If you are interested in having a car lift installed within an existing residential garage, commercial garage, or large warehouse, you are certainly going to need to figure out your potential car lift dimensions to see if a lift will fit within the space you have. Overlooking this aspect of installation could result in damage to your garage, damage to the vehicles you try to park with the lift, and injuries for people using the lift. This is what you should know about car lift height requirements before having them put in.
The Basic Necessary Garage Clearance
At the most basic level, you may want a single car lift to add one extra space to a garage. As you look at the lifts offered by different companies, you should review the specifications that they list and find the clearance height and car lift dimensions. This will tell you the minimum garage height needed for a car lift and how high your ceiling should be to accommodate the lift without issues when it raises up a car fully. Usually, you can expect the clearance to be roughly between eleven and twelve feet.
Multiple Lift Variation Needs
A simple two-post lift that stores one car above and one car below is not always what you may want. For a warehouse where you have a high ceiling and must store a substantial number of cars, you might go for a tri- or quad-lift to make use of the vertical space. Again, you’ll want to know the ceiling height required for a car lift after taking into account beams and fixtures like lights and other car lift specifications. Then compare this to the clearance of the lifts. A tri-lift may require about twenty-three or twenty-four feet and a quad-lift may need around thirty feet. This may vary based on the specific lift model, and you can often request changes to the clearance to fit different-size vehicles.
Hanging Lift Variation Needs
Another car lift dimension requirement you should know about pertains to variations in the platform. Some car lifts have a platform that hangs down from a larger framework, which then pulls upward instead of pushing up to raise a car. Despite this difference, you still must know the measurements to determine the proper car lift clearance height to prevent a mishap. You don’t want the lift to pull so high that the car makes contact with the ceiling. Furthermore, the framework that surrounds and supports the lift has a minimum height requirement just like a more straightforward lift design. Still, you have a lot of flexibility with a hanging lift, as you can adjust the clearance needs based on the vehicles you plan to store in it. A shorter vehicle naturally won’t require as much height as a taller one.
For a parking lift manufacturer you can trust to help you find the model that will fit in your space safely, call Harding Steel. We will be happy to advise you on the best course of action as you move forward with your plans.