In a club context:

Would you buy and use a used descender (which you had inspected and seemed ok)?

Equally, would you use a used chest strap/harness, that seemed ok?



Someone on this forum and I have been having a little chat and I'm interested to hear a broader set of opinions from across the community. I'm interested in your personal hypothetical opinion.

I would use both for personal use after close inspection but would not use it for club use. liability being the biggest factor

I think my own personal perspectives:

• I can assess metal reasonably well. Metal doesn't degrade invisibly. I'm reasonably happy with used descenders but bobbins etc may well need replacing. A thorough inspection is required.
• Although chest harness/straps are not PPE, there are many situations I can think of where I wouldn't want one to fail. I can't assess fabric and without a literal logbook, I personally would love to use one - even though pragmatically it's almost certainly fine

I'd be not too concerned by hardware such as a descender or jammer etc. providing on inspection there appeared to be no damage but I would definitely be wary of harnesses and other webbing materials such as slings etc.

If it goes any way to answering your question, I once found a bit of tape with a buckle on site that looked about right for a chest tape, so I picked it up and added it to my spares pile. It since entered service and is part of my "sacrificial" SRT kit, for which all the fabric components live at a rather remote dig. I don't imagine it's any more risk than any other knackered bit of kit left in a cave.

Would I do the same with a harness? Absolutely not. A failure would have very different consequences.

A chest tape takes very little load, so even if it is knackered, it's very unlikely to break. even if it did break, you can still hold the jammer as to prussik and you'll be ok on a short pitch. Failing that, you could improvise a replacement with the end of your SRT rope if you had a longer pitch to ascend.

A harness takes your full bodyweight if it fails you could die. Just not worth the risk.

As for metalwork, it's probably fine subject to an inspection. But is it worth it for a club? Most (non-student) clubs have more money than they know what to do with, so why not just buy new and have complete peace of mind? Most student clubs operate off grant money and have to explain expenditure, so I expect they would be obliged to buy new anyway.