5 TIPS on BUILDING a HOMEWALL (learn from my MISTAKES)
8 years ago, my dad and I built a climbing wall into the shed in our garden. This wall was far from perfect, but it was a nice start. After some years, I realized that we made a big mistake when building this wall. I made a lot of changes to the wall, and now there is not much left I would change. So I decided to give you 5 tips on building a home wall so you don’t make the same mistakes I did.
If you don’t enjoy reading, then I also made a Video about this topic. The link is at the end of this blog post.
Tip #1 Wall Angles
The first thing you have to decide when you want to build a wall is the angle and size. A board with 45 degrees serves a different purpose than a vertical wall. You can set hard boulders on a vertical wall, but these mostly are technical or very bad/ tiny holds. But on a steeper wall, you train your whole body while climbing, and it’s better to improve power and strength. So it’s really up to you and what you want to train on the wall. There is also the possibility of building an adjustable wall, but this, of course, will be a little bit more difficult to build, and you need more space. I personally love my 45° board, and I think 40-45° is a really nice angle to train on.
Tip #2 The Kickboard
The kickboard is a vertical part of the wall that has only footholds. It shouldn’t be huge, and you don’t have to build one. I like it, but on my wall, it’s a little bit too big. I think it should probably be between 20 and 30 cm and not more because otherwise, it just wastes space. But it mostly makes sense on steeper walls, maybe from 30° and steeper.
Tip #3 Landing
One of the most important parts besides the wall is a safe and soft landing to prevent injuries when falling off the wall. I have a thick mat, which is expensive, but you can also use old mattresses or crash pads. It really depends on your budget and what you are comfortable with.
Tip #4 The Mistake (the two-angle rule)
Let’s get to the "big" mistake I talked about in the beginning. You can see in the first version that the wall has a big vertical part on the bottom and an overhang under the roof. The advantage of this was that we didn’t need to build a substructure for the wall. But with this design, you can’t really climb on the overhang. So, the lesson from this is that you should not build two angles in a wall like this; sticking to one angle makes training much more productive and fun. (the only exception for the two-angle rule is, of course, the kickboard) The only time I would build two angles is when you have enough space and the wall is high enough, which is very unlikely for a home wall. But that’s also only when you want to build a bouldering wall and not a Training board.
That’s me 8 years ago when we built the first bouldering wall
My Homewall today
Tip #5 Holds & setting
One of the things to be aware of is if you want bolt-on or screw-on Holds. Because for bolt-on holds, you need T-nuts. I have a Grid with T-nuts 20 cm apart and one T-nut in the middle of 4. This way, I have many options and can place holds wherever I want. If you are not sure, then I would recommend just putting the T-nuts in the wall when building it because putting them in later is a lot more complicated, and T-nuts aren’t that expensive.
Another thing to be aware of, which has more to do with the setting, is if you want a feet-follow board or want to use specific footholds. I have a bit of a mix on my board. (if you want to know more about feet-follow, then check out my YouTube video about this topic)
