OVERHEAD LIFT QUESTION

[rlrsk8r]

I have a new garage with a 12 foot ceiling and want to store my zero turn mower, weighing about 1500 Lbs in it this winter. My plan is to build a rectangle-shaped spreader bracket out of some 1-5/8 in.² tubing with 0.150 inch wall thickness.
The bracket will be a rectangle that is as long as the zero, and as wide as it so the chains attaching to the 4 corners will hang straight down. I plan to put a crossbar across the middle-ish of the lift bracket to lift the frame which will in turn lift the mower.
I plan to fix a lift EYE to the ceiling trusses which support the attic floor above (2x10 bottom chord). Chain hoist to lift the zero-turn up to the ceiling for the winter. I have some heavy industrial chain with hooks on it to support the zero turn.
I have looked for calculators on the net to see how much the tubing will lift without permanent bending, but have been unable to find the calculator for that.
I am not a mechanical engineer, so I don’t understand the formulas for steel structures and how to calculate load limits.
Can somebody help me please. ?

 

[4570Man]

I’d use 2” 1/4” wall tube that I know would work without having to engineer anything. The lighter tube would be marginal. I’m not sure that hanging it from a single truss is a good plan either.

 

[zzvyb6]

I don't care for the hanging frame notion because of the wooden beam materials. If & when they dry out, they will weaken, split, and possibly damage the building's roofline. Your 1500 lb mower PLUS the chains, plus the chainfall, plus the frame may put you at 500 lbs per corner. I went with a used 2 post car lift anchored securely to the concrete floor. I added 2 trough ramps at axle width dimensions onto the sides arms, drive the mowers on, and store or maintain oils, clean up the deck, change blades, whatever is needed. It obviously also serves many other purposes for all my vehicles, mowers & tractors. $2000 installed plus $1000 for the special, reinforced extra strong & thick concrete base.

 

[mrmikey]

I'd be a bit leary of hanging that much off the bottom chord of a truss, they're not made for vertical load.
Saying that, I do have three lifting eyes running front to back in my garage for light lifting but not for permanent storage. I ran a 2 x 2 x 1/4 HSS across the top of the bottom chord of 6 trusses. I also tied it into the top chord of each truss with a 2 x 1/4 flatbar so it's in tension. I went thru the ceiling with 2 pieces of 1/2 threaded rod bolted thru each anchor plate with an eye on it for a set of come alongs.

 

[mikester]

Buy a used forklift. You will find it cheaper and way more convenient.

Get one with side shift!

 

[LD1]

I would analyze the building first.....way too many details left out to even know if its a good idea.....but in general....trying to hang a mower from a wooden truss....sounds bad.

But the plan you describe with a single point lift....dont even know why you would need a spreader bar....

Guess I dont know your mower....But I could easily find 3-4 points to hook a chain, find balance point, and hoist my mower without some spreader contraption.

But still not even enough info on the steel. Need lengths to be able to determine loading and deflection. You provide no dimensions at all

 

[rlrsk8r]

The spreader bar is because the two tiedown eyes I put on the back of the mower are located under/just behind the two plastic gas tanks and I do cannot have anything pressing against those plastic tanks for the long term storage.
It's a Hustler Zero mower is so you can look up pictures on the net and see my requirement for the spreader. Maybe I don’t need vertical orientation of the front chains which I had not thought about but thanks for mentioning that, LD1. I installed the 1/2' - 13 tiedown eyes on the corners through the square tubing frame of the mower for tiedown points for hauling the mower on my utility trailer. I might now change the final design of my spreader bar I'm using to angle the front chains, but the rear chains still need to be vertical.
The reason for using the material: it’s what I have. I’m not willing to spend thousands of dollars on other stuff just to “overdesign“.
I built the garage last month so I don’t have to worry about age-weakening of the trusses.
Considering hanging the mower from the trusses made me decide to spread the load over three of the trusses. I could have hung from one truss or maybe two but decided to distribute the load over three with them, being only 24 inches on center. My truss support bar across them will be a piece of 3 inch angle iron fastened high on each bottom chord. The angle iron’s ears will be fastened with 3/8” or maybe 1/2" bolts through the chord with 3 in.² stiffener plates under the nuts.
For winter storage I want to get the mower out of the way so that I can use that floor space.
I have also built shelves 4 feet in front of the back wall of the garage using 18 X 36”industrial shelf pans but since I don’t have the steel angle iron legs, I used 2x4s going all the way up to the bottom chord of the trusses. I set my shelves 4 feet away from the wall so that I have additional storage against the wall behind the shelves.
I'm also planning to hang my extended-reach cherry picker (3000# CAPACITY) engine hoist similar to the mower, again, to get it out of the way when I'm not using it. It weighs about 400# and I cannot disassemble it.

 

[WranglerX]

Think you would be better with floor mount 4 post "storage" lift.... Don't believe your roof trusses are designed to be "loaded" as you want to do....Also many advantages of having a"lift system" available for doing maintenance work....

 

[sandman2234]

I have been known to lay a lot of stuff on top of the bottom cord of roof trusses, but never anything as heavy as a lawnmower. Plus you are already adding to that weight by adding 400 pounds of cherry picker, which is definitely a floor space eater by itself!
As most people who have commented seem to think, I also agree that it is not a good idea. The current age of your garage doesn't have as much to do with it as your comment suggested, saying the garage is only a month old. We are assuming that by the time you wear that mower out, the trusses will be "old".
If I were going to do this, (I have welding and fabrication experience) I would build steel trusses out of the 2x2 you have, and support it with 4 posts of the same material. That is going to be a LOT of 2x2 (1.5" that you have?) Maybe a 3 post lift situated in the corner? I learned the hard way that steel trusses (called bar joists around here) do not like to have things hung from them. I hung a 3pt backhoe from one, which held it fine, till someone bumped into the hoe, causing a sideloading to the straight downward force, and it took out the roof in it's entirety. Could have been a lot more expensive, but the actually roof had not been installled over the roof trusses at the time. No way would I have thought that the weight would have done that, just didn't make sense. An engineer friend saw what I had done via pictures and said the collapse made perfect sense to him.
I am thinking that you're going to need to get creative with your floorspace to make additional space, and was wondering if the Cherry picker could be used to raise the mower high enough to clear the car that you are parking in the garage? Legs under the car, mower over the hood? I would be sure to install a cylinder failure device on the hydraulic cylinder so the mower doesn't come down unexpectedly.
David from jax

 

[scootr]

Contact a truss builder if you insist upon proceeding they can better tell you if the trusses will support the load hung from the bottom cord. Note the truss is designed to have an even shared load from the top cord down. Hanging a load from the bottom cord is very different than the engineered application and I think there is a significantly reduced weight capacity there.

 

[4570Man]

Contact a truss builder if you insist upon proceeding they can better tell you if the trusses will support the load hung from the bottom cord. Note the truss is designed to have an even shared load from the top cord down. Hanging a load from the bottom cord is very different than the engineered application and I think there is a significantly reduced weight capacity there.

The truss builder would 100 percent say no. No manufacturer is going to accept the liability of approving this plan. And as you say the bottom cord isn’t approved for loading unless it was a floor truss. Trusses or buildings in general aren’t designed for point loads either.

 

[Renze]

The truss builder would 100 percent say no. No manufacturer is going to accept the liability of approving this plan.

Exactly.

I built a trolley beam in my steel beam shed, engineered and all, because i know what i am doing.

But i'm not going to tell someone if its allright or not, if i havent seen the situation myself. People can add details they think is relevant, though they may miss very important details i think are relevant. And i'm just an engineer who takes pride in his work, i am not even a liable company that can be sued for telling something about their own truss building that can be misinterpreted by the customer when he adds his own contraption...

 

[George2615]

Maybe just me but, I wouldn't want a 1500lb anything hanging over my head in the garage.

 

[bdhsfz6]

I did what @WranglerX suggested. I use a 4 post lift in my 12' high barn:

I use the same principle to store implements in my other barn as well:

Sure, it costs more than a DIY project but at my age, saving time is worth it.
It's also a lot safer when you aren't sure of the engineering.

Just my 2 cents. YMMV.

 

[LD1]

I still say a hard no as well.

I have built may garages myself. If you built yours....wheres your engineering print for the trusses? They list the designed loading as well as a CSI summary. (combined stress index). Which is usually a value under 1.....meaning that at 1.0 is the MAX design of the truss.

Alot that I see are 0.85-0.9.....meaning that without anything added they are already at 85-90% of their capacity.

And the bottom chord, unless designed for it such as an attic truss, is not ment to be weight bearing. They are in tension.....not vertical loads other than insulation and ceiling weight....which is a fraction of what a mower would weigh in a given footprint.

 

[masscity]

Build a shelf. You should be able to get your zero turn on top and storage for something on the bottom. I have forks, Woods

RM48 and grapple. Saves space.

 

[rlrsk8r]

If you look at what you all have in your “attics“ and start adding up the weights of what you have there, you’ll be surprised at how much each truss is loaded with.
I plan to bolt a piece of angle iron across three of the trusses so each trust would only “see” about 600 pounds. This includes the weight of my chain hoist. The cherry picker would be on different courses of trusses and I will span two trusses so I can get the main spine of the picker between them and gain additional height from the floor to the horizontal legs. The attic floor does not go all the way to the wall of the building.

Sandman, I fully understand the failure of your bar joist and not at all surprised at its failure. They’re very strong vertically, but essentially have no strength laterally.

Also, I had not thought about the three post corner lift which is a viable option for me at this point. I’ve been building 3 foot wide industrial shelves 4 feet from the back wall of the building and 7 feet from the sidewall. I could eliminate my first course of shelves giving me an additional 3 feet of clearance from the side, and back the Zero under the head of the frame. By the way, when I lift it all the way up, I will have almost eight feet of clearance from the floor.

The bottom chord is a 2 x 10 and the plate that I am bolting to it to support my angle Iron will be 2 inches from the top of the chord. Rather than putting a lag bolt going up, I will have 3 ears welded to the angle iron going up, parallel to the side of the chord, drilled for a half inch bolt going through the bottom chord near the top of it. This way, I will have 7 inches of wood under the bolt which will effectively be loading the chord from the top. Where the 1/2” bolt comes out of the wood, I will have a steel backing plate that is 3 in.² and will be torqued to about 100 foot pounds.

And, LD1, it is designed as an attic truss. It’s 30 feet long with a 20 foot wide attic. Hence the bottom chord is a 2 x 10. This suggests to me that I can hang my 1500 pound mower from three of the chords.

 

[leonz]

Roof trusses were not designed to carry a loading like this, they were designed to support the roof and support the roof in the event of a heavy snow load. You will rip out the truss bottom planks and then you have to have the truss fixed and then certified as safe.

Putting the mower in a mower sized hoop shed will be less work and you can still drain the fuel tanks, remove the battery, remove the air cooling shroud on the engine to prevent mice from using it as a nest.

 

[strykerAKAmack]

Put a lean-to on one side of the barn if possible , More room , no having to figure out
what load a truss can support

 

[Handloader109]

Darwin still exists and is happily working on taking another victim. You are stupid to "hang" over a ton from your rafters. It isn't a few pieces for wood, but a ton. Just don't