pillows, slippers, comforters and a host of other Down products. It is also where we manufacture our Cotton bedding range. Although we certainly are not the largest employer in the area we are very proud of our contribution to providing work locally. It helps tremendously with the socio-economic problems faced in the rural areas and here by us. You may or may not be aware but in the rural areas life is very different than in the cities for poor people. There often just is NO work and that literally means NO food – very hard on the children.

No, we use a fabric lining between each layer; in effect you have 3 different pillows in there so the contents will never mix.

Baffle-box is where vertical walls are sewn onto the horizontal layers in the duvet; creating a 3 dimensional box-chamber for the filling. We use this in our Winter fill duvets. It is rather complicated to manufacture with the resulting cost implication but again: delivering the best can only improve our reputation at Ember Down.

Channel stitching is a very quick way to manufacture a duvet: sew in the channels and add the filling – done. The problem is that nothing holds the filling in place. So, during the night, as one moves and turns the filling rolls off your hips towards your head and feet, creating empty spots all over the duvet and instead of keeping your warm and comfortable you now have seriously cold spots and some very hot spots. Just about the best recipe for a bad rest.

The construction of the duvet starts with sewing in of channels. Then the complications start. The duvet is divided into 20cm-ish (depending on the duvet size, the block sizes also vary) squares. These are then filled and stitched individually to ensure even filling. It is very time consuming but guarantees a fantastic quality product.

There are 2 main problems here. Firstly are the filling treated for wash? If not correctly prepared and treated, the filling can clump together in the wash and become a ball. VERY difficult to fix. Secondly, is the fabric pre-washed? In other words is it going to shrink and by how much? Ok, so once you are past those two issues and you are comfortable, then your duvet should at the very least be washable by hand. When attempting this, keep in mind that a water filled duvet is very heavy and careful handling is required so as not to damage the stitching. All Ember Down products are machine washable. See instructions in our article dealing with this.