Attic Ladder

One of the unexpected expenses we have had since we moved into the house was the attic ladder.  This house was built in 1980 and I think it is original to the house.  When we were moving in and M tried to get on the ladder to haul Christmas stuff up - it buckled like it was about to snap.  For three weeks we had our stuff all over the house while we tried to figure out what to do.  Our inspector was not able to get up into the attic using the ladder because the former owners were crazy hoarders and had so much crap blocking it that all he could do was open it part way and get inside using his own ladder.  If we had known we might have asked them to fix it.  Or maybe they broke it hauling their stuff down?  Who knows.

Anywho...I called our home warranty company to see if an attic ladder is covered.  It's not and neither are fire ants so that was disappointing.  Maybe it was just me but I wasn't sure if you could buy a ladder, had to call a contractor or what the solution was.  So I did some googling and low and behold - you can actually buy an attic ladder and install it yourself!  CRAZY!  Last weekend we spent Sunday installing it and frankly the whole project is very straightforward - except for tedious task of the temporary support beams while you bolt the ladder into place.

I think it took us three hours to install it and the only casualty was our garage fridge getting a decent dent on the edge when M dropped the ladder.  I thought that when you bought an attic ladder you were replacing just the stairs - it is actually a frame, ladder and door.  We selected an aluminum ladder which in hindsight was the best choice because I had to lift the ladder up to M so he could settle it on our temporary support beams and a wood one might have been too heavy.

The part we struggled with was lining up the temporary support boards.  They give you specific measurements on how far apart to space them but ultimately when you pull the door down, there is not much frame surrounding the door so we ended up picking up the ladder, shifting it to crack open the door and slide it under the support beam.  The only post-install fix we need to make is lowering the legs - now when you are on the ladder it is not touching the floor.  Luckily that is an easy fix.  As you can see from the pictures, our supervisor couldn't take how slow the minions were moving on this project!

This weekend we have my company family picnic (which is actually a Rockhounds baseball game) but otherwise we are going to cool it on projects this weekend.  We agreed to start filling in the pond hole and maybe rip out the half dead plants at the front of the house but otherwise, nothing major this weekend!