If your into garages, gadgets, or mechanical things… you’ve got to watch this.
If you plan on doing something similar for your garage, be sure to consult a structural engineer and properly calculate loads to ensure safety.
I also wanted to make a video that demonstrated the value of my trailer lift in a comical way. I have since repeated this procedure many times. This has been one of my most gratifying projects to date.
Here’s an animation of the design for my lift. I rendered this with 3dsmax and mentalray.
As a woodworker, you gotta have the ability to haul lumber and equipment. I don’t have a truck. So, I did the next best thing and bought a trailer. It’s an awesome trailer. It can tip pivot (for loading a lawn tractor) and its made from lightweight aluminum.
My wife was surprised by my unannounced quick purchase. She didn’t see the value in spending $750 for this behemoth. Thankfully, she has realized it’s value many times over… since being used on many projects around the house.
My Volkswagen Golf GTI VR6 isn’t known as a vehicle for hooking a trailer to, but after a fair bit of effort, I was able to attach a trailer hitch.
For all its benefits, the trailer did cause a very big problem. Where to put it? I didn’t want to waste half my garage just to keep my trailer. Actually, I already had a plan before buying it. I had decided to hoist the trailer onto my garage ceiling when not in use. So once I had purchased the trailer… I was committed to engineering a working trailer lift / hoist solution.
Initially I contemplated a manual cranking hoist (as you can see in this early sketch), but quickly changed my mind to a motorized hoist.
It is important to note the differences between a hoist and a winch:
A hoist is for lifting and a winch is for pulling.
A Winch is geared for pulling a load on a relatively level surface. A winch uses a dynamic brake that must slide.
A Hoist is geared to lift (dead weight) and has a locking brake that can support a “hanging” load.
If a Hoist can lift (dead weight) 250 lbs., then it may be capable of pulling 1000 lbs rolling weight across a hard packed surface. If a Winch can pull 1000 lbs. across a hard packed surface, it may only have the capacity to support 100 lbs. (dead weight) because the winch employs a different braking system than that of a hoist.
A Hoist is used for lifting and supporting “dead weight”.
A Winch is used for pulling (moving rolling weight).
This is the space above the garage ceiling. I had to customize a mechanical solution that would fit in this space. Let the engineering begin!
Luckily, I have experience with many computer graphic tools. This allowed me to visualize my ideas and confirm the alignment of the cables through the trusses.
For those who might be curious… these renderings were done with 3d studio max and mental ray rendering engine.
Here you can see the engineered trusses of my Pulte built home. It’s deceptively strong. Combined with the fact that my trailer is made of aluminum and is only 700 pounds… means my garage ceiling easily carries the load.
The hoist cost me only $70 at harbor freight. Unfortunately, as you can hear in the above video, the hoist had some broken plastic parts rattling inside the gearbox. So I had to exchange it and install a replacement which has worked flawlessly since. Here you can see the hoist and the beefy structure I built to ensure the it wouldn’t come undone from its’ mount.
I used lag bolts to hold most major components together. Here you can see how I redirect the cable downward through the ceiling at each of the 4 points.
The same pulleys were used to redirect the 4 down points to the single connection at the hoist.
The strongest link in the chain… a single stainless steel ring with a very high weight rating is connected to 4 carabiners and then the 4 cables. Do you think 3 saddles is overkill for each cable?
This is one of the 4 drop cables just after coming through the ceiling. I added some rubber coated lead weights to maintain tension on each line when the trailer is detached. I did this to reduce the chance a cable would fall off a pulley track.
There are 4 additional STATIC lines where I connect the trailer after it has been fully lifted to the ceiling. Therefore, the trailer has 8 lines connected to it when it is on the ceiling.
Here you can see 2 static lines and 2 pulley lines on the left side of the trailer.
Watch my garage trailer lift video.
Check out some other garage trailer lifts:
http://panofish.net/garage-trailer-lift-3/
http://panofish.net/garage-trailer-lift-4/
@Rodney
The design will work equally well if you mount the hoist on the wall or underside of the ceiling. Just angle the pulleys from each corner to the hoist and allow enough range of motion to lift and drop the platform. I’d love to see some photos when you get it finished … good luck!
@Alan Lilly
Thanks for the feedback. It will be a while before I get all the pieces together for this. I will look for parts information in the questions and replies already posted here. My next step is to have my garage door opener replaced with one that is configured on the side of the garage door. Liftmaster makes one that will allow me to completely eliminate the door opener in the center of my garage and free up more ceiling space on the other side of the garage door. Once I get this in I can move onto the next stage of this process. I will be glad to post some pictures when it all comes together. I am sure there are other Model Railroaders in California that are in the same situation as me. Thanks again for sharing this with all of us here. I was so happy to find your original post and videos. It has really inspired me that I can make this happen.
Nice implementation, I’ve had the exact same idea floating around in my head for awhile now, it was so exciting to see somebody actually did it. I will use my lift for a portable winter ice fishing house in the summer time and for all my outdoor lawn items (mower, seed spreader, etc) during the winter months up here in MN. My garage ceiling is 12′ high so i’m assuming I just need longer cables, but the basic design can stay the same right?
The ceiling height is not an issue. The cables would be long and the winch might need to be a little further from the pulleys to give enough pull distance for the main line which would be equal to the distance you want to lift your pallet. The only other important consideration is the total lift weight and the strength of your ceiling trusses to carry the load. Be sure to send progress photos!
Weight won’t be an issue, most I would hoist would be around 100-400lbs at the max. Any issues other than aesthetic to having everything mounted on the top of the garage ceiling, instead of in the garage attic? Won’t it be alot easier to maintain/monitor the system on the outside, or did you just decide to trust your engineering?
I forgot to mention, instead of a trailer, I plan on building a simple 2×4 lipped platform/basket to load my stuff on and then lift to the ceiling. I’ll post pictures once it’s done..
Great questions Joe. Should be doable . The space above my garage is also an attic space with folding attic ladder so access is no issue for me. I trusted my engineering and I’ve had no problems since it was built in 2003. It’s so easy and quick to use my trailer whenever I need it … I use it frequently. I can have my trailer hooked to my car in under 5 minutes.
If i’m lifting 500 lbs or less, will a 1,500lbs capacity electric winch work fine or do I need a hoist?
Hoists are for lifting and winches are for pulling. A 1500lb capacity winch might only be able to lift 100lbs and hold it under static load, but I’d get a hoist for lifting stuff over my head in the garage. Thanks for the question… I’ve updated the post to clarify the differences.
Any issues with securing the pulleys & winch to the ceiling through the 3/4 inch drywall before getting to the studs? I’m worried about the 3/4 inch drywall gap to the studs…Should I just install cross-mount support boards to the ceiling and then mount the pulleys and winch to it? I have 12 inches of spray insulation in the garage attic so I’ll have to install it on the ceiling.
Hey Joe. I would lag bolt some horizontal boards across the studs to distribute weight. I did the same above ceiling, but I didn’t have to lag bolt to every stud since the weight would natrually distribute by just laying on top. Make sure you calculate the load on each ceiling bolt point.. it should be evenly distributed across all studs. The dry wall shouldnt be an issue, except making sure your lag bolts are well centered in the ceiling joists. Also I would pay attention to the size of lag bolt and depth into the joists. If the joists are 2×4 boards and the lag bolts are large and go deep into the board, you would effectively be weakening the 2×4 and the static load might be too much. But if your load is light enough all of this thinking might be overkill.
yep, i don’t ever see more than 300 lbs being lifted, also do the pulleys need to be directly above the lifting wire connections? If they are off to the side a little, does that add unneeded stress on the cbales and pulleys?
A little off should be fine… more will increase stress when fully lifted, because the line will start pulling horizontally and not just vertically. I would still prefer to have the lines perfectly vertical though.
Great job with the lift. I made a trip to Harbor Freight and Lowe’s today to gather the required materials to build my own. Thanks so much for the pictures and instructions. What brand of trailer is that?
Thanks… the trailer is mostly aluminum from rance aluminum trailers http://www.rancealuminum.com/
I don’t think they make this model any more, but I love mine.
I know this web site offers quality depending content and additional information, is there any
other web page which presents these kinds of information in quality?
Hi Alan,
I am thinking of copying your nice design, except I’m considering using a manual hoist. What made you decide to go with a motorized hoist instead (besides convenience)? I’m thinking it might be a little tricky to sturdily mount the manual hoist to the wall. I suppose I could lag a large eye into the concrete floor and attach the hoist there, but then I’d lose the floor space and mobility in that area…
Cheers,
Brady
Originally I was going to do a manual crank on my wall, but the electric hoist was so cheap and the engineering and effort is the same with either manual or electric. Wall or ceiling … you need to span a board across multiple studs or joists to spread the load. The other advantage to ceiling is the entire system is invisible. A manual crank takes a surprisingly long time to crank because you have to turn it a bunch of times to lift from the floor to the ceiling.