Creaking harness. Replace?

My go-to crag (and sport climbing,  gym, mountaineering, and crevasse...) harness is five years old. It probably has between 100 and 200 days of use on it. It’s been great so far, but today it was sort of making these creaking sounds when I was being lowered. I don’t temember it ever making sounds like that before. There isn’t any bad wear on it so far, nothing is unraveling or getting worn through. Am I being paranoid? Am I good to go? Lucky to be alive? 

YOLOLZ Bicarbonatewrote:

My go-to crag (and sport climbing,  gym, mountaineering, and crevasse...) harness is five years old. It probably has between 100 and 200 days of use on it. It’s been great so far, but today it was sort of making these creaking sounds when I was being lowered. I don’t temember it ever making sounds like that before. There isn’t any bad wear on it so far, nothing is unraveling or getting worn through. Am I being paranoid? Am I good to go? Lucky to be alive? 

Good to go! But I suggest keeping a log of exactly how many days you have used it with notes. If the "creaking" continues in frequency you could have a dud on your hands. Retire at 300 days otherwise.

Replace it , you know why? Because it bothered you enough to make this post and that means it’s going to effect your mental game.

How much is a harness really? $100? To me $100 vs a screwed mental game isn’t worth me even giving it a thought.

edit adding this good point below.

Is it really the harness or your knot getting right? 

^^^winning comment IMO. We could debated endlessly those kind of details. If you inner compass is telling you it's not sure, then maybe take the hint.

Maybe your usage has changed, too, and a different harness type maybe nicer to get than you can image now. I bought a new harness much better suited to trad climbing/multipitch. I just hadn't realized how much my go-to sport harness sucked for that.

Agree with Bobby. When in doubt about safety gear, replace it for peace of mind. It's prolly okay, by why chance it.

Do you think your harness is haunted?

Have you lubed it regularly?  

Could the creaking be your tie-in knot tightening up as you weight it for the first time while lowering?  Or are you sure it's the harness?

Sam Skovgaardwrote:

Could the creaking be your tie-in knot tightening up as you weight it for the first time while lowering?  Or are you sure it's the harness?

My thoughts exactly. I've never heard a harness creak, but knots do it quite often.

My swami never creaked. My back does now tho.

Sam Skovgaardwrote:

Could the creaking be your tie-in knot tightening up as you weight it for the first time while lowering?  Or are you sure it's the harness?

Also would be my general thought.

Not hard to hang off a tree limb in your harness and try to duplicate it and ID the issue, if it bothers you.

As nylon gets worn it can become very smooth and slick and squeak and creek when weighted.   If it passes the visual inspection it’s fine.   I wouldn’t waste money on a new harness just because it makes a funny noise.  

My experience with creaky, squeaky nylon webbing is that you should replace it immediately.  I had a double-surfboard bag with built-in nylon straps for strapping it to the car roof hanging in my garage for a long time.  When I finally strapped it to the car roof,  I heard creaking sounds when I tightened the straps.  Then about 30 minutes later the straps blew out on the freeway, damaging the boards.  I'm not sure what damaged the nylon, but I suspect that it could have been acidic gas from charging batteries in the garage.  Maybe the sulfuric acid gas rose to the ceiling of the garage, damaging the nylon. The straps looked like they had literally exploded, not cut or come unstitched.  The squeaky nylon webbing was also missing that slick, shiny look that nylon webbing should have.

There can't be any harm, except to your pocketbook, in replacing the harness, but I've had harnesses that creaked from day one. Most notably on rappel, so not from tightening the tie-in knot. I think you'd want an additional visual indication of serious wear, but if you are storing your harness in a sulphuric acid cloud in your garage, that might change your perspective.  

My harness has rubber on the gearloops that creak sometimes. Could this explain your creaking?

Chalk dust builds on rope ends and harnesses from your hands, belayer hands or spills. It is often the cause of creaky sounds coming from nylon and webbing products in use.  

All good advice, although in places contradictory. 

Funny thing is I just bought a Choucacs Pro for mountaineering and glaciers but now my workhorse is acting up. Maybe it’s jealous?
The Choucacs - although nicely light- doesn’t seem nearly as robust, so I don’t want to put too much hard mileage on it.

I’m gym climbing tomorrow so I’ll see how it goes. At least if I fall it’ll be onto something soft.