Harbor Freight 1100 lb. Hoist

When we moved to our new retirement home in 2010, one of the first chores on my list was to install a hoist in the ceiling of the garage. I decided on the 1100 lb.

capacity hoist from Harbor Freight (HF). I had previously purchased a nearly identical, but smaller, 800 lb. capacity hoist for use in the garage of our previous home, but never got around to installing it.

Even so, I rigged it up a few times in a temporary configuration and got some use out of it, but never the full benefit that I had hoped for.

By the time we moved to the new home, the heaviest machine in my arsenal of machine tools was the Sieg SX4 mill. At over 800 lbs. it set a new high water mark for weight, exceeding the capacity of the 800 lb.

hoist. Not wanting to do the job twice, I decided to skip installing the 800 lb. hoist and move ahead with the 1100 lb. hoist. Finding it on sale at HF, I zipped on down in the pickup and had it unpacked within an hour.

The general idea for the hoist was this: with a heavy machine in the bed of the pickup, just back the truck into the garage and lift the load above the truck bed with the hoist.

Then, after driving the truck out of the garage, lower the load onto a furniture dolly and then roll it over the threshold of the doorway between the garage and the shop.

Easy. When I sell a machine, just reverse the process.

Lifting the Sieg U1 mill from the pickup bed

Not long after I got the hoist, I also purchased a 1000 lb. capacity hydraulic table from HF. Before I got the hydraulic table, I would lower the machine onto a furniture dolly and then use the HF folding crane to lift the machine from the dolly onto the bench.

Now, using the hydraulic lift cart, I lower the machine from the bed of the pickup directly onto the cart. If the load is top-heavy or at all unstable, I strap it down to the table with one or two cargo straps.

With the cart in the fully lowered position, to keep the center of mass as low, and therefore as stable as possible, I then roll the machine over the threshold into the shop, then raise the lift cart until it is even with the bench top.

Then it’s a simple matter (or not so simple, if the machine weighs more than 500 lbs!) of sliding the machine from the cart to the bench. All of this can be done efficiently and safely by one person working alone.

Lowering the Sieg U1 mill onto the lift cart

Safety Warning#

In the following section, I describe how I hung the hoist from the garage ceiling. I’m not a structural engineer and have very limited experience in the building trades, so nothing presented here is certified in any way to be safe.

I have tested it with loads up to about 500 lbs. so far, but if you decide to adapt any of these ideas for your own use, please do not assume that the structure of your ceiling is comparable to mine and that it is safe to hang a 1000 lb. (or even 200 lb.) load from the hoist.

Test thoroughly with gradually increasing loads to make sure that your setup is safe. Listen and watch carefully for any evidence of stress in the equipment and the supporting ceiling.

Even if it tests out, always stay clear of any load suspended from the hoist - things can and will go wrong when working with heavy loads.

It is possible that a failure of a similar installation could cause significant structural damage to your home and/or cause personal injury - so please be careful!

When lowering heavy loads onto a supporting structure, such as a workbench or dolly, make sure that the structure is strong enough, and held together securely enough, to bear the full load.

Take into account that a moving load will impose forces that may be much greater than those imposed by a static load.

If the bench is on wheels, make sure that the wheels are strong enough to support the load - they should be rated for 50-100% more than the weight of the load - and are properly secured to the bench.

If a wheel fails, the load may be suddenly and unpredictably dumped on the floor.

When working with heavy loads, if possible have a partner present to help out if things go wrong. Keep a phone within easy reach in case you need to call for help.

When lifting heavy loads, only those persons essential to the task should be present. You need to keep focused on what you’re doing. Children should not be anywhere near the operation.

Children may act unpredictably and put themselves or others in danger. If you want to show off your hoist to children, use light loads (e.g. 10-15 lbs) and use extra caution.

If you decide to adapt any information from this article for your own use, you do so at your own risk.

I had been thinking for some time about how to mount the hoist in the ceiling of the garage so that the ceiling could safely bear the weight of the load on the hoist.

Our pre-retirement home was built in the 70’s and used real wood 2x12 ceiling joists in the garage, so it had plenty of weight-bearing capacity.

The new home, by contrast, has so-called “engineered joists”, which basically are like a narrow I-beam made from pressed-wood materials.

I guess that they’re pretty strong, if they’re permitted by the building code, but when I look at them they just don’t inspire the same confidence that the solid wood joists do.

Nevertheless, that’s what I had to work with. My goal, then, was to spread the load across several of the joists: sort of a divide-and-conquer strategy.

I envisioned hanging the hoist from a couple of 2x4’s laid out across several of the joists.

As it turned out, at the time I retired and we moved into our new home, I was recovering from some fairly major lower-back surgery, so my wife didn’t think that it was a good idea for me to be working on a tall stepladder (the garage ceiling is 10 feet high) and crawling around among the rafters in the attic.

An HVAC mechanic who was installing an auxiliary heat pump for my shop agreed to do the work as a side project.

He recommended hanging the hoist from two metal channels, called Super Strut, typically used for supporting electrical and HVAC equipment in commercial buildings.

Within a few days, he purchased and delivered the Super Strut and other materials needed for the job. Then he dropped out of sight. Not sure what happened, but, apparently, he lost interest in doing the job.

Time went by. My back healed. Then one sunny day, I said to myself: “Self, you can do this!”. And so I did.

I decided to combine my idea with the HVAC mechanic’s idea and lay some 8-foot long 2x3’s across the joists, for extra length, then lay the 6-foot long Super Strut on top of the 2x3’s.

This arrangement would spread the load across at least 4 ceiling joists and also more than double the size of the footprint bearing the load.

For hanging the hoist, the HVAC mechanic had provided an 8-foot length of 3/8" all-thread. I laid out, drilled and tapped a 1/2" thick aluminum plate, from a piece of scrap I had on hand, and hung it from the all-thread.

Then I bolted the frame of the hoist to the underside of the aluminum plate using the metric cap screws provided with the hoist.

I used the plate as a template to drill the holes through the ceiling of the garage. Using a really long (about 18"!) drill that I got on the cheap in a set of three from HF, I drilled a reference hole from the attic floor down through the sheetrock garage ceiling.

The ceiling is well insulated with fiberglass insulation which, naturally, wrapped around the drill bit to make the process more interesting.

Since there was no easy way to tell where the joists were, I ended up cutting out a piece of the sheetrock ceiling about 9x12" so that I could see where things were.

That made it much easier to position the holes, and thus the all-thread hangers, where they needed to go. Once that was done, it was easy to patch and paint the ceiling so that no one (except you, my readers) was the wiser.

With the all-thread hangers in place, the next step was to get up on the step ladder and attach the aluminum plate. That job was pretty easy. Next, I had to carry the hoist up the ladder and attach it to the plate.

That part was a little harder. The hoist, at about 15 lbs., is not terribly heavy, but it soon feels heavy if you have to hold it in place with one hand while trying with the other hand to get the metric bolt lined up with the tapped hole and secure it in place.

Then, while holding the hoist up, reach down and get the second bolt and repeat. Once two bolts are in place in opposite corners, you can take a breather.

Some time earlier, I had made a handy ladder-top tool holder for my step ladder. In fact, I have 4 step ladders in 3, 6, 8 and 10 foot heights, and the tool holder is useful on the taller three ladders.

It turned out to be a great benefit for holding the bolts, tools and even the hoist itself, while I was working 10 feet off the floor.

I used a lab-jack, a device kind of like a miniature lift table, to raise the hoist up from the ladder-top platform to where it engaged with the aluminum plate.

This made it much easier to get the screws in place, since the weight of the hoist was mainly borne by the jack. I got the lab jack on eBay some years ago for a totally unrelated project.

Sadly, after I had secured the hoist to the plate, the lab jack fell to the floor, breaking two of the cast aluminum arms. But a few hours work with the mill and I had two replacement arms.

It’s stronger now than when it was new.

Using the Hoist#

The hoist has two modes of operation: single line and double line. In single-line mode, the lifting cable hangs straight down from the cable drum of the hoist.

In double-line mode, the cable loops around a pulley in a second hook assembly that’s provided with the hoist.

The hook-end of the cable then loops back up to the hoist and hooks onto a hole in the frame of the hoist that’s there for that purpose.

It is only in double-line mode that the hoist can lift the full advertised load of 1100 lbs. In single-line mode, the effective capacity is cut in half to just 550 lbs.

Obviously, the available length of cable is also cut in half, but at xxx feet, the cable is so long that this should not be a problem unless you are working in a building with really high ceilings.

A second effect, not so obvious, is that the speed at which the load is lifted also is cut in half. However, for my needs, this second effect turns out to be an advantage rather than a limitation.

I find the single-line lift speed faster than I would like for good control and maximum safety.

Even at the double-line speed, the hoist can seem a little speedy when you’re trying to gently lower a load of 500 lbs. or more onto a bench.

To use the hoist effectively, a few other accessories are needed. First and foremost, some strong and versatile lifting straps are in order.

Originally, I adapted nylon towing straps and cargo tie-down straps to wrap around the load being lifted.

These had sufficient load capacity, and got the job done, but were not really optimal. Not long after I bought the new hoist, I noticed that HF had some nylon straps made specifically for lifting loads - just what I needed.

At about $5 each, I bought two and they have proven to be a really good investment.

They’re xxx inches long with about a 6" loop at each end that can be slipped over the hook of the hoist. When using two straps together, all four of the looped ends are a little too thick to fit conveniently (and safely) in the hook of the hoist.

Therefore, I added two locking joints to the hook.

Not only do these provide a lot more space for the lifting strap loops, I leave them in place on the hook all the time and they provide a light load that’s just enough to keep the pulley from slipping off the cable when there’s no load on the hook.

The only component of the hoist that disappointed me was the little metal clip that encloses the open part of the hook to keep the straps, or whatever is hung on the hook, from the possibility of slipping off the hook - most likely when there’s little or no load to hold them down.