Attic Lifts
 

Has anyone had an attic lift installed ? We physically have reached the stage were lugging storage containers up and down the garage attic stairs is not conducive to good health. If you have who did it for you and at what cost ? Are you happy with the result ?
Any and all commentary would be appreciated. Thank you.

I built a room in my garage attic with insulation, flooring, Sheetrock walls, lights, outlets, ceiling fans, and a lift. It will lift up to 1500 pounds although never have used it for anything close to that. It is basically an electric winch I bought from Northern tool for $189 and installed myself. I ran a 12 foot 2 inch galvanized pipe through the rafters and mounted the winch to it. The room stays cool in summer and warm in winter because of the R30 insulation all around it. Winch allows me to store whatever I want up there. Be happy to show it to you if interested. I did the install and room myself so don't know who you could hire to do it. But it was pretty easy to do.

Could you post some pictures. Interesting!

Yes, sounds interesting, please post a few pictures.

Lowes has an alternative which is a platform, that I think is 4 ft by 4 ft and lifts the stuff over top of the car, but away from the garage door, no cutting of the ceiling, just make sure you hit the studs/rafters correctly. I had looked at these but my was not thrilled with the stuff being visible.

I would highly recommend not doing this because you are jeopardizing the rafters of your roof by putting that much weight possibility in your attic flooring. Check with your homeowners insurance before you start cutting into ceilings and attic space.

Local building code requires your roof to be designed to support 150 pounds per square foot. While I would not want to test it, my set up with the 2 inch pipe being supported by 6 trusses would be able to hold over 6 tons of weight. In theory if my winch was strong enough I could pick up my truck with many pounds to spare. So unless you are cutting trusses or rafters, I would not worry about the weight your adding to the attic floor or stress your putting on the roof trusses. So far the heaviest thing I lifted was my motorcycle at 800 pounds. And I even measured the change on the trusses as I was interested if they moved. I used a point on the trusses separated by 19 feet 6 inches. And with the bike in the air and myself standing directly on that trusses bottom joist it moved a total of zero.

Take a look at YouTube and ask for attic lift. Lots of home made lifts and a company called Versa. Good Luck

I've thought about having a VersiLift (VersaLift??) put in my garage. I haven't talked to anyone about the installation yet.

Watch what you store in your attic. Last year I went up to get our luggage down and found that the wheels had melted off.

Shimpy,
You are completely correct, I added forced air ventilation to control the temperature, seems to be working. There has been previous discussion with regard as to whether my solution presents a fire hazard, as I vented the garage into the attic, so if you choose to do something like this check first. I do not see the difference between this and opening the access door......

Yikes! I put my cat's litter box in the attic when we left in December. It was okay when I was there in April (without the cats) but will probably be melted by the time I get back in the Fall!