So, I live in a two story house with my parents while I'm in school instead of moving out and paying rent-under the agreement that I work around the house. Great deal, but we've been doing a lot of remodeling, under the premise of making the house more accessible. My father happens to have crutches and the master suite is on the second floor, so part of this was to install an elevator shaft.
Well, the elevator shaft has been in place for some time, but the elevator has been noticeably absent. After staring at a half completed project we decided to try to find something to install as a elevator-we looked at fork lifts($500) boat lifts($1000) but all these would require extensive modifications and still only be marginally safe. Then we checked craigslist. The local craigslist had nothing, but a town about 90 minutes north of us did, and for a quarter of the price of a "new" elevator(it was installed in 2001 and the building was demo-ed in 07, plus 3 years of warehouse time)
We of course bought it and dragged it home. For what its worth you can fit exactly half of an elevator in the back of an f150. Then we call up a buddy who installs elevators professionally, but not this brand-his advice,"Treat it like a giant erector set and pray for the best because if it doesn't work i cant do anything for you." Not what i wanted to hear, but we started throwing it together. The giant erector set analogy was good, and actually very fitting, but we didn't have a manual.
So we bolt the thing together and it was very straight forward, the car platform would manually go up and down, based on turning the pump on and opening and closing valves. I learned that solely by guessing. Next we started installing the safety features, door latches, switches etc. The idea behind all this bric-a-brac is that the car will only move with the doors closed and other needless safety features. So we tape all the sensors how they should be to run, put in the call buttons and nothing. Lights went on and off but the car did nothing.
On a door sensor there was a wire that looked to be hooked up right, but that that wasn't on any other sensor. Of course-just cut it and try. Eliminate that one little white wire and the whole thing works. Perfectly. The stops actually were set perfect for our floors, and the car floor is level with the house floor-actually its 3/4 of an inch low on each floor. That 3/4 inch on each floor will allow for the wood flooring to go in the car
I wish I had thought to take pictures of the process, oops. Not sure what the aim of this post was but hey
Well, the elevator shaft has been in place for some time, but the elevator has been noticeably absent. After staring at a half completed project we decided to try to find something to install as a elevator-we looked at fork lifts($500) boat lifts($1000) but all these would require extensive modifications and still only be marginally safe. Then we checked craigslist. The local craigslist had nothing, but a town about 90 minutes north of us did, and for a quarter of the price of a "new" elevator(it was installed in 2001 and the building was demo-ed in 07, plus 3 years of warehouse time)
We of course bought it and dragged it home. For what its worth you can fit exactly half of an elevator in the back of an f150. Then we call up a buddy who installs elevators professionally, but not this brand-his advice,"Treat it like a giant erector set and pray for the best because if it doesn't work i cant do anything for you." Not what i wanted to hear, but we started throwing it together. The giant erector set analogy was good, and actually very fitting, but we didn't have a manual.
So we bolt the thing together and it was very straight forward, the car platform would manually go up and down, based on turning the pump on and opening and closing valves. I learned that solely by guessing. Next we started installing the safety features, door latches, switches etc. The idea behind all this bric-a-brac is that the car will only move with the doors closed and other needless safety features. So we tape all the sensors how they should be to run, put in the call buttons and nothing. Lights went on and off but the car did nothing.
On a door sensor there was a wire that looked to be hooked up right, but that that wasn't on any other sensor. Of course-just cut it and try. Eliminate that one little white wire and the whole thing works. Perfectly. The stops actually were set perfect for our floors, and the car floor is level with the house floor-actually its 3/4 of an inch low on each floor. That 3/4 inch on each floor will allow for the wood flooring to go in the car
I wish I had thought to take pictures of the process, oops. Not sure what the aim of this post was but hey
they want to get rid of? Need one for my Cabin 20' off the ground. Kinda looking around for one but not ready for it yet.