Discussion: Backyard Climbing Wall

Construction has begun! My son is a champ at the climbing gym, but unfortunately the gym isn't very convenient. We were going to get a run of the mill play set for the yard, but I figured we might as well beef that sucker up a bit.

Check it out so far!

Link not working? I've seen it on Facebook though. Cool idea!

Strange... works for me. Try this one:

http://o9man.imgur.com/climbing_wall

They both work for me now - must have been temporary. The error # was 502 which I've never seen.

Updated for day three. Some design flaws are coming to light, but no real red flags yet!

Get some cross bracing in there. Don't rely on your cladding for this.

The seams of the plywood are going to need bracing for sure. I'm hoping that I can simply use 2x4s without brackets. I'll be evaluating once I get a couple more sheets of plywood up. There isn't much play in the thing, I'm thinking once I get the top 4x4s in it will be nice and rigid, and whatever I use to brace the plywood seams will give some redundancy.

Basically a "diagonal brace to stop the trapezoid effect". I'm not a structural engineer, but I'm an engineer.:) That will help with the plywood support as well. Too bad Mandelli isn't on here. He is the P.Eng. that does this work.

And then your anchoring once it is loaded...

Good work.

I have one of those fancy iron rings too!

I have three plans for anchoring:

1. Pinning it to the ground with coiled anchors. This isn't likely possible because we have a ton of rock and finding a clear path through the dirt will be tough. It is the easy route too.

2. Filling barrels / bins with water and placing them inside on the bottom level. This will suck as it takes away the 'dungeon' from the fort though.

3. Cables to surrounding trees. Pretty easy, just not very aesthetic.

I'm a structural engineer.

What Urthbuoy said.

My favourite part of structural engineering is zero force members. Imma get me summa them.

I'm no engineer but I used to have a construction company AND I've coached young boys from 8-15 years old. After you put in your cross bracing.. fill it to the top with cement! :-)

... rebar is optional :-0

Hmmm... 1000 cu.ft of cement eh? That ought to keep it in place during my dynos. I am the world's heaviest adventure racer... better not mess around!

Finally a weekend! Kicked ass and took names today. I'm pretty sure I could drive a 1/2 ton truck into the side of this thing without any structural damage! See link above.