How important is UIAA certification (for non-ropes)?

OLDSAG you said this:

O.L.D.S.A.G. wrote:I'm sorry, but you don't put the UIAA in a very positive light with the whining and fear mongering. I would also like to see more disclosure about the companies quality control process, and for the certification to include long-term reliability testing. If UIAA wants to improve and stay relevant, they can work on that. For example, CAMP photons are certified by UIAA but it has long-term reliability issues with the wire gates becoming stuck open and they have variances in the gate length. This means they have issues in the design, the manufacturing process, and supply chain, but they are still certified. My non-UIAA certified biners (like BDs) have been rock solid. So I see no point for companies to pay UIAA since it doesn't do much and it amounts to free advertising for the UIAA. I'd rather for them to pass the savings on to me and it allow them to compete more effectively. It's not freeloading. It's just good business.

I'm not sure I quite follow your logic in all this, but some of your points I do understand and agree with. And have said already myself.

The standards as they stand now have nothing directly to do with the supply chain or the QA in the manufacturing process. As for any design defects that show up in service, I addressed that just now with my reply to 20kN. It's almost impossible to cover everything in a standard, especially where guys seem to be moaning about the COST of getting the standard. The more you cover, the more it costs to CHECK for that.

So you try to check for the critical items. If it seems that there are critical items that were missed then you revise the standard. All the standards are revised about every 5 years, and more frequently if needed. If you have an issue with an item that carries a UIAA label (or even one with an EN one and no UIAA label) then report it. Both to the manufacturer and whoever "certified" it.

And to the UIAA too. And to your climbing federation: assuming you ARE actually a member of one. Many many climbers don't bother to join their national federations: BMC (or Alpine Club) in UK, DAV in Germany, Alpine Club in USA etc etc. That's why the BMC has only 60,000 members in a country with many times more climbers. No members, no funds, hard to work on climbers behalf. Same for the UIAA. We get our funding from member federations: BMC, DAV, CAI etc etc.

Again, my personal feeling is if you don't support the system by at least paying annual fees then you don't have a lot to stand on when you complain about the system. I'd say that makes someone like that a bit of a free loader.

Dang, I'm spending way too much time on this, but it caught my interest.

I looked into the actual organization of CEN, and in fact it is NOT a private or voluntary set-up at all when you really get down to it. Because each country sends one representative from their national standards bodies, who have to fulfill the following criterium (amongst others):

Additional Criterion C for accession to CEN requests that the Member is formally recognised by law as the official standards body in its country, whereas Additional Criterion C for accession to CENELEC requests that the Member is recognised by law in its country as an organisation officially competent in the areas of CENELEC’s areas of competence.

Note the comment "Official standards body". "Recognized by law" etc etc etc.

Whereas in the USA there is nothing like that. There are a lot of vary different standards bodies, all with different remits and scopes.

As far as the UIAA is concerned, we CAN and DO ask that label-holders fulfill at LEAST as much as the equivalent CEN standard, and sometimes more. And as I keep saying, that can change as well. We COULD add in QA requirements, supply chain requirements etc etc. If it seemed to be required.

And the people who would decide that are the people on the UIAA Safety Commission: national delegates and manufacturers. We also get input from testing labs and various Observers and independent experts.

John Wilder wrote: If I were a betting man, I would guess that Misty and Yates will fade into near obscurity for recreational climbers if they don't get EN/UIAA cert for their kit- with the boom in climbers, that 'certification' sticker will become more and more important in the culture, eventually becoming 'mandatory' even if the government doesn't mandate it.

I don't know John, I've been climbing for 20+ years now, consider myself quite the gear geek and rarely if ever look for a cert on a product. For me, the company MAKING the product is what matters and I feel this is true for almost every climber I know or have met. Granted, I don't have the pulse of the newest, gym-bread climbers venturing out to play these days but I've rarely heard anyone talk about checking for a UIAA or CE cert etc etc. Is the company a KNOWN and Established played in the market with a solid history? GTG for me.

The ONLY time these certs come up in discussion (and when I look for them) is when the company is unknown and/or likely based out of SE Asia.

If the product is made by a known and reputable manufacturer (WC, BD, DMM, Yates, Misty, Metolius, Edelrid etc etc) I never look for a cert.

Maybe this will change as the market changes but for now, I think weird "is this UIAA certified" conversations will be the exception rather the rule... Time will tell!

Well this is a good conversation.
I think everyone has made some good points.

I don't necessarily AGREE with all of them, but they are views help by others as well I'm sure.
So is good to know.

I think that yes, if you are a "good" company you don't need a standard.
But how do you decide who is "good" from "bad"?

I still think that the principles from this should be able to be applied to other safety critical items in another industry if you REALLY believe in what you are saying.
Like if you say "XYZ is a "good" company, I don't think they need to submit to any unnecessary standard organizations" well then do you seriously want the same thing to apply to parts for a 747 you will fly in to go climbing?

If you could save say $250 off your ticket by flying in a plane that was made with parts that were not certified, would you be happy? I don't think I'd be very keen to do that.

Well this is a good conversation.
I think everyone has made some good points.

I don't necessarily AGREE with all of them, but they are views help by others as well I'm sure.
So is good to know.

I think that yes, if you are a "good" company you don't need a standard.
But how do you decide who is "good" from "bad"?

I still think that the principles from this should be able to be applied to other safety critical items in another industry if you REALLY believe in what you are saying.
Like if you say "XYZ is a "good" company, I don't think they need to submit to any unnecessary standard organizations" well then do you seriously want the same thing to apply to parts for a 747 you will fly in to go climbing?

If you could save say $250 off your ticket by flying in a plane that was made with parts that were not certified, would you be happy? I don't think I'd be very keen to do that.

John Wilder wrote: I would guess that Misty and Yates will fade into near obscurity for recreational climbers if they don't get EN/UIAA cert

I dont think that's the case with Yates. Who does Yates mostly cater to (on the recreational side)? Bigwall climbers. They have tried to branch slightly into other areas, but bigwall is their thing. Who is least likely to climb a bigwall? Noobs and people that are affected by marketing influence. The people who climb walls, and therefore buy Yates gear, are people who have been climbing a long time and know who Yates is. These types of people are likely less concerned about UIAA stamps than others because they have been around long enough to know Yates is legit.

WarthogARJ wrote: If you could save say $250 off your ticket by flying in a plane that was made with parts that were not certified, would you be happy?

If there was a long history of those planes not failing, then yes. Even if everything on the plane was certified, if there was a long history of frequent plane failures, I might not ride one. The GriGri 1 to date is not UIAA certified. Yet no climber anywhere would feel unsafe using the GriGri 1 on the principle that it's not certified. Even in gyms that only allow UIAA certified gear, I suspect most wouldent think twice about allowing the GriGri 1 to be used because it has a such a long history of success.

20 kN wrote: If there was a long history of those planes not failing, then yes. Even if everything on the plane was certified, if there was a long history of frequent plane failures, I might not ride one. The GriGri 1 to date is not UIAA certified. Yet no climber anywhere would feel unsafe using the GriGri 1 on the principle that it's not certified. Even in gyms that only allow UIAA certified gear, I suspect most wouldent think twice about allowing the GriGri 1 to be used because it has a such a long history of success.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought belay devices are never certified because there is a human element in their use and because there are so many different designs that it's not possible to standardize.

20 kN wrote: If there was a long history of those planes not failing, then yes. Even if everything on the plane was certified, if there was a long history of frequent plane failures, I might not ride one.

Initial design and testing is only one thing. The long term maintenance of airplane is what's keeping them in the air. And no amount of initial certification can help if the airlines don't keep their planes properly maintained.

John Wilder wrote: The UIAA has developed a test for belay devices, so you can get them certified now. It's fairly recent, if i recall correctly. It's not exactly the best, though, since the human element can't really be accounted for.

The human (and rope) element is sorted out by not having any performance testing involved except for auto-locking devices like the GriGri. The testing only tells you the device won´t break, it doesn´t tell you if it will brake.

20 kN wrote: If there was a long history of those planes not failing, then yes. Even if everything on the plane was certified, if there was a long history of frequent plane failures, I might not ride one. The GriGri 1 to date is not UIAA certified. Yet no climber anywhere would feel unsafe using the GriGri 1 on the principle that it's not certified. Even in gyms that only allow UIAA certified gear, I suspect most wouldent think twice about allowing the GriGri 1 to be used because it has a such a long history of success.

The anchor points (bolts) on climbing walls aren´t UIAA or EN anyway, they have their own standards at least in Europe.

Gents and 20kN,
This discussion is getting somewhat fuzzy.

I thought the main aim was to discuss UIAA certification for (non-ropes).
And the implied meaning was everyone is happy with the UIAA standard for ropes, even the hard core guys like OldHag and Jim Titt who wouldn't agree it was their own grandmother unless she showed them ID.
Right?

And furthermore, it was about PPE. Not rock shoes, sunglasses, or sex aids.
Right?

Well, anchors are NOT PPE.
Although the next CEN definitions will say that anchors that COULD be removed in theory COULD be classified as PPE. So that presumably means hangars and expansion anchors. But not glue-ins.

Braking devices are SOMETIMES PPE.
I would need to refresh myself with the somewhat arcane and tricky argument for that.
It's a CEN thing, the UIAA doesn't make sure a big distinction over PPE and non-PPE.

I'll ask Bernard Bressoux at Petzl for the full explanation, he's the Technical & Quality Director.

The EN has standards for them. And the development for them was assisted by some very clever guys who, well, Mr. OldHag should be able to guess, they are on what....?
Hmmmm....yes. The UIAA.
The Italian delegates.

There is even an ISO standard for them.

There is not a UIAA standard, and to be honest, I cannot say why. We've spent 100's of hours discussing the research, and our people were all involved in the EN and ISO standards. I shall ask why not as well.

I'm not going to say anything more about certification/standards for aerospace. That's a no-brainer as far as I would see it. Not worth the electrons who die to carry message across the ether to spend more time on that.

And even more, I am somewhat astounded that everyone cannot see the slippery slope they are starting on when they even SUGGEST that it's fine to allow some companies not to certify their gear, because they are "good". And not worth their effort to do so.
Hmmm....

Do you want me to trot out the rather long list of disasters by companies who everybody thought were rock solid and yet still screwed up?

And there's more, access is starting to be an issue. And liability/law suits after accidents. How do you think the legal system, or the authorities in charge of access, react when they hear that the climbers, bolters or manufacturers involved don't bother to make sure products meet standards?

I'm going to get a very interesting chap to post his views on that, on a separate chain. And you can try to debate it with him. Good luck to you.

Does anyone know the rationale behind how strong gear loops on harnesses should be? Like should they be capable of taking a fall if some fan of Darwin clips onto them instead of the belay point? Well, we spent quite some time discussing that. We tried hard to get a good recommendation on it: I think we succeeded. But I doubt anyone outside that rather rarified circle even knows we thought of it.

There's a LOT of stuff going on behind the scenes that people don't know about. You need to know quite a bit more before you can voice a truly informed opinion about standards.

Anyways, my share of dead electrons. I'm not going to post anymore on this, I think the topic is dead.
I will post feedback about the belay device issue when I get factual information. And think about standards when you fly next....:-}