Sheetrock hoist

Two weeks later a Chinese knockoff of the expensive one arrived on my porch for $303. CDN, including taxes and shipping.

The hoist was put to the test this weekend. It is not an elegant tool, or even an especially good one, but it does the job. As long as it doesn't actually injure me I can tolerate the little glitches if it will raise the panels and hold them there while I make adjustments, cut boxes, etc.

So the slight list to one side of the hoist platform isn't that big a deal. The clip to hold the hoist down (It's going somewhere?) doesn't fit and it hasn't made any difference that I can see. The casters are smaller than on the rental machine, but they work in just the same way, quite tolerant of objects in their way.

If I judge by my perceptions as a tool nut, it's only a fair piece of equipment. If I go by results, then it gets quite a high rating. Single-handedly I put up a complicated ceiling today using 12' board, and it went surprisingly well. I didn't have to work all that hard, either.

Six more days of work and it will have paid for itself.

They run around $700+ depending on options.

The chinese knock offs look the same but are not near as sturdy.

Randy

Randy

I have put up several 8 foot or lower ceilings just using a 2 by 4 T and with a little help from one of my kids steadying things. But the last one I did was a 14 foot high shop ceiling using 5/8 drywall. Since I didn't have any help available, I rented the lift. It worked like a charm, and I would not try to do another ceiling of any size without a lift.

But own one? Not unless I decided to do a whole lot more construction than I have been.

For the electrical work, we hired a guy on huber from the prison. He's got his journeyman's card and he did a god job, all for about 10% of what it would have cost for labor. My brother worked with him at his work for a few days and that's how we got started with the guy. We did the insulation ourselves in about 5-6 hours once we were set up.

Hope to do most of the work ourselves, and have it rented by December.

Donovan from Wisconsin

I used 12" enginerred ceiling/floor joists between the bottom and top floor. The three exterior walls are of 2"X10" (R-30) and the wall facing the shop area is 2"X8" (R-25) with the ceiling being 12" (R-38). The two walls paraleling the tin walls of the building will actually wind up being about R-70 because of a unique venting system and additional blown-in insulation between the 2"X10" frame wall and the tin building wall.

At any rate you can see that I have a lot of sheetrock to install. I'M 68 YEARS OLD AND NOT QUITE AS AGILE AS I USED TO BE.

Now for my question.. Could you post some picures of your rock lifting machine? I'm most concerened about the 2,000 square feet on the ceiling (9'4" tall).

Sorry for getting carried away with this post - but would really appreciate your help. Installers in this area get about 13-14 cents per square foot (and earn it) and I need to control my costs as much as I can.

Thanks a bunch!!!!! !! Bob Farrell

For horizontal surfaces such as ceilings the hardest part of the job would be getting the sheets onto the frame. The rest is pretty easy. The good part is being able to relax and fit the sheet without straining to get it fastened before someone tires out. 9' 4" should be no problem at all for the ceiling. For the walls, you will likely use 54" sheets, and they are hard to handle unless you have very long arms.

The hoist works a little less well for hanging sheets horizontally on vertical walls, but the tripod base folds flat on one side to allow access. The hooks do a reasonable job of allowing you to position the sheets, though I resorted to sliding them off onto a 2 X 2 screwed to the board below when I was putting up 12', 54" pieces.

One caveat: my electrician suggested that dri-wall contractors charge about the same for their jobs whether they or you do the board work. Seems they like to tape their own board better than anyone else's. I had a local contractor look at my partially-completed job and he was very critical of the installation, though he stopped short of saying he wouldn't do it.

Best wishes on your project,

Rod

Bob, here is a picture of the frame that I built to sheetrock the ceiling in my storage building. It is nothing fancy but it worked ok. In the picture it is lying there upside down. Basically the two angle irons were from a bed spring so they are a little under 8' long. It is 4' wide. The 2" X 4" tubing that is sticking in the air is 15" long and attaches to my engine lift and it is bolted to the frame between two 2 1/4" square tubings so that the platform can be rotated. When the lift is all of the way down, the frame can be tipped down to attach the sheetrock that is standing on its side. I used two C clamps to hold it in place while I raised it up and tilted it flat. The engine lift can be rolled in place and then for the final positioning, I would roll it slightly or kick the wheels sidways to get in place. There is room between the support boards to install enough screws to hold it in place. A couple of things that I would do is make the mounting tubing longer as this one was about 6" short of reaching the floor. Also maybe some edge hooks could be made to hold the sheetrock instead of the C clamps. I loaned it to a friend and he used it to install metal to his ceiling. He had to modify the mounting so that it would attach to his engine lift.