When buying used climbing kit there are two people you should consider the safety of; yourself and your climbing partner. This guide should help you identify the sorts of dangers that lie in using used climbing gear.

Kit that is OK:

If you are browsing eBay for a pair of climbing shoes, a chalk bag or a crash mat then you are going to be OK. This sort of equipment hides few dangers. Any weakness is easily identifiable or of little consequence.

Kit that requires careful consideration:

If you are looking to buy PPE or FPE (gear to you and I) you might like to take a moment to consider the dangers of buying equipment you don’t know the whole life of. Some items that come up are old and should probably not be offered for sale as climbing equipment. Old karabiners are sometimes better put to use as key-fobs.

FPE = Fall Protection Equipment

PPE = Personal Protective Equipment

Textiles:

Almost without exception, manufacturers give textiles used in FPE or critical PPE equipment a maximum life of 5 years in use – perhaps also a shelf life which is the time that equipment may be stored for before being put to use for the first time. This is not normally more than 10 years.

The 5 years time in use starts from the first outing. So this would be the first time the sling is put in your bag or is on your rack. Not from the first time you place it.

The reason that textiles are given a life is to ensure that they do not go on in use after they have been subject to routine wear and tear that occurs throughout the time it is out of the packet or not stored correctly. This can even be exposure to light which has a detrimental effect on many textiles.

Textiles are used in a lot of FPE and PPE products – the more obvious are:

• Slings
• Ropes
• Harnesses

Less obvious may be the use of textiles in:

• Helmets (cradle, chin strap, etc)
• Hexes, cams, etc (often slung with dyneema or similar)

Damage to textiles can, of course, occur a lot sooner than the manufacturer’s specified time limit. A number of things can adversely affect textiles, here are just a few:

• Light - especially UV which degrades textiles prematurely (high altitude use will accelerate the effect of exposure to sunlight, so consider use in high mountains)
• Liquids – these are very dangerous to ropes and other textiles used in critical applications. A liquid may be very acidic or very alkaline, in which case the effect can be to quickly render a piece of FPE extremely weak. Within the context of climbing gear, urine (dog or man), vehicle battery acid, oil, screen wash etc can all present a very real hazard. What is particularly dangerous is the tendency for these to go unnoticed or even be superficially washed away leaving traces still within the inner layers of the textile away from the surface where the effect of the liquid may not be apparent.
• Abrasives – this could be dirt in small amounts which can ingress into the mantle of a rope for example where it will gradually abrade the textile surrounding it. It could be a burr on karabiner or descender which can cause small cuts into the sheath of a rope, sling or harness.
• Sharp edges – when under tension most textiles will very easily cut when put over a sharp edge. This damage is often catastrophic in a climbing environment but you can frequently come across gear that has suffered the partial effect of wear over a sharp edge.

Other Hardware

This would cover all the non textile elements of FPE and PPE. So we are taking mainly about plastics and metals. It is unusual to find plastic within the critical components of FPE – it tends to just be embellishments which make handling, manufacture or storage easier. That said consideration should be paid to this especially if you are not entirely familiar with the equipment – wear to plastics can obviously occur quickly.

Metals are a more difficult thing to judge. Equipment bought on the second hand market needs careful inspection before being put to use. But even then there can be hidden dangers.

Karabiners, fig 8 & descenders, belay plates, etc:

Check for the following:

• Deformity (destroy)
• Misaligned gates (destroy)
• Slow / reluctant closing gates / moving parts (destroy – significant as this can indicate hidden damage)
• Wear through passing of rope (destroy if anything more than very superficial)
• Signs of dropping / impact eg. dents (destroy – could be hidden defects)
• Burrs / rough edges (Minor damage can be smoothed with fine emery paper, otherwise, destroy)

Hexes, nuts, cams etc

Check for all of the above that may be applicable plus:

• Wear to any textile component as described earlier
• Wear or severed wire or wire strands (destroy)
• Heavy impact – most of this sort of kit is designed to take a sizeable tug when being placed but not designed to take repeated falls. (destroy)
• Deformed wires - give-away that it has taken a high impact fall. (destroy)

Standards

FPE / PPE within the context of climbing is generally required to meet EN or UIAA standards. This used to be a set of standards set out by the UIAA. Now the UIAA align their standards to the European or EN or sometimes called CEN standards. These, however, have very recently been set to the standards of the old UIAA scheme – so there is no difference between the two in some categories at this present time – but this will evolve. Every year the standards will change slightly as market forces and technology dictates.

What is important is that any piece of kit used in a critical application – e.g. to prevent or reduce the effect of an accident or fall should carry either the EN, CEN or UIAA mark.

Most US products will also conform to these standards.

There are 20 different categories of PPE / FPE under the UIAA standards scheme. The specification is less important to us – it is just knowledge of the markings that helps the climber or consumer identify equipment tested to an accepted standard.

UIAA marking:

These are the only manufacturers to currently hold a UIAA certificate for one or more of their products:

• Alpen Pass
• Aludesign
• AustriAlpin
• Beal
• Black Diamond
• Bluewater
• Camp
• Cassin
• Charlet-Moser
• Colorado Custom Hardware
• Conquista
• Cousin
• DMM
• Edelrid
• Edelweiss
• Faders
• Ferrino
• Gallet
• Goeman
• Gilmonte
• Grivel
• Kailash
• Kaya
• Kong
• L.A.S.
• Mammut
• Metolius Climbing
• New England Ropes
• Petzl
• PMI Ropes
• REI
• Roca Cordes
• Salewa
• Simond
• Singing Rock
• Sterling Rope
• Stubai
• Tendon
• Wild Country

Update: Many thanks to the two or three people who have emailed to say they found this article useful. I'll try and expand on the FPE and PPE inspection section shortly.