Telescopic ladder

Why not? Lots of Chinese stuff is well made, these days. Mind you - an awful lot's crap but then that's true of European and American stuff too.

Have a look at .

The only price I was able to find online was a used one for around $1000.

I got a 3.8 m telescoping tube ladder on ebay (The one with catches on each end of each rung, and yellow stickers on it), and it is adequate for occasional use: flexes a bit in the thin tubes under load, and the tubes aren't as solid-feeling as a one-piece ladder. And it needs a shoulder strap if you are carrying it more than a bit.

Alternatives would have been a folding aluminum ladder, which would have been much larger, sturdier, and more expensive. Or a rope ladder, or variant thereof, which are all nasty to use.

Thomas Prufer

I have one of the old Telesteps ladders, originally bought for getting access to my boat when it was on a cradle for the winter. I've had them for a long time - at least ten yers - and they haven't let me down in any way. THe design is the "finger crusher" one where the catches are beneath the treads. The lowest step has two pull rings that cause the whole ladder to collapse when pulled. Later models were "improved" to take account of the stupid who might leave their hand between the treads when they lowered the ladder.

Very good for a 3.3m long ladder that can be carried in the boot of a car.

Still available on Amazon, I see:

Not telescopic - but I've heard very good things about Little Giant. At the smaller end of the range, they should be car-boot-able.

They are reputed to be a bit heavy compared to similar sized products.

We got the Telesteps telescopic loft ladder from here, plenty other telescopic ladders in their range and a good company to deal with:

"The new Pro Series will be out in 2008, featuring stronger build, ...."

Never used one, but I was put off by someone saying that you have to be

Peter Scott

Steve, I need one for the same purpose.

how high the deck is above the ground, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be 3m! It seems that one of the models with the switch/lock/slider at each rung-end are made by the same firm, but that's a lot of locking to do each time to put it up or down.

Justin.

depend on the car. I do, however, like the trestle option/facility, that could be very useful (enabling me to fall from height much more easily! - but useful all the same).

I shouldn't be carrying it far.

Justin.

Interesting, very interesting. Definitely something to give some thought to.

Justin.

They are ideal for that. I've also used it as (part of) my solution to working on the mast solo. I extend the ladder to its full extent then use a spare halyard to haul the ladder up the mast. Then I secure it to the mast using the ratchet straps that are used to tie luggage down to roof racks on cars. My mast it way taller than 3.3m so I use other ladders on separate halyards to get to the top. This is safer IMO than trying to get my wife to haul me up there in a bosun's chair.

Dopesn't seem that huge in practice, but it has been very handy over the years.

Yes, the model I highlighted is easy to use, just be careful of your fingers. It can be lowered by holding it vertically and pulling the two rings down. It will then collapse in a few seconds. The only drawback is for short extensions all of the weight of the ladder must be borne aloft since that's the only way the ladder can be extended, with unused rungs at the top.

Not had a problem with mine, but then again I don't splash the paint around.

"Pete Zahut" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com:

Thanks for the link Pete,

Do you have any reason why you chose a telescopice loft ladder rather than a concertina type?

To be honest I never even considered a concertina type because a mate of mine has the telescopic in his loft, I saw it, thought it would be ideal for our situation, and so I bought one - and I'm very pleased with it :-)

Ah. That is a negative. That would make the version with a catch on each rung more suitable - though I should think from fully collapsed to fully extended would not be a speedy process.

Justin.

I think you will find that still has to work the same way, with unused rungs at the top. The reason for this is that the lower sections of the ladder are the strongest (larger tubes).

Yes, I've not used one but I suspect one method may be to flick all the catches then stand the ladder upright. Although it may be that the catches still work the way they do on my ladder but they have just moved them to the front face of the tread. Hence I suspect that if you stand the ladder upright and operated one pair of catches all of the sections above will collapse but the pair where you actuated the catches will stay about four inches apart from the tread below.

You can only tell if you try one in RL if it is right for you.

AFAIK Adam Wadsworth has just bought one, ping him.