I've an aluminium loft ladder that's too old for me to remember where I
got it from. I've just wondered about the safety of the locks between
the two sections that appear to be 1cm-square plastic pins. Is this a
normal thing for loft ladders or is it as inadequate as it appears?

http://i.imgur.com/Tk7MFtT.jpg

Dave Rove wrote:
I've an aluminium loft ladder that's too old for me to remember where I
got it from. I've just wondered about the safety of the locks between
the two sections that appear to be 1cm-square plastic pins. Is this a
normal thing for loft ladders or is it as inadequate as it appears?

http://i.imgur.com/Tk7MFtT.jpg

As far as I can see, these are the end stops. Normally the ladder
sections interlock to provide sufficient rigidity. It is a two section
ladder, so the top section is supported also by the top mounting and the
bottom section by the floor. Your very good picture seems to show that
the plastic plug is in fact not fully loaded in the left hand section
ie it is not touching the top of the hole it is passing through. In one
of mine (3 section) the middle stops are in fact not engaged when the
ladder is in use and it hasn't been a problem in 30 years. So I wouldn't
worry.

Dave Rove wrote:

I've an aluminium loft ladder that's too old for me to remember where I
got it from. I've just wondered about the safety of the locks between the
two sections that appear to be 1cm-square plastic pins. Is this a normal
thing for loft ladders or is it as inadequate as it appears?

It's hard to tell from the picture; mine has metal catches but only on one
side and long ago I wrote to the manufacturer asking if I could/should put
something on the other side too - they said it really was ok.

One has to presume that the shearing potential of the plastic pins has been
considered; on the other hand we all know examples of plastics that have
gone off over time and become much more brittle than they were at first.

For a while I contemplated making something that could be threaded through
the inside hollow rungs on two adjacent sections (like in your pic, about 6"
below the catch thing) to lock them together, but I couldn't see an easy way
to do it. You could probably come up with some sort of external clamp that
could be fitted around the ladder side-pieces at one or both sides and also
jam apart the pair of rungs that are in the overlapping section. You'd need
to be careful not to create a trip hazard/

--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Email sent to my from-address will be deleted. Instead, please reply
to replacing "aaa" by "284".

Dave Rove wrote:
I've an aluminium loft ladder that's too old for me to remember where I
got it from. I've just wondered about the safety of the locks between
the two sections that appear to be 1cm-square plastic pins. Is this a
normal thing for loft ladders or is it as inadequate as it appears?

http://i.imgur.com/Tk7MFtT.jpg

As an aerial installer who often climbed other people's loft ladders my
test was to visually inspect, then jump up and down on each section,
braced in case the ladder failed. In 45 years I experienced few failures.

Bill

On 18 Feb 2014, Capitol grunted:

Dave Rove wrote:
I've an aluminium loft ladder that's too old for me to remember where I
got it from. I've just wondered about the safety of the locks between
the two sections that appear to be 1cm-square plastic pins. Is this a
normal thing for loft ladders or is it as inadequate as it appears?

http://i.imgur.com/Tk7MFtT.jpg

As far as I can see, these are the end stops. Normally the ladder
sections interlock to provide sufficient rigidity. It is a two section
ladder, so the top section is supported also by the top mounting and the
bottom section by the floor. Your very good picture seems to show that
the plastic plug is in fact not fully loaded in the left hand section
ie it is not touching the top of the hole it is passing through. In one
of mine (3 section) the middle stops are in fact not engaged when the
ladder is in use and it hasn't been a problem in 30 years. So I wouldn't
worry.

+1

I've got one similar, albeit with metal locking pins; however I don't even
use the pins at all!

This is because I can't extend the ladder far enough to engage the pins due
to a bed at the foot of the ladder, so the ladder's held rigidly in
position by the bedroom carpet and the pivot mounting at the top. Doesn't
cause any problem at all.

--
David

On Tue, 18 Feb 2014 20:46:24 +0000, Capitol wrote:

As far as I can see, these are the end stops. Normally the ladder
sections interlock to provide sufficient rigidity. It is a two section
ladder, so the top section is supported also by the top mounting and the
bottom section by the floor. Your very good picture seems to show that
the plastic plug is in fact not fully loaded in the left hand section
ie it is not touching the top of the hole it is passing through. In one
of mine (3 section) the middle stops are in fact not engaged when the
ladder is in use and it hasn't been a problem in 30 years. So I wouldn't
worry.

The pivot looks a flimsy too but I guess it'll do for the moment.

I've just looked at a 3-section ladder in B&Q. The middle section must
take the weight on the locking pins alone. And although the pins are
metal, they are only about 5mm:

http://i.imgur.com/F3hP4oL.jpg

Dave Rove wrote:

... And although the pins are metal, they are only about 5mm:

http://i.imgur.com/F3hP4oL.jpg

OT, somewhat... how did you produce the pic with a detail inside a circle?

--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Email sent to my from-address will be deleted. Instead, please reply
to replacing "aaa" by "284".

On Wed, 19 Feb 2014 19:59:07 +0000, Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote:

OT, somewhat... how did you produce the pic with a detail inside a
circle?

I can do reasonably swift photo editing with The Gimp. You should be
able to do that with most reasonably feature-rich photo editors. If you
are specifically interested in that particular effect, and are puzzled
about how it was done, I could detail the steps.