Climbing Gym: Months Left Before A Rope Retires

Excel Formulas › Rock Climbing Gym

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Ropes retire on hours, not on how they look. Manufacturers publish a rated service life for heavy commercial use, your log says how much of it is gone, and the gap divided by monthly use is the honest answer to “when do we budget for a new one?”

Quick formula: Remaining hours over monthly hours, rounded down:

=ROUNDDOWN((B2-C2)/D2,0)

A 1,200-hour rope with 640 logged and 45 hours a month has 12 months left — order the replacement in month 11, not month 13.

Functions used (tap for the full reference guide):

ROUNDDOWN EDATE

The example

Three ropes on the wall, each with a rated life, a running log, and the hours it takes in a typical month.

	A	B	C	D	E
1	Rope	Rated hrs	Logged hrs	Hrs/month	Months left
2	Lead line 1	1200	640	45	12
3	Auto-belay A	1500	1180	60	5
4	Top-rope 3	1200	1090	40	2

The formula

Remaining life first, then months:

=ROUNDDOWN((B2-C2)/D2,0) // rated - logged = hours left, / hours per month, rounded down

How it works

Three parts:

B2-C2 is the hours the rope still has. Rated hours come from the manufacturer's commercial-use guidance, not from a general climbing rule of thumb.
/D2 converts hours into months. Get this from the station's logged use, not from gym opening hours — a corner top-rope and the busiest auto-belay do not age at the same rate.
ROUNDDOWN(...,0) is the safe direction. A partial month of life is not a month you schedule around.
Sort the column ascending and the top of the list is your replacement order for the quarter.

Hours are a ceiling, not a permit. A rope that fails inspection retires that day regardless of what this column says.

Try it: interactive demo

Interactive

Enter the rated hours, the hours already logged, and the hours the station sees per month.

Rated hours

Logged hours

Hours per month

Variations

Give it a retirement date

Feed the month count into EDATE from the inspection date and the schedule writes itself.

=EDATE(F2,ROUNDDOWN((B2-C2)/D2,0))

Flag anything under three months

Turn the column into a purchasing signal.

=IF(ROUNDDOWN((B2-C2)/D2,0)<=3,"Order now","OK")

Pitfalls & errors

A big fall, a chemical spill, or sheath damage retires a rope immediately. Hour tracking schedules the budget; it does not override an inspection.

Log hours per station, not per rope, and let the rope inherit the station's hours. Staff will actually keep that log.

Do not let this go negative and read it as “fine.” Wrap it in MAX(...,0) so an overdue rope reads zero months rather than a negative that sorts to the bottom.

Practice workbook

📊

Download the free Climbing Gym: Months Left Before A Rope Retires practice workbook

Edit the yellow rated, logged, and hours-per-month cells; months remaining recalculates.

Frequently asked questions

What rated hours should I use?

Check the manufacturer's guidance for commercial or institutional use for that specific model; it is usually expressed as a service-life range in years for a given intensity. Convert the intensity band into hours once, write it down, and use the same basis for every rope so the column is comparable.

How do I track hours without a clipboard?

Count sessions instead. If the front desk already records check-ins by station or by class, multiply sessions by an average session length once a month and add it to the log.

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Function references: ROUNDDOWN EDATE