What's the best way to fix a rather long aluminium ladder - around 3.5m long in two parts (7m altogether) - to my garage ceiling to get it out of the way?
I only need it 3-4 time a year, but want it to be relatively easily accessible as neighbours sometimes borrow it.
It is a single garage with a flat roof sitting on top of 6x2 running the width of the garage approx 50-60cm apart (I can measure if that's important).
I want it to be all but pressed against the 6x2 as the height is not great as it is.
I'd screw some eyes into the side of the 6x2s and fasten the ladder to them with bungeys. That's roughly how my ladders are fastened to my garage ceiling. (Except the eyes are screwed into the bottom of the joists in my case because height isn't an issue.)
Aldi sell bike lifts (pulley blocks and rope), which are great for high roofs but I wouldn't rely on them for long-term attachment. You can also get large thin steel tube hooks which you can fasten beneath the roof, use the Aldi lift as a hoist and then push the elevated ladder sideways onto the hooks with a broom.
Inch-wide luggage ratchet strap is a great way to lift a ladder and leave it attached to the rafters, but it's hard to release from the ground. Not much use unless you've easy stepladder access from beneath.
Don't underestimate string. Baler twine (you do have a reel, don't you?) can be used to pull them up, tied off to hold them, then is cheap enough to cut when you want them down again. Doesn't lose much height either, but you do need easy access to the height to do it.
One of my ladders lives horizontally at shoulder level on a workshop wall. It moonlights as a rack for long woodworking clamps (I have about 30).
Long ladders should be hung from their ends, not in the middle. Otherwise you can't get one down on your own without it tilting and the top end going through the roof (DAMHIKT)
I find this is one of the many uses for stainless steel coathangers - the sort they used to make everything from on Blue Peter once upon a time: they were really on to something there! I use them for all sorts. If you just have a ladder, or garden canes or plumbing pipes or dowel etc to get out of the way: bang nails into ( the *sides* of ) your beams at appropriate distances apart; cut the hook off the coathanger and open it out; then loop one end around a nail with stout pliers. Allow enough of the wire to loop downwards for your ladder to fit through, then tie off the other end of the hanger by looping it round a second nail. Repeat process for next or next but one beam, and you then have strong loops of wire that you can slide your ladder through. Depending on your head room and your strength, you may want to separate the two parts of the ladder and give them their own loops.
(Also hang things up on lengths of coathanger when you are painting them.)
A refinement on this method is to use fine - welded - chain and run it through appropriate lengths of copper or steel pipe. You can then hook the ends of the chain over your nails and so get an adjustable rail under each beam, through which you can slide whatever you like. This method is less likely to snag on things as you slide them in.
In my old garage I had a further refinement, which was to suspend an iron bed frame by chains. With it's wire mesh thus filling the space between the beams, both short and long things can be slid into the roof space.
We keep ours bracketed on the outside wall. Two L shaped brackets take the weight, then a bracket in the centre has a piece of hinged steel which padlocks in place to prevent theft like an O.
Inside, I would be looking at a couple of U brackets fixed to the roof at just a bit less than the overall length of the ladders - so you can hook one end on, then the other - thus saving you lifting all the weight in one go.
Ladders aren't actually all that heavy. You just need a couple of big screw eyes as suggested earlier, and two lengths of thick string/thin rope. Tie one end to the ladder rungs at each end, thread through the screw eyes and haul up to the ceiling, one end at a time. If you can contrive to bring the free end across to another beam, or a wall, you could tie it off to another hook or eye there. Otherwise stand on a step ladder (or a couple of beer crates - you *do* have a couple of handy beer crates, don't you?!) and tie off the end of the rope back to the ladder. Works for me.
's four: they screw up into the 'ceiling' joists, two at either end of the ladder - I offer up one (long) edge of the ladder to the first pair of hooks, rotate the ladder so it's parallel with the ceiling, and hook the other long edge of the second pair. Hooks need careful positioning for this to work properly!
Thanks guys for all your suggestions. The ladder is currently hanged on a wall (using the Wickes hooks that were mentioned above), but I want to use the wall to hang our bikes instead. The ceiling is really low - has a clearance of only 30-40cm or so, so I really need to have the ladder as close to it as possible.
Using eyes and a string for each end sound like the easiest and cheapest way to go about it.
Or the long large hooks with bar and big wing nut that contractors use to secure ladders to roof bars on their vans? Suitable eyes in the side of the rafters to take the hooks. Fiddly though compared to loops(*) through which you thread the ends of the ladder or four large hooks to take it.
(*) IMHO the loops need to be fairly ridgid and have something the ladder will slide or roll on easily. A simple loop of chain or rope will move about and not slide making insertion of the ladder harder than it needs to be.
To make it easier to work with I would suggest a rigid loop, shelf or pocket for one end of the ladder so that half the weight is taken immediately, before you start fiddling with the fixings at the other end. A pair of wooden turnbuckles either on the joists themselves or extended on a some suitable vertical timber would be the ideal fixing, simple, quick and not at all gash looking. If both the loop and turnbuckle mounts are fixed with single large screws then they could be swivelled out of head bonking range when not in use.
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