apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Do you buy these somewhere or are you going to show us how to make it?

your dad was not my dad. I was mystified, he would be more so.

what?

a picture, please, of the leveler in use.

Neat! I guessed a wheel barrel ramp.

ok people picture an extension ladder on a slope such that if the ladder is positioned vertically one foot would be on the ground while the other would be floating due to the slope. enter this device to compensate for the non-individually adjustable feet (though some ladders have these). Seems like it would be better if you could use those bolts to adjust to exact lengths by turning instead of being stuck with 1.5" increments but that would be a slightly more complicated project.

I am just picturing myself falling off the ladder and impaling myself on that giant bolt.

brilliant :-)

I'm the inventor of the pictured device, and there's a few items built into it that aren't shown. There's another of those large nuts sunk into the base of the unit that each one of the pieces of all-thread is screwed into. That keeps the all-thread in place when the base is placed on the ground. The nut that's shown in the photograph can be raised and lowered on each piece of all-thread incrementally to take care of an out-of-level condition in both x and y axes (front-back, side-side).

Since my driveway only slopes one way, and the other side of my house is level, I made a larger offset to the 2x4 cleat nailed to the top on one side than the other. If you want to use this on a driveway or slope that goes in one direction on one side of your house, but goes in the other on the other side, nail the 2x4 cleat in the middle of the top 2x12. That way, your ladder will be braced no matter which way the leveler faces.

Construct this from pressure-treated lumber (2x12 for the top, 2x4 for the top cleat and 2x4 pieces for the spacers and the base. Drill holes slightly larger than the all-thread in the base, top and spacer pieces. Counter-bore holes large enough to screw the bottom nuts onto the end of the all thread and push them up through the holes in the base. Apply Loctite or Teflon tape to the threads onh the all-thread before you screw the nuts onto the ends. That way, they won't accidentally back off. Use enough spacer pieces to get you close to level, then put a level on the top piece and raise the upper nuts with a crescent wrench until the top is level.

You're ready to rock and roll.

I fell off the roof of a building in my back yard in 1994, and spent the better part of the next 2 years in a wheelchair and 6 surgeries to correct the effects of the fall. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention, and I am indeed the soul of caution when I'm up on a ladder.

I'll see if I can't get some detailed photos on the site so you can see exactly how it's made. If I can save anybody the hassle I went through rehabbing from that fall, it'll be worth it. It's not the fall that hurts, it's the sudden stop at the end.