Winches For Your Garage

Some people call them winches.  Some call them hoists.   Technically, there is a difference (winches being for PULLING and hoists being for LIFTING).  But most people think of them as the same thing.   And, from a functional point of view, they are similar: a device giving you mechanical advantage in being able to lift (or pull) a heavy load.  In our case, the lifting is important, as in lifting a basket or platform into the ceiling area for overhead garage storage.

In the garage, a winch is used for lifting something heavy — the classic case being lifting an engine out of a car.  But our interest is more in how you can use it for creating garage storage — specifically, overhead garage storage.    Sure, if you have a garage winch, you can use it for anything, but a cheap winch, especially a hand crank one like that show here, is often all you need.  Just imagine this winch anchored near a side wall with an attached cable that goes up the side wall to a strong pulley where the wall meets the ceiling (or roof), which then goes over to a pulley or two in the center of the garage, and then down to a basket or platform that is raised or lowered.

Lower the platform or basket, put items to be stored on / in it, and then use the winch to lift the platform or basket out of the way.  This works especially well with open ceilings.  This is a great solution if all your garage cabinets and other garage storage places are full.

Sure, you can buy an electric winch and save yourself a little cranking.  But that adds cost and complexity.   If all you are doing is adding some garage storage solutions to your garage, you don’t really need to set up an electric winch.   It definitely would be more hoisting power than the typical overhead storage solution would need, that’s for sure.

If for some reason you don’t want to deal with a hand crank, but you want to avoid the expense of a permanent, electrical winch, consider a hybrid system, like the garage winch provided by Pulley-Man(tm),  pictured here.   This device has the anchoring hooks, coupled with some steel cable running through a geared-down pulley that can be powered by a conventional 1/4 inch power drill — you know, a Black and Decker or other drill found in almost every workshop in the USA.   When you need to raise or lower the overhead storage, you just get your drill and voila! you have a powered garage winch for the time that you need it.

So, fear not.  That overhead space is ripe for the storing.   And if you don’t want to deal with ladders, then have the storage space come down to you on a pulley and cable system, then hoisted back up using your new garage winch!.

Tagged as: garage storage solutions, overhead garage storage, plywood cabinets, winches