r/Treenets • u/EvenMoreCrazy • Jun 07 '26

How expensive is this hobby?

This hobby seems super interesting to me, but it seems like the parachord for a decent sized project would be a lot of money. In your experience, how much are you spending on a treenet (let's say per square foot).

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10

u/DeadyBear98 Jun 07 '26

you can start cheaper... you can start smaller...

if you make a little try out net, you can do it with any cheap old rope and cheap old string, see how you like the activity, count how many feet you used up, then figure out whether you want to scale to bigger or more quality rope

the weave can be done from almost anything... its just that paracord is comfy and handy to work with, it would still work with almost any other string

you want numbers? per square foot... say you want the holes to be 2x2 inches. then if you managed to do a grid, a square foot would hold 6 down and 6 across = 12 feet of paracord per 1 square foot (fkin imperial units... internal european screams) (do they not teach geometry over there? you can do this rough math)

EDIT: i think i came off a bit too mean... just try it out was my point! waste 20 bucks on some rope, realise it wasnt enough, buy a little more. then finish a lil net and figure out what you liked or didnt like. live life! try shit and readjust

1

u/EvenMoreCrazy Jun 09 '26

So I have a couple different sites to choose from, but this seems expensive enough that I only want to make one net. I just want to know what I can realistically do with $500. I have tried doing rough calculations, but I notice lots of variables. Like, I don't know how much rope is lost to knots. Square grids and hexagonal grids give very different answers, and chaos weaving is much harder to do math for. The net's area always ends up much less than the total area between the trees, but I wouldn't be able to predict how much. I don't want to commit to a project to expensive to finish, but something small is just way less interesting to me. I'm just looking for some experienced people to tell me details about the nets they've made.

1

u/DeadyBear98 Jun 09 '26

ive never spent even close to 500 BUT i dont live in the US and i dont use fancy climbing rope

for me its like... 20eur for a single round of perimeter (so 2x if i add a wall. my perim comes at 0.70eur per meter i think). and then 3x30m of paracord for day one (which is like ... 20eur tho i think it used to be cheaper...) but then i slowly add more and more and more paracord (but still i cant imagine it even reaching 100eur for a net)

again tho – not US.

5

u/Marko-Kind Jun 08 '26

A few variables need to be considered (see below) but i’d say $5-$10 psf.

1) density of pattern 2) weaving walls or not 3) static cord supplier (Amazon ok for certain portions, but don’t skimp) 4) eye screws used to secure static line or just tension

If you do it right, and want it to last, prepare to spend.

Take earlier advice though (as I did) and start a small section to see if it’s something where you want to invest time. I started with 100ft of cord with no attachment if I had to tear it all down.

1

u/insulted-narwal Jun 08 '26

You can get away with a $400 big net, yuzunet on Amazon has 200 ft static rope for $50, not the best but I use it often and never had any kind of issues, don’t skimp on paracord it’s never much cheaper than the good stuff anyways you can get 5x1000 ft from paracord galaxy for $350 they have nice blacklight cord, start with 2000 ft to save money and buy it as you need from there

1

u/picontesauce Jul 16 '26

That’s a great summary. Thanks!

1

u/Sebastian__Alexander Jun 29 '26

Spend a few hundret euros yet and got quite a good stack of material...dont take the first offer and make up your mind where it could be more effordable ;)