"SteveB" wrote

I want to make an elevator of sorts for our newly acquired cabin. This is
because moving any appliances in and out is a bear the way the stairs,
railings, walkways, etc. are located.

I want to make a section of handrail removable, and make a hoist maybe 48"
square for lifting items like fridge, furniture, and wheelchair bound
people up to the level of the porch, a distance of about 8 feet.

Total weight I would guess at 1,000# max, and that is figuring at the
most, a fridge and two people. Platform would be about 250#.

So, I would put in a 2,000# capacity hoist.

Any suggestions of brand names? I imagine it would be used maybe 25 times
a year.

I used to hoist lots of heavy stuff up to the upper floor of a barn with the
traditional chain hoist. What I liked about it was that it rolled along a
big chunk of I beam. So you could lift a heavy load, roll it into the barn,
then lower it to the floor. But you may not like a big I beam going through
your cabin.

For this kind of application, particularly if somebody in a wheelchair is
involved, I would go with something totally reliable and safe. This is not a
time to experiment. I would look into the horizontal elevator concept. I
have seen a lot of these with waterfront homes that sit on a cliff, high
above the beach.

They had a set of rails. Some were made of wood, but most were metal. They
would have wheels that were made to ride on the metal. A little platform
with wheels was constructed on these rails. This was then hooked up to a
winch of some kind.

You got on the little platform, closed the chain and pushed the winch
button. And yoo were lowered or raised along the rails. This was the simple
version that did not involve a long distance. For those applications, much
more expensive and complicated elevators were needed.

But with eight feet vertical distance, you shouldn't have too much of a
problem. Just make sure that your movable platform is rock solid and can not
come off of its tracks. It might be an idea to construct a set of stairs
right beside it. This would be handy in terms of providing extra security
to the load when using the movable platform.

A friend of mine used to make gym equipment. He did something like this for
his leg press machine. He would install casters to run on either angle iron
or the corner of square tubing. And he would install these on both the top
of the rail as well as the bottom. He would then fine tune the sled to slide
smoothly. And this thing was solid and secure. The casters literally
wrapped the rails. No way was that thing ever going to fall off.

I think that something like this would be much easier to build and design
than a more traditional vertical solution.