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Home wall

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 Murd 06 May 2010
This turned out to be a long ramble, I did end up cutting it down a bit…honest…so apologies in advance.
Back in December I posted asking for advice about materials for making a home wall. The idea being converting my loft into a climbing room, I had never done much bouldering but had reached the point where I was not going to get past my 6A+/B lead without doing more training and working on strength and technique, with my local wall being 50 minutes drive away and not always having a partner to climb with (not to mention £7+ a pop) I figured that it would make sense to go with something at home. I should add that I’m no diy type bloke…in fact much the opposite (stands for “don’t involve yourself” don’t it?) so it did seem a bit dawnting…but what the hell. The loft space was a good size with 3 metre height and about 8x4 metre floor space. There was no flooring up there and about 3 inches of bat shit covering the place. First thing I did was get Bob the builder in, just check that structurally my roof and floor would be up to the job, he gave it the thumbs up so I got on with it. For the floor I just used 18mm chip stuff, was not to much trouble, though getting up the loft hatch proved interesting as in fact did everything else! I decided the angle of eaves where pretty steep and it would be a good idea to have one slightly lesser angled side so I studded out the left hand wall half way up to a large beam to make things a little easier, used 4x2 for this, also put in a large kicker running down the opposite side. I also wanted some kind of roof so I made a box section frame that slotted nicely on top the existing large fat bastard beams that basically hold my house up. I did have a certain amount of head scratching concerning whether I could get away with using Sterling USB board for all of the climbing surfaces, the advantage being that it’s considerably cheaper than 18mm ply, I researched it plenty and spoke to a very nice man at near by timber yard who had many years of knowledge of such things and assured me it would be fine. I have had no problems with T nuts pulling through or flexing/bending of boards even on the roof section so his advice so far has proved sound. Have to say that hammering in 700 T nuts in the confined space of loft was none to joyous affair. I have managed to pick up second hand holds as I’m going along, think there must be about 160 up there now but certainly could do with a few more, the floor is decked out with several single mattresses and a few gym mats so landings on the whole are not to bruising. So it all came together nicely, plenty of hours, much help from friends and countless splinters and I now have somewhere very local to train…I’m still piss weak but sure that that’s going to take longer than it did to build my woody! Thanks to those who posted advice on this forum and to those mates who got there hands dirty.
If I can do it…and I’m a numpty…given the space, so could anyone
Tools used:
Hammer, chisel, drill, saw, screwdriver, ladder, gaffer tape, iphone.
Cost: just under £700 +holds
Time 6 weeks
Here are a few pics:
http://www.ripple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/woody1.jpg
http://www.ripple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/woody2.jpg
http://www.ripple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/woody3.jpg
http://www.ripple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/woody4.jpg
http://www.ripple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/woody5.jpg
http://www.ripple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/woody6.jpg
http://www.ripple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/woody7.jpg
http://www.ripple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/woody8.jpg
http://www.ripple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/woody9.jpg

 JayK 06 May 2010
In reply to Murd:

Great effort, your going to be a beast if you use that everyday.
Camdaz 06 May 2010
In reply to Murd:Nice work, just need to get the kettle on and get the invites out just 1 tip i find with mine due to it being of the same stuff the expansion and contraction of the timbers are affected more so the holds tend to spin on a regular basis keep an eye on the tightness of the bolts, being inverted over your bedroom and spit off can aggravate the missus,ive found coating mine with fence paint has sealed it and dosent suffer from this to much now B,U,K blue looks good. happy training.
 robal 06 May 2010
In reply to Murd: thatsmint, I always wanted to do this at my last house however I was always worried about dropping through the ceiling! have you taken any large falls on to the deck yet?
 SonyaD 06 May 2010
In reply to Murd: Thanks for posting this. Got a whole garage to get converted into a wall for me and my daughter and finding the thought of how to do it quite daunting!
OP Murd 06 May 2010
In reply to robal: Lots of them! It was a concern of mine but it's been fine, having a thin gym mat of top of the mattress's really does help to spread the weight of a fall well, still have all my plaster on the ceiling below!
 Lurkio 06 May 2010
In reply to Murd:

Looks awesome. Of course, you'll never be able to move house ever again.... =P
 George Ormerod 06 May 2010
In reply to Murd:

Nice one.

Where did you get the M10 allen-head bolts from - I'm looking for somewhere that does them at a good price?
OP Murd 06 May 2010
In reply to George Ormerod: Got most of them from bendcrete though it may be worth checking out a local fastners company, they maybe be able to get them for you if they don't stock them and avoid carriage costs, I needed some longer 100mm bolts to go through joists which I got locally and proved to be cheaper.
 George Ormerod 06 May 2010
In reply to Murd:

Thanks, that's where I got my T-nuts from at a pretty good price. I'll try there.
 Robin Head 06 May 2010
In reply to Murd:
This is amazing, nice work! Can not wait to have my own house where I could build something similar. I especially like the idea of the loft as it is already an overhang :]

rob
 Richard Sutton 06 May 2010
In reply to George Ormerod: They're much cheaper at an engineering supplies shop. I got some from Rothwells engineering supplies in Rochdale and they were just over half the price that they are from proper climbing suppliers.
 bradholmes 07 May 2010
In reply to Murd: You nutter!! That's just brilliant! Mmmmm.... Wonder what my landlord would say.......

Well done!
In reply to Murd:

Do you not fall through the loft hatch?

http://www.ripple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/woody2.jpg
OP Murd 08 May 2010
In reply to The Green Giant: Very nearly several times during construction! Beefy loft hatch and a mattress over the hole prevents a high ball fall now

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