Residential Attic Lift

[pelligrini]

I just ran across this product recently:
http://www.residentialatticlift.com/

Looks pretty slick, not exactly inexpensive though. I'll probably suggest it on new residential projects we do.

[BigguyZ]

Looks cool. I wonder how much it's cost to make your own...

[Shep]

I saw a similar home made contraption on DIY's wasted spaces. They made theirs out of wood and had an electronic winch bolted to the rafter abover. Pretty nifty idea.

[os1kne]

I saw a similar home made contraption on DIY's wasted spaces. They made theirs out of wood and had an electronic winch bolted to the rafter abover. Pretty nifty idea.

I thought about doing something similar a few years ago (with an inexpensive electric winch from HF) to get big, heavy stuff into the rafters of my garage. Ended up deciding it was too much hassle for too little benefit for my application. (It would come in handy for getting the Christmas decorations out of the attic each year.)

[crokett]

Cool! My attic doesn't have the headroom for something like that though, so I am stuck with pushing stuff up and down the stairs.

[woodturner]

I'll probably suggest it on new residential projects we do.

One thing to keep in mind is that in newer houses with attic trusses, the cords (horizontal member of the truss - the attic "floor") are not designed to handle any weight. Thus they are not designed for storing anything in the attic.

Still, you could probably get a way with a 50 lbs of holiday decorations. I have seem them fail under the weight of a few hundred pounds of books.

[pelligrini]

It also depends on the design of the trusses too. We often indicate attic storage area on our plans so the truss company or structural engineer will design them accordingly.

A lot of the time we'll do an attic storage closet right above the master closet/s this lift would work well with some of them.

[woodturner]

It also depends on the design of the trusses too. We often indicate attic storage area on our plans so the truss company or structural engineer will design them accordingly.

I agree that it depends on the design. It's a good idea to design for storage, but it seems like most of the tract builders around here don't do that.

[pelligrini]

Probably so, most of the houses we do are higher end custom homes. 3500 sq ft is on the small side.

In a project I'm wrapping up now we put in a spiral staircase going up to an upper closet. We were intending on doing a pull down stair, but finding one that will go over 12' was difficult.

[cabinetman]

If the space is available, an inexpensive alternative could be just a set of pulleys. Some type of platform could be made. The platform could be the cover of the hole when in the "up" position.
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