Garage second floor "freight elevator"/dumb waiter

[theoldwizard1]

My "postage stamp" suburban lot has no place for for any kind of shed without stealing the little bit of grass the grandkids like to play on and where I put their blow up pool.

It finally dawned me that I could get a lot of storage space, and some workshop space if I replaced the roof of my 20'x20' garage with a (non-trussed) gambrel roof ! The problem with this would be getting big/awkward/heavy items up to the second floor.

Looking for pictures of your solution especially with second floor joists spaced 16" on center.

 

[Bondo]

Ayuh,..... How 'bout a hay hood, 'n door,..??

 

[theoldwizard1]

Ayuh,..... How 'bout a hay hood, 'n door,..?

My buddy has one on on his barn and an old fashioned, portable hay elevator/conveyor ! Works great for what it is design for !!

 

[Bondo]

My buddy has one on on his barn and an old fashioned, portable hay elevator/conveyor ! Works great for what it is design for !!

Ayuh,... Biggest advantage is, ya don't loose any floor space,.... Up or down,...

A ridge mounted steel beam, 'n a winch trolly would make movin' Heavy stuff, pretty darn Easy,.....

 

[rburke65]

Sounds like the the answer. You don't have to reinvent the wheel here. is there a beam in the barn now? Oh wait....I was thinking there'd barn pictured was your....sorry. My mistake. Could you possibly install a beam with a pulley?

 

[black00lightning]

Somewhere on the net there's a video of a lift made using a garage door opener.

 

[toplessHO]

we installed a "lift" in neighbors new barn to store his 15KW 3 point hitch genset.
a platform thats part of the floor drops down via winch and cables.
Ive done something similar at the top of my stairs in the garage loft with a removable
floor and portable winch above,and used it to move about 20 sheets of 4x10 sheetrock
up to the loft area. This can be done inside if you dont want to deal with the elements when loading or unloading

 

[dieseltron]

we installed a "lift" in neighbors new barn to store his 15KW 3 point hitch genset.
a platform thats part of the floor drops down via winch and cables.
Ive done something similar at the top of my stairs in the garage loft with a removable
floor and portable winch above,and used it to move about 20 sheets of 4x10 sheetrock
up to the loft area. This can be done inside if you dont want to deal with the elements when loading or unloading

Do you have any pictures? I'm thinking of do something like that also.

 

[Ray916MN]

This thread should give you an idea of how to do it using unistrut. http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2541835#post2541835

 

[toyz4roy]

Here is a hoist I made to get items into my garage attic storage.
It uses unistrut some 1 1/2 angle iron and a 1320# hoist. The hoist setup probably cost me about $300.

 

[reader2580]

A buddy of mine converted an electric forklift to act as an elevator to the loft in his garage. He works as a mobile forklift repair person so he probably got the forklift for little or nothing.

 

[TurnipTruck]

If only these storage elevators weren't so freaking expensive:

 

[cdestuck]

Build a huge flat topped shop with one of those eco tree hugging roofs with the grass tops. Let the kids play up there. Solved

 

[JerryB]

A friend (who passed away very recently) built a beautiful 2 1/2 story house with the main living area on the top floor. Having some 20 wooded acres, he used wood for his main heat. For the first several years he just used a hand held firewood carrier to bring wood in and up.

As he and his wife grew older, he needed a better way to get firewood up to his living area. His solution was to purchase a Harbor Freight 1300# remote control electric hoist. He hooked the hoist to a welded pipe swing arm installed over his outdoor second floor porch. He cut an opening in the railing and put a swing gate there.

In operation, he loaded his two wheel push cart with wood at his storage pile, then rolled it under the hoist. He had cable bridles permanently attached to the cart, so all he had do was hook the hoist hook to the eyes in the bridle.

Then he went upstairs to the remote and used the hoist to raise the cart to the upper floor, opened the gate in the railing and swung the support arm and cart in. He closed the gate, unhooked the bridle and rolled the cart along the porch to where he had a through the wall port for getting the wood inside to where his fireplace is located.

All in all, a very clever solution to solid fuel handling!

Should work well for any medium weight items with or without being able to lift the whole cart.

 

[jgorm]

I've used my lift to put stuff on the roof.

 

[HoosierMark]

I agree with the electric forklift. Just saw one on CL for under a $1,000 (cincinnati CL). Get one and use it, then store it in corner. I have seen several for under $1,000 around here. If it does not work out, you have minimal invested and easy to resell.

 

[Jere]

The garage I am renting has a staircase that raise up between the catwalk beams. The hinge is just a pipe, and the stairs are raised with a rope and pulley system. Using a similar setup it wouldnt be too hard to add a winch to raise and lower the steps. Then just throw stuff you want in the loft on the steps and use the steps as the lift.

 

[gungatim]

I have seen several threads on making these with the electric HF winch (120v not the cheap 12v quad winch). If you can't find them on this forum, it must be the old Hobart welding web forums or the build-it-yourself section of TractorByNet.com.

i'll edit with links if I can find them...

 

[dutchgray]

Those electric scissor lift wheeled work platforms can work for this as well.

 

[oldmxracer]

Just did a lift last year for a friend to move motorcycles to the second floor of His pole barn. It is in the middle of His small second story, when not in use He still has the floor space upstairs.
Used a HF 1300lb electric hoist. We did 900lb test lifts on it before the first bike went up.

Looks wild from downstairs when the ceiling drops and there is a motorcycle coming down !

I unfortunately have no pictures of the construction but I can get pictures of it in use.

 

[hedhunter9]

I couldnt do the elevator, so built a Jib Crane... I put the spare bikes up on the mezzanine...
Bob

 

[Milzo]

I built this lift for my garage last year.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=233122