To save my back when lifting half barrels on and off my pickup truck I am trying to rig a hoist. I am planning to run a 2x6 across several joists attached via lag bolts in my garage with a heavy duty eye hook in the center. I will then use a 500lb capacity chain hoist connected to the 2x6, connected to a custom bracket that fits between the handles on the keg. The keg will only be suspended by the hook for a couple minutes at most to give time to either pull the truck out when unloading a keg, or pull the truck underneath the keg when loading. In both cases it will be cranked up just enough to hover a couple inches above the truck bed and then be lowered to the floor. The full weight of a full 1/2 barrel is about 160lbs.
Does anyone see any reason to be concerned with the structure of the home? The joists are the bottom of trusses in the attic that support the roof.
Should I use a larger board such as a 2x8? Would crossing two joists be sufficient, or should I cross 4 joists?
Also, the ceiling of the garage is finished with drywall. Does it matter if I run the 2x6 on the finished side of the ceiling, or is it better to run it in the attic? If I run it in the attic, it will obviously look more attractive in the garage but the eye hook will have to have a couple inches on it outside the board it is attached to accommodate the width of the joist and the thickness of the drywall.
I do something similar in my basement to load the chest freezer converted kegerator. I have a steel cable wrapped around a iron beam and the chain hoist is connected to that.
I don't know, but I'm not a structural engineer. However, have you thought about using an engine hoist? They're designed to handle much more weight than just a keg, and are not that expensive. The only question would be whether the engine hoist would be able to lift the keg high enough to get it in the back of your truck.
160 is generally not a lotof weight, but then add to it the weight of the chain and block and tackle, etc and you're over 200 maybe going toward 250. The only concern I would have is that being a truss roof it is engineered to support a load from the top, not necessarily from the bottom. A truss is one of those things where whole is stronger than the the sum of the parts. I would suggest trying to put the support beam above the ceiling joists and to have the support beam span as many beams as you can (at least 2-3 on each side). This will spread the load more evenly among the beams. I also suggest you use a doube
2x4 or double 2x6 with boards > > > To save my back when lifting half barrels on and off my pickup truck I
Keep in mind that roof trusses pretty well have to be engineered well enough to support a person walking along the lower chord. Which conservatively would be on the order of 300lbs on _each_ chord.
That in mind, I did the following: a chunk of 4x4 extending over
4 truss chords (on top). It just so happens that the 4x4 is immediately adjacent to truss ties to the upper chord.
The hardware is all rated for at least 1000 pounds working load.
Massive eyebolt thru the 4x4, and a heavy thread style quicklink between the eyebolt and a chain hoist. The chain hoist is thus hanging below the truss chords.
I imagine that I could safely lift 1000 pounds (the hoist is a
1 ton unit) but I'm a chicken, and am going to limit it to a few hundred pounds at most. So far, the heaviest it's had to lift is the front end of a lawntractor (200 lbs or so). No noises/creaking/sag whatsoever when I did that.
I'm not into R&R'ing automotive engines and other heavy things.
I'd reinforce it (possibly with the assistance of an engineer) if I thought I'd have to do full drums or something like that.
Would you be willing to share a digital photo of your configuration? I'm not asking you to climb in to your attic, but perhaps from the garage side of things.... Or if you could slap a crude drawing together in paintbrush that would be super helpful.
How did you tie the 4x4 to the 4 trusses? Lag bolts? Also, did the
4x4 extend beyond the far left and right truss a few inches or end directly on the edge of those trusses?
Why was the quicklink necessary between the eyebolt and the chain hoist? Also, did your eyebolt extend down far enough from on top of the trusses in the attic, the full height of the truss and through sheetrock if you have it?
It's as simple as it sounds - I just happened to have a 7' or so 4x4. Bored a hole thru the middle, installed the largest eyebolt I could easily find (I think it's 3/8") with washers especially on top, and dropped the 4x4 crossways across the truss chords with the eyebolt facing down. The quicklink goes to the eyebolt, and the chain hoist under that.
Right now it's not even fastened to the chords ;-) It ain't going anywhere. I don't plan on doing any swinging on it. I imagine not fastening it does weaken it somewhat - see below.
Given your load requirements (200 lbs), even a (decent) 2x4 laid _flat_ across only two truss chords would be sufficient. Otherwise, many of us would be falling through decks all the time ;-)
But a 4x4 across multiple chords gives _lots_ of margin and reduces undesigned-for stress on the trusses.
As long as the board fits, don't bother cutting it. A few inches of overhang can't hurt, and aren't worth cutting off. One end of mine runs into the hatch opening.
I didn't want the eyebolt protruding away from the 4x4 any more than necessary. Because sideways stress would tend to flex and eventually weaken it. At the same time, I wanted to ensure that the chain hoist itself clears the bottom of the truss. So, the eye of the bolt is right against the 4x4, and the quicklink gives me another
3" of hang to the hoist. Probably not strictly necessary (the hoist has several inches of hook on the top), but the hook on the hoist won't go through the eyebolt, so I had to put something there anyway that the hook could go through.
This was a quick hack job, because my small engines course was starting, and I had to get the engine to the class ;-)
The ceiling is presently trusses, batt insulation, vapor barrier plastic, and lathe. I will be drywalling it eventually (I've already done some of the garage).
I just cut the plastic and pushed the fiberglass out of the way. Given that that punctured the vapor barrier good, and it's necessary in our climate (especially when I'm heating the garage), I have to properly "finish it". This will entail putting up short 2x4s to "box" in a "slot" the eyebolt goes through, and reconstituting the vapor barrier. At the same time I'll probably (well, I'll probably blackmail my son to do it ;-) use some 3 1/2" or
4" #10 screws to pre-drill "toe-screws" of the 4x4 into the chords, and replace the cheap eyebolt with a welded/cast possibly 1/2" one. If I can afford one ;-)
Fastening the board the eye bolt is on to the _bottom_ of the trusses would work fine for your or my application (even with just a pair of pre-drilled #10 screws per chord) and would be much easier.
But I just don't like hanging heavy things on screws or even lags loaded "straight line". Despite the fact that a properly installed single #8 screw into softwood is rated at something on the order of 500+ pounds straight pull. (1400 pounds into maple is a number I recall from somewhere). But being able to pry it off with a claw hammer or the result of a good hard side whack doesn't inspire confidence.
[And I'm not comfortable driving largeish lags into a truss under any circumstances. I'm going to predrill just to ensure that there's no tendency to split.]
I've pulled V-8 engines & trannys with less in my younger days, I did usually make provision to wedge a 2 X 4 or 4 X 4 in on either end between the top board and the floor effectively creating an A. I will say the rafters creaked a little with 500 + lbs hanging from them. Then again they don't build houses now, like they did in the 50's
Given the remote possibility of the thing dragging on the truck bed (or lift chain hooking a bumper etc), I'd be inclined to attach the thing to all the trusses it crosses. In fact, for overkill, bracing the lower chords to the ends of the trusses would decrease the risk of pulling a lower chord out sideways in the worst case scenario. Think of a K seen looking straight up at the ceiling. Top and bottom of the K are at the walls and the point where the things meet are at the lift support.
Yup. And every time I walk on mine, I get nailpops in the ceiling. :( I estimate 1/2-in flex under my weight...
A 2x6 on edge (ie, 5-1/2-in tall) will carry more weight. And if you fasten thru the 2x6 (thru the 1-1/2-in dimension) into vertical truss members it will be very solid.
I'm wondering about doing my entire attic space that way to eliminate the nail pops caused by my walking around up there (have a lot of wires and plumbing to run).
Full drum of water, eg 55gUS, is still well under your 1000lb guestimate. :)
160 pounds? A chain hoist?!!!. A rope and two pulleys will move that easily unless you are crippled somehow. Why dick around with a heavy slow chain hoist? To be honest, I wouldn't even mess around with a hoist at all to move such an item, a ramp and roll the sucker.
Sort of a good idea, but there still remains the question, how can he attach the engine hoist to the frame of the house, so that the frame can support everything? That the engine hoist can hold everything below it, and one person can raise the engine or keg doesn't lessen the weight on the frame of the house, above it.
I think with a little added thought you can eliminate the part where you have to move the truck for each keg. Hang a doodad from the ceiling of the garage**, so that your rear truck window just hits it when you are far enough backed in that the end of your hoist is just beyond the edge of your tailgate. You can pull the keg onto the tailgate or attach it when it is in the truck, whichever you plan to do, and when you lift it up it will swing a little but shouldn't be dangerous, and when it is beyond the tailgate (directly below the hoist attaching point) you can lower it.
When you raise it, when it is higher than the truck be=d, push it in a bit with one arm and lower with the other.
**They sell these stupid red, or red and green lights, to tell when you are far enough into the garage. They also have one that uses sonar, iirc. My mother just hung a doodad from a string so that it hit the windshield when she was the right amount in. It cost nothing, needed no batteries, never broke, and worked for a decade until she moved out of the house. (She might have had to raise or lower it when she got a different car, but in the case of her cars, which were about the same size, I don't think so.)
No. Go up in the attic with a piece of SuperStrut from Home Depot electrical aisle. Lay it so it crosses the rafters. Use 1/2" threaded rod and nuts to project a stud through the ceiling down into the garage so it sticks out an inch or so. Use a coupling nut and 1/2" threaded eye to get your attachment point.
I have lifted 800 lbs this way:
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Stabbing lag screws into rafters weakens the rafters, and you risk pull-out of the screws.
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