Farmers Feed the World The Manlift

...looking back down the elevator shaft the manlift rides in. You can see the ground floor in the center of the picture. The manlift is a small, one person elevator for transporting the elevator operators to the upper rooms in the elevator. A cable connects to the top of the manlift. This cable travels to the top of the grain elevator, around a pulley and back down to a counter-weight. The manlift is raised or lowered by releasing a brake and pulling on a rope. There are four levels the manlift can stop at; the main house ground floor, the seed cleaning room above the driveway, the bin floor above the bins and the cupola floor in the top of the elevator.           It's quite a bit of work moving between the levels in the manlift. The rope is made from hemp and unless your hands are really tuff it's nice to have a pair of gloves handy. In spite of all this, it's great fun riding in it.           Two ladders are the only other ways to get up to the higher levels in the elevator. Both the two ladders and the manlift are placed in the two shafts near the legs.

Looking down at the floor of the manlift you will see several weights. As mentioned above, the manlift operates on a counterweight system. If the elevator operators don't all weigh the same amount, they will need to add or subtract weights to equalize the weight between the manlift and the counterweight. The ideal solution is to get a perfect balance but this rarely happens. Generally, the elevator will either travel in the up direction or down direction easier. If someone has gone up the manlift it's not uncommon to see a weight sitting on the main house floor. Sometimes an operator has gone to the top of the elevator and another operator needs to get to the top as well. In such a case, the only other way up is to climb one of the two 80 foot ladders.           The small pedal towards the back wall of the manlift is the brake pedal. Before the operator can move the manlift, he must first step on the pedal, releasing the brake. Should something go wrong with the manlift and it starts falling, all the operator has to do is take his foot off the pedal and the brake will stop the manlift.           The flashlight comes in handy should an operator need to inspect the contents of a bin or see into one of the many dark corners in the elevator.

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All contents copyright (C) 2000, Al Durtschi.  All rights reserved.
Revised: 22 Jun 00