Monkey Bar Project 2024

I built some custom monkey bars for my daughter on her 9th birthday. It uses galvanized pipes from Home Depot, EasyFit pipe fittings, and some triangular hand holds from Amazon (each rated for 500 pounds!). It's heavy and strong, able to handle several full adults at once, so it should be fine for kids.

Some considerations before doing your own design:

1. Know how much load you expect to have on a pipe section and choose the length of the pipe to be able to handle that load. Each type of pipe has its own load tables. It depends on the pipe material, diameter, wall thickness, and length. You can google for them. A 5 foot section of galvanized steel schedule 40 with 1.25" nominal diameter (1.66" outer diameter) would be able to handle between 600 and 800 pounds of force. As you increase length, the max load you can put on it will decrease. If you go with schedule 80 thickness, you can increase the load substantially, but it will increase costs and weight. And schedule 80 is generally over designed if it's for kids. For adults doing parkour, schedule 80 pipe might be a good idea. Going with smaller diameter pipes (1 inch, for example) will mean you can't put as much load on it, but I think 1 inch schedule 40 pipe is a good diameter for kids, with their smaller hands to grip the bars. I used 1.25 inch, instead, and it seems a little too wide for my kid's hands, but she says it's fine.

2. Peak load is not how much your kid weighs. It's how much your kid weighs when doing the most forceful thing they're going to do. And consider they will swing outward, not just put all their force in the downward direction. Your design should be able to handle it. And consider the possibility that both your kid and their two or three friends will be on the same section of pipe at the same time. Anticipate what sort of forces you expect.

3. Bars should be spaced one every 9 inches minimum. That is because you don't want your kid to get caught in between two rungs and break their neck or something. It's a safety hazard. So think about one every 12 inches. They also suggest no more than 15 inches spacing for kids up to age 12, but that depends on your kid's abilities.

4. The first monkey bar rung should be no more than 10 inches away from the edge, so they can safely reach for it. About 8 inches is ideal.

5. You can paint everything, but galvanized steel is notoriously difficult to paint. Look up the proper method and paint. While my kid did think she would prefer it painted, she also said the unpainted pipe is smooth and no problem for her hands. With paint on the pipes, it will likely chip and flake off over time, leading to rough patches that don't feel good.

6. If you make your monkey bars narrow, you might have to extend the base out further to prevent it from tipping over. Like if you just had 2 foot wide rungs, that would likely require 2-3 feet of extra base on each side. And use a diagonal support to add strength to those pieces.

7. The height of the step-up bar should be adjusted to the height of your child. You can then lower it as they age if you want.

8. Try not to make it more than 8 feet tall. I used 7.5 feet for the max post length, and then I came down 6 inches from that to place the monkey bar rungs themselves. That means my kid would only have about 1.5 to 2 feet max to fall. And as you can see in the video, the ceiling fan on my deck is right at about 8 feet, so that was another consideration I had for my particular circumstances.

9. Get a good tool to tighten those set screws on the pipe fittings. You need good leverage on your tool to get the screws nice and tight. And go through and tighten them all down once and then again for a second pass after that, because you don't want to miss any of them. And at the start of each new season (once every 3 months), go through and tighten them all again. Those pipe fittings have a little play in them, and as they are moved around, the set screws can become less tight. They don't unscrew easily, but the pipe inside of the pipe fitting will shift angles slightly, enough so that now the set screw isn't perfectly tight anymore.

10. The stainless steel zip ties I used on mine for extra redundancy may weaken or rust over time. You can inspect them at the same time you perform your seasonal tightening procedure. They're super cheap, so if you suspect any of them are weak, just remove them and add new ones.

Pipes:
Southland 1-1/4 in. Galvanized Steel Pipe, 10ft long
https://www.homedepot.com
Internet # 100533214
Model # 566-1200HC
Store SKU # 301477

Pipe Fittings:
https://www.easyfit.com/

Triangular rings:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0924B9Y28/

Stainless steel zip ties:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C3M1CZ4K/

Zip tie tightener and cutting tool:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MQB74XN/