Has anybody built a climbing wall on the outside of their house?

We have the perfect wall on the gable end. The kids would love it and I think it would be really good for them. Has anyone else done this? I’ve got no idea about cost, would it be silly money?

We’ve got one. Grandpa drilled and fitted the holds as a Christmas present for our two wee boys… it’s ace.

Was planning on doing it at one end of the barn. Was going to use brick red holds to camouflage them and get a phud mat or equiavlent from Alpkit for landing on.

http://www.alpkit.com/shop/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16898&category_id=252

Holds are a bit pricey though. Not sure what fixing I was going to use, whether screws and plug or rawl bolts and machine screws.

Thinking about something similar, be good to see some photos.

Ace idea – photos pls Messiah !

It depends on whether you want to be able to change the holds around. If you don’t then the best method is to use resin like Hilti HIT to fix a threaded sleeve into the wall.

If you do want to move the holds around then the best option is to fix plywood boards to the wall with t-nuts in them to allow for different hold positions.

You can pick up used holds up on eBay sometimes. I had one indoors in my garage and loved it, will rebuild it as an outside one when house building work complete. For indoors I went the t-nutted marine ply route – no thought put in to outdoor mounting prior to seeing this thread!

The crash pad has been great, now often found sitting under the slackline in the summer, but also great for garden parties, den building, gymnastic displays and general lounging. Regarding holds, slopers were my favs – some of them even got flipped round as I got more practice in (this being an early shot before the totally pro little squares of tape went on 😀 )!

Sorry for the poor photo. Holds go round the corner past the leaking and redundant oil tank fixture (to be dealt with this summer).

It’s for little boys to do traverses, they really like it. The little foot holds make it challenging.

Lakeland slate makes a great natural version.

Careful you don’t end up with something like the Duckworths old house on Corrie!!!
😉

Just build one around 3 walls of your garage, and in a couple of years it can look like this…

Built one, oh, almost 20 years ago in the spare room of my first house. It went all along one wall then into an alcove on the next. Did as Spin suggests (above) and put battens on then 8×4 sheets, so holds could be moved around. This was before eBay and all that, so they came from Cotswold Camping, I think and cost a fortune. It was interesting when the estate agent came in when time came to sell the place…

My wife is now giving me that look and saying ‘no’ .

Frank

Don’t know what your walls are made of, but as you are near me be careful if they are local ‘soft stone’. We’ve got a lot of sandstone and the like and its easily damaged.

If you live near a climbing centre, sometimes they will sell off loads of old holds cheap. The Climbing Works in Sheffield seem to do this relatively regularly.

Don’t know what your walls are made of, but as you are near me be careful if they are local ‘soft stone’. We’ve got a lot of sandstone and the like and its easily damaged.

J Crawfords finest here! That special blend of razor sharp render that they use of every house.

I’m thinking of going for a simple traverse down the side of the house perhaps mounted onto long planks so I can move holds around easily and not drill loads of holes into the wall. Maybe simple holds for the first 1/3 of the wall getting more challenging as you go along.

I am inspired for a more grown up challenge in the garage though………

Holds are a bit pricey though. Not sure what fixing I was going to use, whether screws and plug or rawl bolts and machine screws.

I’ve been looking at mixed bags of holds on eBay and thought they were pretty good value.

Cheapy holds

Can someone explain the T nuted marine ply thing? If this is mounted to the wall can I move holds around without taking the ply off the wall? Do I need access to the back or can everything be done from the front of the wall?

First you drill the holes in the ply where you want holds to potentially go. Then you stick the t-nut things into the holes from the back of the ply – they have flanges which prevent them popping through to the front and spikes which prevent them from spinning when you bolt and unbolt holds. You don’t need to see the back of the ply again!

The bolt goes through the hold and screws into the t-nut, which as above can’t spin because of the spikes.

One of some kind will be going in on the mezanine wall when I get round to build it 😀

You drill lots of holes in the ply and fit t-nuts in the back. These are internally threaded and you just bolt the holds onto them. No need to access the back unless you cross thread it or the t-nut falls out. This is a much more versatile approach than putting holds on the wall but it really depends on whether you want something that is just like a climbing frame for kids to play on or a proper climbing wall.

Brilliant, I’m really quite excited now. Thinking about kids wall or traverse outside and then something for me in the garage.

If space is an issue and you want it for training then consider building a campus board instead of a wall in the garage.

Good God Spin, fingers and forearms of steel!

The ones on my wall above came from Germany via Linky[/url]

Some of them were a bit delicate and broke when being bolted to the wall, but that’s more about the sandstone wall which is very rough anyway.

I’ve got a free-standing double garage with two walls accessible but hidden from public view. I was thinking of doing exactly the same!

The walls are single-skin brick but with a very rough exterior. I would like to be able to plug the wall with threaded thingumys so I can move the holds to create new bouldering/traverse problems. Any pointers as to what thingumys I could use? Also, should I render the wall so as to prevent knuckle shreddage?

Ta.

Be careful with a campus board, you need to be a good climber before you go near one, otherwise it is to easy to injure yourself .

Nice setup though.

Freddyg – in theory you would need some of the fixings detailed on this link. Not necessarily from here, this was the just the first one that came up.

http://www.climbukshop.com/section.php/42/1/accessories

However, you’d need to be sure that your bricks could take the forces likely to be exerted on them.

Rendering the wall will just shred your knuckles in a different pattern.

Personally, if it were a traverse wall, I’d buy a few 18mm marine ply boards, equip them with t-nuts, then fix these on battens to the wall. This also would allow you to mount them very slightly overhanging in places, which is far more interesting to climb on.

This is all great stuff, one of the most interesting threads for ages! Not climbed for over 10yrs (since Uni) but would love to get back into bouldering so potentially could give this a go.

I’ve got a wall 14′ x 9′, presumably that is enough to do something interesting? I like the idea of using ply with the t-nuts so you can change the holds. Are there any good websites about building these things? Would be interested in hearing what density of t-nuts people recommend, also any advice about plotting routes/”problems” and choosing what types of holds to use (had a look on that climbukshop link, looks great but bewildering!)

I drilled holes roughly 9 inches apart in a line across the ply then offset the next row of holes to be inbetween the previous one if that makes sense?

You’ll also want to put it at an angle rather than just being vertical. Unless you’re uber strong I’d say that 25-30 degrees is about right. If you’re starting back after a break then you’ll probably want to start with some bigger holds. You can also fashion holds out of lengths of wood like on the campus board to save some cash.

As far as route setting goes there are 2 schools of thought for home boards. The first consists of putting a hold on every hole and treating it like a highly featured bit of rock. The second involves setting problems like a climbing wall does. A good starting point for you if you want to set routes is to go to your local wall, map out a few routes and try to replicate them at home.

If you are going to build an indoor wall then I reckon wood edges are better than bolt ons. They are cheaper and better on the skin. Buy some 1/2 inch batten, cut it up and sand it down and bobs your uncle. Bolt ons are good for starting holds though and either m6 or m8 tnuts work (m6s are a lot cheaper though).

Re angle I would say 30degrees is a minimum. Mine is about that and it really needs to be steeper.

Re setting, plaster the board with edges at different angles, put a few bolt ons here and there, and work problems out. It’s what I have always done and I have had some really good boards.

http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/board,22.0.html

Board construction knowledge

Look….I know most of this is about bloke-fettling rather than climbing….but how many trips to the local climbing wall would you get for what some of you are looking to spend / have spent on some holds? Just worth doing the sums. Or at least take the kids there first.

My nearest local climbing wall is about an hour from home, too far to pop along to for a regular play around.

I quite like the idea of this one –
http://www.chockstone.org/TechTips/Woodie.htm

Chickenman, when he was a bachelor and had hair, had a 10 by 10 ft wall in his bedroom that parked against the wall but slid out on rails up the wall and out across the ceiling (up to 40 deg overhanging). The futon bed provided a handy crashmat.
I have no idea why I remained a bachelor for so long! 😯

Too far from a wall for me to pop in on a whim too.

I like the idea of being able to pop round the back of the garage for the odd hour when I fancy it. Also, looking around (at some of the earlier links on e-bay) it doesn’t look too expensive to knock something together.

Thanks for all the advice folks. Some good stuff here.

So here is the plan for me!

Stage 1 Simple traverse for the kids onthe side wall of the house. This will be cheap and easy to build, flexible in its use and good practise for me to chuck something together. Also it means I don’t need to worry about crash mats or them climbing high when not supervised.

Stage 2. Remove the mahosive shelving set up in my garage which is about 4foot deep by 6 foot wide and used mainly for storing junk. This will creat a large space for a den wall for me and also a load of timber that can be used in construction! Will build this with t nut things so can change it around to suit my (hopefully) advancing skills. One wall will be vertical and simple for the kids, other on an incline. I may look at ways of making this adjustable so I get stronger I can make the angle steeper.

Photos to follow (hopefully)

thanks for all of the pointers

There are lots of threads on ukclimbing about building your own ‘woodie’.

One of the advantages of an overhanging climbing wall is that you can stuff loads of junk behind it. Also the problems are harder and longer.

I’ve never liked the idea of adjustable angle ones. They weigh quite a bit, so you have to make sure they’re well-engineered.

You can make a simple 30-degree overhanging wall as hard or easy as you like by increasing/decreasing the size of handholds and footholds. I have a mixture of bolt ons and wooden edges.

I guess something like either of these examples would be quite tricky to replicate at home?

http://www.veqtor.co.uk/1/1/p154/Treadwall.html

http://www.freedomclimber.co.uk/