Asked Wicked Mir #5: Not-So-Hard Points (Patreon)

I just received a pretty cringe-y message (on Fetlife, where else) which gave me a headache and also the opposite of a boner. It was elevated from standard creep fare by the inclusion of what I perceive to be a Really Bad Idea involving suspension bondage. 

Basically, the, uh, gentleman who sent the message was suggesting we meet up in a sleazy hot tub joint for play. He added that the rooms had exposed fire sprinkler pipes which were "handy for suspension bondage play." 

My immediate reaction was that fire sprinkler pipes are not structural or meant to be load-bearing, and that this was probably the worst idea ever. I tend to be kind of a stickler about hard points -- mostly, I guess, because I enjoy not falling and breaking my face. (Sigh. I'm so high-maintenance!) I also hear that sprinkler systems are expensive to repair and replace, and human faces even more so. 

But on the other hand, what do I know? Maybe fire sprinkler pipes, and the hardware that attach them to ceilings, are secretly rated to support bound humans of all sizes and degrees of squirminess! Maybe all fire sprinkler pipe designers and installation guys are actually a cabal of Shibari Masters who are dedicated to covertly installing safe hard points in buildings everywhere! Maybe I should suspend more things more liberally, including my disbelief. 

All snark and kidding aside, seriously now: are fire sprinkler pipes hard points? Should you suspend tied-up people from them? Please advise!

Sincerely,

Rig Intelligently, Gravity Sucks 

Hello, RIGS! 

My initial answer to "should you rig from a sprinkler pipe" is "NO" followed by a firm "HELL NO". But surprisingly enough there aren't many articles out there already telling anyone exactly why that's a bad idea, so we're glad you wrote in! 

The general rule of thumb for any rope suspension is that you want all potential hard points to be load tested to hold at least x10 the body weight of the person you're suspending -- so up to 2000 lbs or so for someone of my size, maybe a little less for a slim person we don't care about too much. ;) 

City code for San Francisco says that sprinkler pipe needs to be load tested for about 250 lbs of weight - basically enough to hold up the weight of the pipe and the average weight of the water at any point x a small safety factor. That's at most x2 the weight of anyone you'd want to suspend from it. You're essentially begging the hard point to fail. 

Our friend Topologist from Crash Restraint -- who leads the monthly SF Rope Bite meetup at Wicked Grounds -- has an excellent article on evaluating hard points here. One thing to bear in mind is his skepticism of using a sketchy hard point for even partial suspensions. "One risk mitigation strategy you should view with skepticism is partial suspension -- a partial suspension off a sketchy hard point has the potential to be just as dangerous as a full suspension, not least because partials so easily turn into full suspension with the shift of a limb." (I'm particularly reluctant here because we're dealing with a wet environment -- radically increasing the dangers.) 

I also reached out to Sully, a respected handy-person who's a member of the Bay Area Kinky Business Alliance  as well as a rope enthusiast with experience installing and maintaining bondage hard points. 

Sully says, "Not only do sprinkler pipes not qualify as hard points, [but] they can be made from cast iron (brittle) and can crack under sheer forces, the fittings that connect the pipes are cast as well (again brittle) the sprinkler heads are rather delicate which is less of concern in a dry pipe installation but more concerning if the pipes are charged from a roof tank or city water. Leaving a soggy sub to explain why they're all tied and true, wet and blue hanging about after the domly top squeals and runs away from the many thousands of dollars in damages. 

"That's if the pipe bracket doesn't fall down on you as the (if you're lucky) low grade 1/4" lag screw sheers off and pipes rupture and come tumbling down onto you. But feel free to hang your clothing on the pipes. What could go wrong?" 

If that's not enough, the piping itself could abrade and weaken your rope, even without substantial force against the pipes. Sully cautions us: 

"Another point is that sometimes older buildings have black pipe that is coated in tar, not painted but coated with the same tar that is baked onto sewage pipes.

"Best case scenario: there are substantial brackets of high quality steel and the pipes are extruded steel and the fittings are machined, and it's dry pipe with brackets that neither have sharp edges to abrade the rope nor fail." 

That's your BEST case scenario for the piping. And it still has you safety rated to about 25 pounds of weight. Perhaps you'd like to try this by tying up a wet teddy bear? 

Short answer: Don't use sprinkler pipes for suspension, including partial suspension. Don't trust any domly dom on the internet who proposes using sprinkler pipes for suspension. Perhaps recommend they review basic law of physics. 

Shortest answer: Yikes. 

Yours in safe rigging - 

WickedMir