UKC

Anyone out there used or own an Interface Climbing or Wide Boyz home wall?  Good, sturdy, worth it, recommended?   

Or any manufacturers recommended? 

Thanks! 

I've looked at a few, I just can't reconcile the amount being asked for them.

Not that I don't think they're fairly priced - factoring design, labour and profit - they're probably about right, but with a smidge of help from the right friends, I can always just make one myself - just need to find the time. 

Sink some cash on this bad boy and climb 9c by Christmas https://www.climbstation.com/

I love how in none of the photos of people climbing on it has anyone even bothered to put a pair of climbing shoes on...

They are good value for people with the disposable income to drop £5k plus on say a bike.  There was a thread recently discussing the merits of bikes going into many many thousands of pounds.  Most would see hardly any benefit over a bike costing 1/3rd of the price from Planet X or  similar.  But if you have the disposable, why not.

Same with these walls.  You could pay a capable joiner much less and get a simple board that will do everything the off shelf products can, but that isnt really the point.  

There will be a market for it, but it might not be for everyone.

Time - same problem I have! 

Highly recommend the interface walls, beautifully made, easy to assemble (one 5mm and one 6mm Allen key all that is required) very high quality and amazing customer service. 

I think people underestimate what time costs. They sum up the cost of materials and assume a commercial offering should be comparable without factoring in what it costs in time to design and assemble.

That said, a DIY effort can take shortcuts that a commercial offering just can't.

Saw this company on SM somewhere recently.  Don't know them but looks like a good effort and an order of magnitude cheaper than the other 'off the shelf' options: https://www.woodshedclimbing.co.uk/woodshedwalls

That looks brilliant value for people wanting a ready built wall

I don't have any experience with them, and I'm sure they're great and easy to put together etc, but I'm confident they're not worth it, unless you're really time-poor. Me and my girlfriend built a wall the same size as those pre-built ones in a couple of weekends, for less than a tenth of the price of the Interface climbing one (much less than a tenth of the WideBoyz one). Neither of us had ever built anything out of wood before and I'm not a very practical person (at all), and we still ended up with something that is functionally pretty much the same. As long as you've got a mate to help you build it, I would save yourself a few grand and build something like this, as long as you're a bit handier than us you could probably get it done in a weekend:

https://www.instructables.com/Freestanding-Indoor-Rock-Climbing-Wall-For-15...

If we hadn't painted ours and didn't need to go back to the timber yard to get the ply cut in half again (couldn't get it in the room!!!) we would have had it up in a day I think.

The design was the hardest bit as we were trying to maximise the space - this took a couple of evenings of playing with angles and lengths. But once we had the dimensions it was just a case of cutting everything to size and screwing/bolting it together. 

All of this depends on how good a finish you want. I spent several weekends and a few evenings in-between building my wall during the first lockdown. It's about 2.4*3m (just under moon board size.) I specified high in terms of beam size, marine ply grade etc because I want it to last for many years, and I've bought good quality holds as well as several decent power tools. However having said all of that, I did put effort in to finding things for good value, I don't throw money away.  All-in I am at about £2.5k now and it's a pretty full board. There is no way it could be built for under a grand without a lot of compromises.

Personally I think the boards in that link of Ram's look pretty small and a bit flimsy.

Depending on what you do, two people working a full weekend can easily be worth a few grand.

Definitely - as the rest of my post went on to say (the bit you cropped :p )

I think they're fairly priced, especially factoring labour, and will be over-engineered to cover themselves from a safety point of view.

I just can't justify the lazy-tax of not DIY'ing it 

Glad you said that....mine took several days as well....hmmm birch ply....

I recently built this home wall with a buddy: https://www.instagram.com/p/CNaov5Sl_gk/?igshid=daateu5pqan0 

It took around 5 days total and cost about £900 for the wood and fixings. It's totally freestanding and basically bomber - the beams are 10*10 and the board frame is 8*10 outside and 8*6 internally. We ordered the wood in 5m lengths and cut it all to size ourselves after hauling it through the second floor window with a haul rig 😁 

It now looks like this (plus another 70ish holds that weren't up yet when the picture was taken):

https://i.ibb.co/JnPmRQx/Home-Wall.jpg 

Total so far with holds is around £1250. 

Having done this with barely any carpentry experience I have to say personally I'd have to hugely increase my disposable income before looking at an off the shelf model. This was built exactly to spec, maximises room space and was also damn good fun to build (as well as being stressful and frustrating in equal measure!). 

I'd really encourage anyone thinking about building one to go for it, plan very well and then be ready for the plan to change dynamically as the build progresses. It's with the effort! 

Totally agree. I am the world's most relunctant DIYer, but built a wall in the garage recently with the help of a friend who is a carpenter and climber. I provided the unskilled labour. It was great fun to build and I learnt lots of DIY type stuff in the process. I had a basic design in mind and we adapted as we went along. I use it a lot.  

I don't have a home board but if I did I would buy a purpose built one for two reasons:

1- I think I'd get bored setting my own problems, with a moon board for example you can do loads of other people's problems, making it (for me) more entertaining. I'd guess from a training point of view this would force you to try problems that don't suit you too, as you'd be less likely to design to your strengths.

2- I'd imagine that a moon board would have a much greater resale value if you moved to a house that couldn't fit one than your home made version.