Louisville Aluminum Attic Ladder Installation

today I am going to inflate my garage attic and before you say the loose lay blowing stuff is better I know that but this was free and as my great aunt always said take anything that's free someday you'll get something you want and I did a whole pile insulation [Music] today we're going to install an attic ladder yeah that's what I meant I've never done one of these before but seems straightforward enough rough opening twenty-two and a half by 50 for the in this thing series they make a twenty-five and a half I think by fifty four so that's if your joist spacing is wider than mine for my spacing I want the twenty two and a half inch opening it's already twenty two and a half inch wide obviously because that's the spacing of the joists up there but 54 inches no it is not so we need to lengthen the hole and then add an another two by four so that it is twenty-two and a half by fifty four so I'm going to use this with my header the top of my ladder right here will go here total hinge down that way means I need to get rid of this 2x4 right here okay around this way move this or install the new 2x4 54 inches away from this one over here let's just rough I'll go up in the attic and I'll measure more exactly it will just give me an idea of we're going to cut the drywall out too [Music] [Music] somebody to the giant pile of insulation in front of all the tools on the pegboard wall including the level and the straightedge no good enough for who it's for perfect now we got to go up in the attic and measure more exactly from that end to this end and then install something well better than that at least let out now this rough opening should be twenty two and a half inches from here to here so I cut this board to exactly twenty two and a half and if I have to hammer it in a little bit that's okay hopefully they'll kind of push the opening a little bit wider hoping it's not quite wide enough yep a little bit of hammering is going to be required now you want to measure this corner to this corner to make sure that your opening is square I already get that and it's a quarter inch difference so it is not perfectly square but a quarter inch is something I think I can deal with with the shims and a little massaging so I'm not going to be too worried about that you won't have to according the instructions but I'm going to double up this board in this board just going to put another sister another 2x4 onto each side just for added stability and strength it just seems like the right thing to do so I'm just going to cut another two boards to 22 and a half and put them up against all that and then I'll nail them all in now we just get the framing nailer out choo-choo-choo got a lot of room up in the attic to see what's going on but here we are [Music] I can't get on this side to throwing up and the nail this week this is a pore drain lengthwise so toenail in there we go that's pretty rigid stable that's all good yep all right let's open up the box where we got some room in here [Music] [Music] so it looks like we've got some weather stripping with a ladder goes up and down seal against packet hardware wood screws swag screws and pull cord do not remove this strap until instructed okay let's wrap on got it now I have already checked this this ladder works with my ceiling height so depending on your ceiling height you're going to cut a portion of the ladder off and then attach these adjustable legs right here he's on bolt you're going to attach them at the right height so that the legs lay flat against the ground when the ladder is fully open so we did our rough opening 22 and a half by 54 now what we're going to do is we're going to attach some supports temporarily right where our for a header and footer I guess you'd call them go and that's going to allow the ladder to go up in there and then rest on the supports so we'll have a support going this way and the support going this way and the ladder will go up in there and rest on the supports so that it's at the correct height and you can attach it all in at that point in time let's attach the supports all right we're going to throw up our temporary supports here you can use pretty much anything for this that it works this is just some lumber added laying around so long as it spans the gap there the one piece is going to go here one piece is going to go here and that's going to allow you to push the whole ladder assembly up into place rest it on these boards at the appropriate height so that the bottom of the door the ladder door is flush with the drywall of the ceiling you want to go for this lighter model 3/8 of an inch this way so 3/8 of an inch from the end of this drywall and I should clean this drywall up just a little bit more but then you want to go 52 and 7/8 roughly this inside edge to this inside edge and then you'll take the whole ladder and stick it up like that bring it down and you'll rest it on top of the board's so let me trim that up just a little bit so that's a little smoother and then I'll fasten these on there at the appropriate distance of them and they provide you with some wood screws in the kit but I'm going to use these decking screws they're Torx bit easier to get in and out without stripping the heads off of them what would be smart here is a clamp yeah let's get one so that's 3/8 of an inch off the drywall there and the drywall is flush with the hair so it creates a minute off my header and then this needs to be 52 and 7/8 right there on that side here we have it now we can slide the ladder in there and then fasten it they recommend to people to get it up there I'm all by my onesie Selvi today so I'm going to use hydraulics now there are two things I did I'm not putting the camera one is I removed the feet from the bottom of the ladder they said to do that in the instructions it's just done screwing a couple of bolts real simple and the other thing is I threaded the pool cord through so you can pull the ladder down they also said in the instructions this thing weighs about 52 pounds according to the Box worried about being able to lift it up in there myself but that's the judgement call as to whether or not you think you need to wait for assistance I've also already placed my screw gun bits up in there let's go ahead and block the lifting platform so it doesn't roll anywhere now I'm going to go up in there and pull the ladder up to me and then fathom it flush to the header once you do that then you can let it come down and crawl back out onto the stepladder and finish hemming and fastening at least that's my thought the instructions don't specify how to do it by yourself so I'm making this out [Music] all I've done so far is just fashion it up top two temporary screws into the header is holes in here along the on these support boards you don't want to use those for your temporary supports you use those to fasten the permanent supports the lag bolts so don't screw through the holes screw this right into the would leave the holes open and then you're going to level it and shim it and make it all nice and pretty and fit nice and good open closed beautifully and then you're going to actually tour your life Bolton and those will be what actually holds the ladder in place I don't how do I get there's a reason why they want to people luckily I'm spry as a spring chicken will do the temporary fasting animal for the leg bolting so because my opening ones are quite square I had to push it pretty much all the way against this stud so I've got a bit of a gap here but it's not so big that the shims can't can't fill it in nicely I like these nice big wide builder shims because they could be lots of surface area for contact so those will go in there like that but it's pretty much square to itself so that the door closes up nicely and the gap between this edge and our edge imagine the outer edges stand so I'm just going to anchor it right now using the lag bolt on this side then Schumann and Greaves in the light bolt and that side open there lag bolts do come with it they don't have washers that come with it they're 5/16 lag bolts I like to put washers on things like this distribute the weight across the force the tightening force rather across the surface that you're anchoring against I just think it's better [Music] all the holes for the lag bolts left are all up at the top there which makes sense think about it not really a lot of weight being put here on the ladder is being pulled down you're putting all the weight as you walk up it against the floor and up there so that all the fastenings seems to go on up in that area there there isn't even a hole for a fastener into this porter board leave ridging down and you're putting a little bit of pressure this way pulling the frame here towards the ground walk up it but mostly you're pulling down that way so that's where most of the lag bolts appear to go they had you put the top of the thing right up against the header so there's no need for in there about all my little impactor to do all right let's check to see how it goes up and down I'm going to throw a couple more just deck screw fasteners in a couple more shims just because there's still some play available there but I'm sure what's there right now will be perfectly output and then we can take down our temporary support boards and trim it out so it doesn't hold leg out you know rough opening in longer [Music] well now that we've got our shins all cut off this is done this guy here and then we can open this up and check the instructions for what height to cut to based on our ceiling to floor height cut it to that height and then attach the legs to the ball so you can see that right there sitting at a funny angle not straight yeah we are going to have to chop them off so we'll see what the instructions say about that so based on the height of your ceiling you might have to cut either this and the foot or just this or just the foot I have a ceiling that's nine foot three four ceilings between nine to three and nine four four inches it says I just want to do a straight cut at line a so they put nice little notches here and labeled the lines so that you know where to cut so I'm just going to whack off at line eight and then attach the feet good finish cutting the legs off as the camera battery died here's the feet they come with some some bolts with the star lock washers on them their star lock washers I'm gonna put your washers on - I just always like putting washers on things now basically you're just looking for whatever holes line up down there on the bottom by the foot at whatever adjustment level makes the ladder sit nicely so the closest holes make the ladder sit nicely and floors on level like you're in a garage like I am and maybe it Gabrus towards drain or something you might be using different holes on the two different sides but I'm pretty happy with that right there and we use these two holes that look to be the closest ones available [Music] and that fat jiggle of it and the only other thing I see that I'm not a particular fan of is that this is only attached down here at the bottom which means that if you've got a lateral load on it it got bashed you're smashed and moved around it's going to want to pivot our way up here so I might just punch in there and drill a hole and just attach me to one bolt at the top on each side there select the top and bottom of the foot and both anchor to the ladder leg rather than that wasn't too hard would have been easier if I had another person getting out of the attic was interesting but yeah okay much back

Channel: The Kilted Mechanic

Views: 51,183

Rating: 4.8005867 out of 5

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Id: jsF6EPUjKyY

Length: 25min 27sec (1527 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 16 2019