Safely hoisting panels

newenergy · March 2008

Carrying panels up a ladder seems to be the norm, but not safe. It may be ok once in a while, but if you or your employees do this all the time someday something bad will happen.

Motorized ladder hoists are $1200+

Scissor lifts are more expensive

They are $100-$200 to rent for a day.

It seems like they are probably worth that price or close to it in time saving alone. But, they both seem like overkill as modules aren't that heavy.

Is there a simple, off the shelf, manual hoist? It seems like a ladder hoist with everything but the motor would be just about it and should cost considerably less.

Any other ideas?

n3qik · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

If you are using a extension ladder to get to the roof. How about some type of sled thingy lifted by rope up and down the ladder.

newenergy · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

Yeah, at the moment I'm thinking about stuff like that.

There's something called a ladder derrick which mounts a pulley to the rungs or maybe I could mount a hand winch to a ladder jack.

Then I'd have to build a custom sled or find just the sled part of a ladder hoist.

icarus · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

If all you are doing is taking them to the roof, consider a shingle elevator. Or a hay bale elevator. You can buy used hay elevators at most farm machinery auctions for a few bucks since few people use them any more.

There is also a hand cranked fork lift called a "genie lift" or a "beam lifter" that you can rent from most construction rental yards. We used them to raise big beams on construction sites. Portable, light and easy to work with.

Good luck,

Icarus

mike95490 · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

newenergy wrote: »

Carrying panels up a ladder seems to be the norm, but not safe. It may be ok once in a while, but if you or your employees do this all the time someday something bad will happen.

The first 3 or 4 are OK, then you get a bit tired, and that's when accidents happen. We did mine with 4 people in a chain, like fire buckets. 1 grabed from a pile an carried to the ladder, 1 was 2 steps up the ladder, 1 was 2 steps below the roof, and one was on the roof. We stacked 22 panels on the 1st roof, took a long break, and then did it all over again up to the 2nd floor roof. Lots of work.

Roderick has a good system he rigged up - ropes and pulleys to get from ground to roof.
http://forum.solar-electric.com/showthread.php?t=116&highlight=panel scroll down about 2/3 to his post August 14th, 2006, 12:55
Also, he taped a longish video covering all aspects of his 1 man project.
http://forum.solar-electric.com/showthread.php?t=336&highlight=panel
He also has a Palm Pilot application for manual entry of harvest and utility meter readings.

newenergy · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

Thanks for the replies.

The hay elevator idea was interesting and the others too. You might be able to get a cheap one if you look, but the ladder hoist/shingle elevator is about the same price new anyway and is a lot smaller.

I had found the Roderick's description and thought about that, but hadn't seen the video. It looks good, but I'm really thinking more about 2 story installations and doing it over and over. It seems like that set up was good for his needs, but not for taller roofs or at least seemed more specific to that job.

It may well be worth it to just buy a ladder hoist to save the time and energy.

Mike, was your roof 1 or 2 stories? and about how many person-hours total do you think it took to get them up there?

mike95490 · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

newenergy wrote: »

Mike, was your roof 1 or 2 stories? and about how many person-hours total do you think it took to get them up there?

2 story roof, I guess about 8 man hours. For 1 time, get a case of something cold to drink, and invite reliable friends. If you are running a business, look into hiring a roofing company's conveyor belt elevator.

westbranch · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

another idea comes form my re roofing project.. the local building supply place sent out a 'Hyab Hoist ' equipped truck to lift a 2 pallets of duroid shingles, ciost me $30. I would think you could hire one of these locally...

just another thought..

Cheers
Eric

VolcanoSolar · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

Because I had clips attached for my mounting system, I was able to add a nylon webbing strap to carry my panels to the roof.

I did this after carrying one or two up without the strap and suffering a bit of awkwardness in the transition from ladder to roof, working alone.

It went quite smoothly with the addition of the strap.

- Ted

VolcanoSolar · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

By the way, the solar electric panels were a piece of cake compared to the solar hot water panels, which were a full 4' x 8' and weighed about a million pounds each.

For those we had three ladders and a crew of seven: three to man the ladders, two on ropes on top, and two more backing up the ropes. Went off without a hitch.

- Ted

Ralph Day · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

Ain't it tough NOT to think of how much dollar value you're hauling up when you're doing it like that? Yikes.

Ralph

nigtomdaw · March 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

Figure 2 x $800 dropped panels over a couple or years equals no dropped panels if the machine you bought is the correct machine and years or future service. If you run a bussiness long term..... go and calculate cost and saving and make a decision.:roll:

Billy DIY the one time installer takes the risks and precautions..gets loads of mates and a cool one when finished , note when finished ,,,Peter the pro buys the right gear...always . Billy or Peter ?

Sorry if a pro a no brianer as you loveable Yanks say:p

Telco · April 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

I'd have to say that running a business you should invest in the proper gear. If one of your employees is injured from carrying panels up a roof in a haphazard jury-rigged manner, you are going to be liable for a lawsuit, and you can bet his lawyer will be there with pictures of how you do it vs how it should be done with the proper equipment. Or, should one employee drop a panel on top of another employee, you could be liable for death by negligence, and might spend some time keeping Bubba company. And Bubba likes your company, whether you do or not

.

Then there's the whole time is money thing, a proper lift can let you get all the panels up in a very short time, while trying to depend on manual labor may mean half the day is spent lugging panels. This may mean the difference between completing one job in two days vs completing it in one, or even two small jobs in one day as opposed to one in one day.

Also, business equipment can be deducted from your business income taxes as a depreciated asset. This will lower the actual cost of buying and maintaining the piece of equipment. What I think I'd be looking at is a shingle truck that allows you to extent a conveyer belt on a boom, with enough storage at the base of the converyer to carry the panels. With this, you just pull the truck up to the job site, extend the boom and start pushing panels on the roof. Once you and your employees get experience, this can mean pulling up to the job site and having all the panels safely on the roof in 30 minutes. Then, the employees won't already be tired by the time the panels are on the roof, so they will be able to work faster, yet with less strain and will likelier be happier workers.

It's a mistake to only consider the cost of a piece of equipment in dollars.

newenergy · April 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

Telco/nigtomdaw,

Thx. That's probably what I will be doing eventhough standard *professional* procedure is to just pay a guy to carry it up a ladder. I really don't want anyone to get hurt. The truck sounds really expensive and it's not quite like shingles where a shingle takes 5 seconds to install so you'd better have a lot of them on the roof at once.

At the moment I'm thinking of owning and using this:

21CDX6ZST0L._AA280_.jpg

which should be able to bring up 3 or 4 panels at a time, or sometimes renting:

pid131-003.400.400.scale.jpg

which will also be able to bring people up to the roof.

Telco · April 2008

Re: Safely hoisting panels

That looks OK, can strap the panels to the platform and they won't fall. Cool. 8)

Safely hoisting panels

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