Building new Home, adding area for climbing.

Hello,

So, the wife and I are planning on downsizing and buying a new home that hopefully will be the last one we buy. We are looking at a lot that has room for an extra garage and area for a future pool.

The extra garage will be spec'd out in order to facilitate a modest climbing gym :)

The builder is really awesome and wants to know exactly how he needs to spec out the building in order to maximize strength and simplify the creation and hanging of the walls etc.

Has anyone had this type of opportunity and what would you recomend I tell hte builder.

Here is a list of items I have discussed or will discuss with the builder.

1) 2x8 construction which is standard
2) Plywood interior as opposed to sheet rock
3) Cross members on the walls every few feet.
4) 12' ceilings
5) vaulted ceiling the length of the ceiling 12' on one side and 14 on the other. (on a slant, not a gable if you know what I mean)
6) Swing out doors i.e. Barn doors instead of rolling door
7) Wall between this third garage and the others instead of an open bay.
8) Some way to make replacing T nuts easier....
9) Light pipes

Any ideas would be welcome!

Consider using steel framing and make it 15' or so tall. Then its marketable as a RV dock. Run 4-5 strips of backing between studs and document their centerlines. Study up on the Unistrut-type support systems. Run some 5/8" Wirsbo tubing on 16" spaced loops tied to the wire mesh before you pour your slab so you have the option to do radiant heat later. Put in a evaporative cooler for the summer.

I would not have him put plywood on the walls, just leave the wall framing exposed. This will make it much easier to frame the climbing wall. You can put in the insulation yourself after you've framed the wall (it's very easy). In a tight space like a garage, there is no easy way to replace T-nuts, you just have to try not to mess them up in the first place, then take the panel off once you've ruined enough of them to make it worthwhile.

Hey Chris -

No engineer here but from personal experience I know that a slightly beefed up housing frame will easily hold a decent sized wall. Therefore most of your concern should be about how you want to build/layout the garage to accommodate the final wall.

Here are some suggestions from building several walls in garages:

- 12 ft might be a little low, while a 12 ft boulder with a top-out is a good size, in a garage you might want something slightly higher (up to 15ft) just to squeeze in the last few moves.

- Figure out a transition into some sort of roof climbing so that you get more moves in at the end (and not just have the climbing wall go into the peak of the roof at 12ft).

- Screw-in T-Nuts are much more time-consuming to install, more expensive, but their long-term quality is very high. This is what most climbing gyms use. Then you will only need to replace a t-nut if you literally destroy the threads. example: threeballclimbing.com/hardw…

- Plan for a way to keep the place well heated in the winter and nice and cool in the summer.

- Echo the above comments where you want this part of the garage to unfinished with exposed beams to make construction much easier.

- Make sure there are no roof trusses in the way

- I would keep it an open bay just so could pull out the cars and have plenty of room if you ever plan on having a small group over to climb

Here is a few other threads on climbing walls:

- Inspiration thread: mountainproject.com/v/gener…

- Shows how an attached-garage wall was built: 14ers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.…

- Some other builds: mountainproject.com/v/color…

mountainproject.com/v/gener…

Have Fun!

Thanks all for the responses. I'm really excited about this build out.
Mike L

• Steel framing may be out since my builder uses 2x8's in his green process.
• RV garage is actually the inspiration, one of his clients had one built and it is HUGE, I don't need nearly that much room and the cost was over $20k added to the home. Since I don't plan on selling this house, but leaving it to the kids, I don't care about the resell issues.
• The Tubing is a good idea, but honestly I think a small space heater will be fine in the winter, we have mild winters here in Albuquerque usually.

• I like the idea of having the builder expose the walls, but this is a gold level green home so the finishing will need either sheet rock or plywood. I'm going to see if I can come up with some solution to expose the 2x8 studs or to somehow mount cross members to mount the walls to?
• Agreed, it seems less work to tear down the wall at some point if the t-nuts strip than to build some complicated method to access the nuts.

• Will definitely use those screw T-nuts you linked
• Roof climbing will be a part of the design, in fact I'm planning on building this on three of the four walls with a roof section that will allow transitions from any wall to the other.
• 12 ft is a minimum, I'll see how much 15' would cost, he mentioned having to go to 12 inch centers if it got too high sou that would increase the cost of materials by something like 1/3rd.

References to going green:
Steel studs are made out of recycled steel 98% of the time; where as any lumber larger than 2x6 definitely comes from old growth forests. With steel, you can get the extra height w/o the 1/3rd extra cost.
With radiant heat, your efficiency is multitudes higher than a unit heater. Regardless, getting the tubing in the slab is cheap and leaves the option open.

Couple comments. If you have living space above or sharing walls with the garage then you may have issues with fire code as your plywood will not be a fireblock with a thousand tnuts in it. If it was me and I was in your shoes I would have him build out a slightly oversized garage and sheath in 3/4" ACX using screws to attach to the studs. Then when you are ready to build your wall remove the plywood and use it for the climbing wall.

Yes any builder could build a climbing wall, but you are going to pay a lot more for it as it is outside of his experience so he is going to build in a big cushion to cover potential problems. Build the house, then plan out your wall and if necessary hire a contractor to build it for you once you have your CO. You don't want to deal with inspectors requiring engineering reports. You also want to build it right, and in my experience that takes some time playing with models or putting up strings to mark out different planes. If this is going to be your "dream/retirement" home then build a really good wall.

I've worked in construction for quite some time now. Here is my semi-professional opinion =).

1. Steel framing is not as easy to attach plywood to or remove screws especially if your self-tapping screw strips out its hole.

2. Use 2x8's and if necessary (especially on vaulted roof) make sure the spacing is at MOST 16" on center. Many contractors go wider in garages due to lack of weight.

3. Use 3/4-1" plywood (not that cheap MDF crap).

4. Pre-drill the plywood while it's on the ground for your T-nuts.

5. If you want to use the typical T-nuts (the type with the three little points) then place them all into plywood before hanging it. Also use heavy duty screws, not nails, (along the lines of deck screws) to attach plywood to framing. This way if necessary you can remove sheet to replace T-nuts, change framing angles, or add "volume" features (pre-built structures that bolt/screw to wall).

6. All be it probably unnecessary if you really want to block (cross member) out between studs/joists then do so where the edges of the plywood will lay (typically 8') depending on the dimensions of the ply you buy.

7. Make sure any light fixtures you put up have protective covers on them and are low profile in case you hit them.

It's really not that hard to do or that big of a deal. Just be careful about code issues with the 2 hour firewall necessary between garage and living spaces. Drilling the T-nuts will be the most time consuming ordeal. I really recommend the hammer ins to save you time and money. However, that's all personal opinion... Good luck, I'd give a few more suggestions but its getting late here!