I would tie it around my hand tightly until it was sore. I would use the saw to cut the cord in half. I would tie the two halves into a whole. Then I would escape through the hole.
Escaping with Paracord
- Thread starter georann
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why not get something designed for the task?
http://www.safelincs.co.uk/saf-escape-fire-escape-ladder/#PricingAvailability
failing that - make it from paracord before you need it
http://www.safelincs.co.uk/saf-escape-fire-escape-ladder/#PricingAvailability
failing that - make it from paracord before you need it
I have actually been in the situation of being trapped on the fourth floor with no escape but over the balcony. Needless to say I waited for the fire brigade. What was frustrating however was seeing them arrive and tackle the fire, which was on the ground floor and busy themselves whilst seeming to take no notice of me up on my balcony which was the only place I could breathe, the smoke having filled my flat. No way would I have entrusted my life to paracord. If I had have needed to bail out, I would have descended one balcony at a time hoping for the best and clinging on for dear life. Fortunately it did not come to that.
If my exit was blocked by fire and I thought I had time to tie a rope ladder I'd probably be toast before t was finished.
I'd be quite hesitant to use paracord, doesn't it only have a 550lb breaking strength? Knotting depending on the rope or cord can reduce the strength by up to 50% so lets say 275lbs as a worst case, if the paracord was old too it'd be reduced further through abrasion and UV, I don't know what that would be so lets take a guess at a 20% reduction so we're at 220lbs, I only weigh 150lbs and there isn't enough factor of safety on that to hang my life off. I wouldn't go down on one length, I'd wrap the cord around a solid object at least once then go down on a double cord using no knots.
Are you sure? Just climbing? I feel a Bcuk mythbuster episode coming on. Imagine the paracord suspended from a peak force meter. Hanging there it's 180lbs as I start to climb it's over 1800 lbs. Or 10 people on the other end of a pulley would be bouncing up and down..... And to generate that much force in the rope I would have to be able to albeit momentarily be able to pull one handed at that kind of force. Now if it was how much force when arresting a fall that might be different. If you were right then climbing up a 225lb or so man would kill someone on the other end as 12kn is probably fatal. Most climbing ropes max out at 9kn for a falling 80kg weight.
Shock Force increases the further away you are from its nearest point of anchorage to you. Think of it like a See-Saw, with the anchored side of the rope being the fulcrum. The force your mass exerts on that fulcrum increases the further away you are... much like how you can lift a greater weight with a lever (or see-saw) the further away you are from the fulcrum relative to the opposing load. In this case, the opposing load is nothing, and the most likely point of breakage (assuming a flawless length of cord) would be at that anchor.
The key is that the affect of your motion is what provides the additional force at the anchor point. Obviously your weight/mass remains constant, but in climbing up or down (or even just pushing away from the wall) you are adding more force acting against the anchor point. Believe it or not, the terminal force of a 100lb person falling (enough to achieve terminal velocity, of course) would be orders of magnitude greater than the typical Shock Force (we're talking TONS of force).
Bottom line is that if you strung a 30ft length of 550 Paracord and attempted to climb either up or down, it absolutely will snap. Braiding or otherwise entwining multiple lengths to form a single taught thicker length would of course improve your chances, but not as much as running multiple distinct strands each with their own independant anchors, and assuming that your rungs evenly distribute the force across all three strands, and so long as you don't fall and manage to grab hold of your three-length Paracord ladder on the way down.
Personally, I wouldn't dream of making a Paracord ladder with any less than 4 independantly-anchored lengths pulled nice and taught between each rung... and even then I'd only ever use it as an absolute last resort (I'd rather take my chances with a tarp parachute, personally)
I hope my explainanation makes sense to you, and I can prove this in a practical experiment if needs be.
So why wouldn't my chain plying work ? It effectively creates a three strand rope....so long as the anchor point has the end and the first loop successfully attached..........and it has the huge advantage of being incredibly quickly made.
cheers,
Toddy
cheers,
Toddy
Thing is I and many others have climbed down and up 550 paracord because it's the kind of silly, dangerous things that people, who should know better, do when they are young. The distance from the fulcrum/anchor matters only in relation to the weight and dynamic properties of the rope ie. how much it stretches (and Paracord stretches a lot) of the rope you are gaining no mechanical advantage except in relation to knots as the lever is not rigid and there is no pulley multiplier. Yes the act of climbing or indeed pushing off will add forces but not 9 times your body weight. I weigh 180lbs and it didn't break. I would never ever recommend it as knotting is causing problems. I agree with terminal velocity falling or indeed even a very short fall being too much for paracord but since you need to fall well over 100m to reach 75% terminal velocity and nearly half a kilometer to get as close as you are going to get it would need a pretty long rope. That said 8 strands of 550 cord is more than enough for a terminal velocity fall and they do it every day.
Your experiment is easy. Anchor some paracord and try and climb up it it should break.
This question, like "doing a Dick Proenekke" shows up with alarming regularity on forums, and they do my head in each time.
550 CORD IS NOT FOR CLIMBING/RAPPELLING!!!
In addition to that, did you imagine you are just going to hang on and lower yourself down hand over hand?
Static line=/= dynamic line, tying a knot in a line weakens it, shock load=/=static load, and lastly the longer the line, the less weight it can support vertically.
As general purpose cordage, don't expect 550 cord/paracord to be good for more than about 60-70lb of static load. Rappel rated rope is rated at 4500 lbs. of tensile strength and will stretch up to 1/3 it's length. Paracord isn't doing that.
Paracord rappelling is a recipe for suicide. It's just not cut out for that use. Instead, spend the money, get a proper harness, get proper rope, get proper carabiners and descenders and get proper training.
If you feel you might need emergency rappelling gear, get the proper gear and get the proper training!!!
But please stop harboring these ridiculous notions that you are going to climb out of a burning building with cord that is not suited to the purpose and that you'll rise to the occasion and just wing it.
550 CORD IS NOT FOR CLIMBING/RAPPELLING!!!
In addition to that, did you imagine you are just going to hang on and lower yourself down hand over hand?
Static line=/= dynamic line, tying a knot in a line weakens it, shock load=/=static load, and lastly the longer the line, the less weight it can support vertically.
As general purpose cordage, don't expect 550 cord/paracord to be good for more than about 60-70lb of static load. Rappel rated rope is rated at 4500 lbs. of tensile strength and will stretch up to 1/3 it's length. Paracord isn't doing that.
Paracord rappelling is a recipe for suicide. It's just not cut out for that use. Instead, spend the money, get a proper harness, get proper rope, get proper carabiners and descenders and get proper training.
If you feel you might need emergency rappelling gear, get the proper gear and get the proper training!!!
But please stop harboring these ridiculous notions that you are going to climb out of a burning building with cord that is not suited to the purpose and that you'll rise to the occasion and just wing it.
I'm sorry but this is absolute nonsense. If you are sliding down a rope at a constant speed, the force on the rope will be *less* than when it supported your static weight.
While you are correct about dynamic loads being much greater than static, just sliding down or hand over hand climbing down a rope does not create a dynamic load 10 times the static load.
If it did so I would have been seriously injured or dead many years ago, when I abseiled off gear that was on 4mm static cord.
Crikey. You've got out of the wrong side of your hammock this morning haven't you.
550 Paracord is rated to 550lbs. That's what an unencumbered length of it will take, hanging off it. If someone weighs more than 550lbs, then the paracords breaking strain is going to be the last of their problems. Removing walls and doorways simply to get outside will be a more pressing concern.
Yes, if you knot it the load carrying capacity will decrease, but only by 25 - 30% in total, not PER knot.
Proper abseiling (static) rather than climbing (dynamic) rope is designed NOT to stretch. You CAN ab off dynamic rope, and many of the climbers on here, myself included, will have done exactly that, because, primarily it's what we had with us at the time, and it fulfilled a purpose. It's a bit bouncy, but it does fine.
Shock load, as in an unrestrained fall, being taken up by the cord is not what we are talking about here, but simply climbing down a length with foot and hand loops, or making it into a makeshift rope ladder. It's perfectly strong and resilient enough for either . You <could> plait it and 'classic Ab' , but once you start to slip down it, you're just going to go faster and faster, it simply doesn't have the surface area to deal with the friction.
On balance, I'd take my chances with the cord failing due it to being unable to bear its own weight, / being eaten by paracord loving organisms than with the fire.
If you have time to do all that you may as well wait for the FB to turn up.
30', hang from my fingers and drop, effectivly a 24' fall, easily survivable.
Just a note guys, this was meant to be a light hearted thought provoking discussion and not to be taken too seriously. The chance of this situation actually occuring is slim and goodness knows what I would do if it did happen. As an Engineering student, the comments on shock forces etc were quite interesting, and so was the education on different emergency repelling and ladder making techniques. No I don't think I will be going out and purchasing emergency abseiling gear to carry with me every where on the off chance, as has been said, our fire brigade do a magnificent job. Please can we keep the comments pleasant and civil (the funny ones are the best) and try not to find reason to argue with each other?
Thanks
Dan
Thanks
Dan
