How much do cavers spend on gear?

[Simon Wilson]

Thanks for the great response everybody.

Please don't include diving gear in your yearly total. Like surveying gear, photographic gear and digging gear, it might be normal for you but it's a specialist part of caving. Although keep all your comments coming; it's interesting to read.

 

[PaulW]

It would be even more interesting If we knew what you were after the info for

Until then I don't see the point in contributing to that part of it

 

[Simon Wilson]

You will find out why I'm asking in due course. It is a perfectly innocent reason. I have no interest in making money from my hobby; I just want to further the science and sport of caving.

 

[2xw]

Student loans company and the uni of sheffield spent ?700 on a scurion, ~?200 on an SRT kit, ~?170 on oversuit, fleece, gloves, kneepad, wellies. That was an upfront irregular cost.

Regular costs are club fees (?13), petrol (probably about ?200 a year?), hut fees (four nights ish a month prob ?240 a year).

Thinking on it, I'm a student and the only reason I own a car is to go caving/climbing. Should I include a ?1000 Skoda, ?900 a year for insurance, ?300 a year maintenance?

 

[caving_fox]

Not really sure, as little as possible, as much as is required.

I probably run at about ?100/year for over/undersuit and about the same again for misc. socks gloves, krabs et al
Light and SRT are both trending towards a decade and have had odd amounts spent now and again, but I've no real idea on how much.

 

[cooleycr]

Simon,
This year I have purchased the following items

?70 on a lighting module
?60 on a CT Evo and Handy krab
around ?10 on various gloves for digging
plus 3m of rope for cowtails.

roughly ?150 in total.

However, last year I replaced a lot of kit as I had started to cave/dig 1-2 days a week:

new Warmbac Cordura oversuit and fluffy undersuit, new Petzl harness, new Petzl SRT chest strap, new elbow pads, new knee pads, new wetsocks and a couple of slings- perhaps ?300-400


Prior to this I hadn't spent much at all as I only occasionally caved so most of my kit was in a good state of repair since I purchased it some 20-odd years ago (apart from a few quid to get my Warmbac oversuit patched) - start-up costs back then maybe ?250

Hope this helps!

 

[CatM]

It might help to know why you're interested Simon, in order to better answer the question. For example, in addition to things like gloves, wellies, kneepads, cowstails (all of which seem to need replacing regularly), an undersuit & light upgrade etc, I have replaced my harness, odd bits of metalwork, oversuits... But a lot of the latter has been won in HE/Eurospeleo competitions and I still have a suit and almost a full SRT kit in reserve, meaning I hopefully won't need to buy replacements for a fair while. Do I include the equivalent costs for those items I have replaced, or just what I have actually spent? Having those reserves will also affect my future expenditure and thus my average annual spending...

 

[Simon Wilson]

... gloves, wellies, kneepads, cowstails (all of which seem to need replacing regularly), an undersuit & light upgrade etc, I have replaced my harness, odd bits of metalwork, oversuits... But a lot of the latter has been won in HE/Eurospeleo competitions and I still have a suit and almost a full SRT kit in reserve, meaning I hopefully won't need to buy replacements for a fair while. Do I include the equivalent costs for those items I have replaced, or just what I have actually spent? ...

If you have won something then please include the cost as if you had paid for it.

Thanks for filling in the poll. It's looks to be working well.

 

[pwhole]

I'm still a bit stunned to see I'm one of the four 'big spenders'. I'm not even well-off. Hopefully next year will be a little cheaper!
Either that or I start retrieving some of the 50 or so stainless hangers I must have sprayed all over the place in the last year

 

[RobinGriffiths]

Bought 2 cheapo helmets + Chinese headlamps for about ?100 which this year have visited Bwlch y Plwm, Dinas Silica, and Bagshawe - and my attic to investigate a roof leak!

Robin

 

[rhychydwr1]

Bought 2 cheapo helmets + Chinese headlamps for about ?100 which this year have visited Bwlch y Plwm, Dinas Silica, and Bagshawe - and my attic to investigate a roof leak!

Robin

I could have sold you a lamp and helmet for a fiver

 

[Amy]

I'm a BCA Member so I answered.

I wear through suits (well, here in TAG just pants). I sew my own this saves money means I spend about $40 on supplies but if bought, it would be $85-$100. Let's say $100 for ease. One a year.

One pair cave shorts a year, again I sew these, so its about $20, but bought would be $50. One a year.

(Our stuff is sharp with all the project caving started to do, I get tears through thick cordura in one trip.)

Kneepads - $40. One set a year.

Elbowpads - $20. One set a year.

= $210/year

New cave pack $50. Every 2-3 years.
New sit harness. $100. Every 2-3 years.
Replacement carabiners, ascenders, trying something new, etc. $200 every 2-3 years

= $350 / 3 years = lets say $115/yr

Stuff never replaced so had for six years of caving:
Helmet - $80
Light - started with $40 light, then upgraded to Bif's duo insert $120, now Rude Nora $700
Chest harness/roller, most my main ascenders (two full systems, ropewalker and frog) - $600

= $1540 / 6 years = let's say $250/yr

So total average per year...
$210 + $115 + $250
= $575

Which is currently 460-GBP
This does not include the two miles worth of rope in my garage...by my SO buys the rope. His spending would be higher than mine.

I voted 200-400 before adding it up. Before Brexit, that would be correct
It won't let me change to over 400. It's basically borderline depending on exchange rate.

OH should I count my 4x4 Xterra in this? If so, add $8000
And if I should include photog kit, add about $150/year.

 

[Simon Wilson]

When I created the poll I set it to allow people to change their mind. I don't know how you do that because the poll appears differently to the creator. But you should be able to change it.


Only one day left to enter folks. Do it - it's the most important poll of 2016.

 

[CatM]

I voted 100-200 as after a (rough) count up of everything I've bought (or equivalent cost of things I've won and started using) over the last 8 years I estimated an average of ~150 a year. But a fair chuck of that could be called "start up" cost. In terms of "tickover" costs I reckon it's probably a bit under 100 a year. Take from that what you will!

 

[Simon Wilson]

A pleasing result. 75 people responded.

Oh shit! Forget that, it hasn't closed. I'll be back in a few hours.

 

[Simon Wilson]

The poll is now closed and 77 people responded.

As with all such surveys we have to be critical of the result. It is a poll of people who post on UKCaving who are a group that will include more active cavers who spend more on caving gear but we also know there are some vocal armchair cavers who will spend much less which possibly evens it out.

Perhaps the highest category should have been a bit higher. We have a scewed distribution and it would have been better to have fewer in the highest category. Trying to guess what an average for that category might be will affect the resulting overall 'average' quite a lot.

Working with the data we have - if we take the median value for each category and a value of ?400 for the highest category then take the arithmetic mean we get ?180. ?500 for the highest category gives a mean of ?193. ?600 gives a mean of ?205.

So, let's stick to the most conservative value and say, according to this poll, on average each UK caver spends about ?180 per year on personal caving gear.

 

[JasonC]

... on average each UK caver spends about ?180 per year on personal caving gear.

Ok, so can you now reveal where you're going with this ?

 

[Simon Wilson]

... on average each UK caver spends about ?180 per year on personal caving gear.

Ok, so can you now reveal where you're going with this ?

I'm glad you asked that.

A significant proportion of that ?180 would be carabiners. Let's say a caver buys one carabiners per year and let's suppose they buy the cheaper screwgates for rigging at about ?8 each.

Another way of looking at the cost of carabiners for rigging would be to say that to rig a pothole would use something around 20 carabiners. Spread that across the average size of party and each caver would need 7 carabiners. If we say the average lifespan of a well-used carabiner is 7 years then we are back to one carabiner per year at a cost of ?8.

Each of those carabiners is clipped into an anchor and it seems reasonable to say that the quality of the anchor is at least as important as the carabiner. So it seems reasonable to pay at least the cost of the price of one carabiner per year per caver on anchors.

If the average caver spends ?8 per year on carabiners then it seems logical to me that they should be prepared to pay ?8 each per year on anchors. Multiply that by the number of cavers in the BCA rounded down to 5000. Using this logic the BCA would be spending on anchors every year ?40,000.

Using the published figures, over the five years 2005 to 2009 inclusive the BCA Equipment and Techniques Committee had a total spending of ?833 or per caver per year about 3p. Why does it matter what was not being spend a decade ago? It matters because at that time rusty Spits were continuing to fall out of cave walls and cavers were forced to do something about it so Joe and Joanne caver installed whatever they could get their hands on.

Between 2004 (the start of the figure published on the website) and 2016 it was about 40p per year per caver. That is the total spent, I don't know what proportion was spent on anchors and I guess it might have only been about half of the total.

To go right back to the start, each caver spends ?180 per year on personal caving gear and has been spending something like 20p per year on anchors. We have some catching up to do.

 

[alastairgott]

I guess it depends on the activity the cave is getting.

Bolts placed in say cliff cavern in speedwell may only get 3-4 visits each year and the same for the NCC shafts in peak cavern. I'd guess a similar analogy may be double decker passage in lancs, though i'm unsure how regularly its visited (maybe more).

Clearly theres a distinction to be made between well travelled sites. Alum, gaping gill, etc and less well travelled sites.

I'm sensing your worried either by the amount of bolts you find which are defective or the lack of reporting of bolts.

You have stated before that all faulty bolts should be reported (but you slso consider this could be every cave in yorkshire). Perhaps you could qualify this to say it is imperitive that people report faulty bolts if its a cave that they know people use very often (which,yes, should go without saying).

Promoting best practice for bolt reporting is probably easier to achieve at the "most popular cave" end and hopefully the rest will follow suit as the Cavers progress through harder caves.

Just a thought?