Attic Lift

What Is a Versa Lift?

Versa Lift is the ultimate solution to your storage problems. Instead of stacking boxes, racking shelves, or hanging items from the ceiling that leave your garage looking cluttered, you can send storage items into the attic and out of sight with push-button ease.

Only the Versa Lift lets you store everything out of sight and bring it back down in seconds whenever you need it. You press a switch on a hand-held remote, and the motorized platform transports heavy loads to or from the attic — eliminating the danger of carrying storage items up steep, shaky attic ladders.

A Versa Lift is also well suited to homes with elevated living quarters, such as split-levels and homes with basement living rooms, where it eliminates the constant trips up and down stairs to move groceries, laundry, tools, portable appliances, firewood, and other heavy items.

Will It Fit My Attic?

Most homes, but it is worth checking before you get attached to the idea. Three things decide it:

• The opening. The lift needs a rectangular opening it can travel through. Many existing pull-down stair openings work as-is; some need enlarging, which means cutting and reframing a ceiling joist.
• Headroom above. The platform and its mast need vertical clearance in the attic, so low-slope roofs and trusses close to the opening can rule out a location even when the opening itself is fine.
• Where it lands. There has to be somewhere to put things once they are up there — which is usually the part people have not thought about.

The Part Nobody Mentions: Can Your Attic Carry It?

A lift solves getting the load up. It does not make the attic capable of holding it. Ceiling joists in a typical Triangle home were sized to carry a ceiling and insulation, not boxes — and in a truss-framed roof, the bottom chord is a structural member of the truss rather than a floor, which is a meaningful difference.

In practice that means storage should be kept near bearing walls rather than mid-span, decking should span across joists rather than loading one, and heavy loads deserve a look before they go up rather than after the ceiling below starts to sag. We are a structural contractor first, so we will tell you if the attic needs reinforcing — and we would rather say so before the lift is installed.

If your attic has no decking, a lift delivers boxes to a surface of insulation and joists. Decking the storage area is usually part of doing this properly, not an optional extra.

What Installation Involves

Framing the opening where it needs enlarging, mounting the unit, running power to it, and decking the landing area if there is not usable floor up there already. Most installations are a day's work rather than a project, and the variables are the opening and the electrical run rather than the lift itself.

Versa Lift Features

• Remote control operation
• Fits in most attic openings
• 250 lb load capacity

While we are up there it is worth knowing what else the attic needs — a space being used for storage is a space you will be visiting, and insulation that has settled or ventilation that is not working are both easier to see once there is somewhere to stand.