Simple, attractive, functional method to hide a pull down mechanism; for example, a hidden attic staircase for access to a storage area

Abstract

The present invention uses magnets and a wand to create a simple, attractive and functional way to get rid of the hanging cord and handle in an attic staircase. We call it the Magnetic Pulldown. It has an attractive fixture with magnets in the ceiling above and a three-foot wand with a powerful magnet nearby. The ceiling fixture houses the conventional rope and handle for pulling down the attic staircase. The handle is in a pocket and is visible from the floor below. The handle has weak magnets pointing up to keep it in place and a powerful magnet pointing down, awaiting the wand's powerful magnet to pull it out. To access the attic the user gets the wand and snaps it into the powerful magnet in the handle above. The user easily pulls the handle and rope down, snaps the bond between the magnets, z and uses the rope and handle to pull the attic staircase down. The Magnetic Pulldown needs no motor or electrical components. There is a prototype for this invention in the home of one of the inventors.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The goal of this invention is to provide an alternative to the rope and handle that hangs down from a folding staircase, hidden above. The handle bangs the head of some people walking by—or forces them to stand on a stool to get the handle, a dangerous proposition. Here we identify the prior art and inventions which proceed our invention.

The prior art starts with the simple, rigid ladder which has been used for thousands of years. The first major improvement in the art was the stepladder, in which two ladders are joined at the top and the pair is stabilized by cross members. This makes for a sturdy, free-standing device to reach high spaces.

The first stepladder to be patented in the US was US 34100, awarded to J. H. Basley in 1862. It looked much like the modern step ladder, with flat, wooden stairs in front and horizontal, angled and crossed braces in back. The patent's title is “IMPROVED STEP LADDER,” which implies that the concept of two hinged ladders was already in existence.

The prior art took a major step when the folding stepladder was introduced. This was done in 1890 by J. T. O'Brien with US 437936. He showed how to hinge two sections of a vertical ladder so they could reach still higher spaces, and could be folded up into a space half as high. This innovation presaged using 3 or more sections of a ladder, which is known as a folding staircase.

The next major advance in the art was the placement of a rigid ladder in the ceiling and a way to drop that ladder to the floor. This was patented in 1929 by H. W. Charles in U.S. Pat. No. 1,724,824. A narrow, rigid ladder was placed above the ceiling and a section of the ceiling could be tilted up to allow the ladder to be slipped, on an angle, to the floor beneath.

It was a natural step to put a folding ladder (a staircase) above the ceiling and find a way to unfold the staircase as it is lowered to the floor. This step was patented in 1931 by F. E. Bessler in U.S. Pat. No. 1,811,708. The staircase is attached to a movable platform which is pivoted to the ceiling on one side. When the staircase is concealed, the platform is the ceiling itself. When the platform is pivoted down, the staircase unfolds, forming a rigid ladder when it meets the floor below. The patent has an optional electric motor to start and to lower the platform and staircase. The movement can also be done manually.

The Bessler design, with minor variations and the manual option, is now known, in the US, as the very popular “Attic Ladder.” It is available for pickup in stores like Home Depot and Lowes. And they usually have a rope and handle attached to the platform for a pulldown; so there are lots of dangling handles to be dealt with.

Some specialized stores like Stairway Shop sell remote controlled pulldowns which need no dangling rope and handle. Other such products are U.S. Pat. No. 6,866,118 (Battenberg, 2004), U.S. Pat. No. 7,841,448 (Lair, 2010) and U.S. Pat. No. 9,540,824 (Sandberg, 2017).

A popular and simple commercial product, “Attic Ease,” uses a pole and a ring as a pulldown. It is based on U.S. Pat. No. 8,480,147 (Jones, 2013) and can be used with any non-electric pulldown. It eliminates the rope and handle completely.

Other patents have modifications to the those mentioned above, including U.S. Pat. No. 2,572,281 (Pierce, 1951), U.S. Pat. No. 2,743,861 (Maths, 1956), U.S. Pat. No. 2,907,401 (Wagner, 1959), U.S. Pat. No. 3,283,853 (Brophy, 1965), U.S. Pat. No. 5,050,706 (Cole, 1991), U.S. Pat. No. 7,621,374 (Richey, 2009), U.S. Pat. No. 9,435,126 (Kasinski, 2016), and U.S. Pat. No. 9,540,824 (Sandburg, 2017).

BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS OF THE DRAWINGS

The current invention provides a simple, attractive and functional way to hide the rope and handle which is used to pull an attic staircase from the ceiling to the floor.

The characteristics and specifications of the invention are detailed in the claims. But the invention may be better understood, made, and used with the review of the annotated drawings which are in Sheets 1, 2, and 3 of the present patent application. Here we present a brief summary of those drawings.

Sheet 1 has two Figures: FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B. FIG. 1A shows a hallway with a dangling rope and handle, FIG. 1B shows the present invention installed in the hallway. No rope and handle is dangling down.

Sheet 2 has six Figures: FIG. 2A—FIG. 2F. These show the steps a homeowner makes to pull the handle and rope out of their positions in the ceiling.

Sheet 3 has four Figures: FIG. 3A—FIG. 3D. These show how the handle and rope are kept in the ceiling while no pulldown is underway; and they show how the parts of the invention are manipulated when the homeowner wants to access the overhead space.

DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS OF THE INVENTION

Reference is made, herein, to the three attached sheets, Sheet 1, Sheet 2, and Sheet 3, which show detailed drawings of the invention.

Sheet 1

Sheet 1 has two figures, FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B. FIG. 1A is a drawing of a hallway with an elongated platform in the ceiling and with a rope and handle hanging down from the platform.

To gain access to the space above the platform, a homeowner will grab the handle and pull it down. This action will tilt the platform down and will unfold a ladder stored above the platform. FIG. 1A is an embodiment of the common Attic Ladder; and the action of the homeowner is commonly called a pulldown.

The rope and handle in FIG. 1A are usually located in the middle of the passageway. This creates a hazard for tall walkers who may bop their head on the handle; and it creates a possible danger for small users who may need a stool to grab the handle above their reach. Moreover, the pair (rope and handle) is an eyesore to most people.

FIG. 1B is a drawing of the same hallway but there is no rope and handle hanging down. Instead, there is a fixture called the Magnet Pulldown (MP) attached to the platform. A detailed description of the MP is presented in Sheet 3. For now, we note that the MP has a handle facing down, with a magnet in its center. The MP eliminates the potential hazard and danger presented in FIG. 1A; and the MP is definitely not an eyesore.

Sheet 2

Sheet 2 has six figures, FIG. 2A—FIG. 2F. It is a sequence of six drawings showing a homeowner drawing a rope and handle out of the Magnetic Pulldown (MP).

FIG. 2A The homeowner gets the wand, which has a magnet in its top.

FIG. 2B The homeowner lines up the wand with the MP.

FIG. 2C The homeowner attaches the wand's magnet to the MP's magnet with a snap.

FIG. 2D The homeowner pulls the handle and rope out of the MP.

FIG. 2E The homeownerbreaks the wand's magnet from the handle's magnet.

FIG. 2F The homeowner begins to pull the folding staircase out of the ceiling.

Sheet 3

This sheet has four figures: FIG. 3A, FIG. 3B, FIG. 3C, and FIG. 3D.

FIG. 3A

This figure shows the Magnet Pulldown (MP) 1 with the handle 2 nestled in the center of the MP. The MP, itself, is firmly attached to the platform 3. The platform is about 4 feet long and 2 feet wide but we show only part of it in this sheet. The MP is firmly attached to the under side of the platform, as shown, and the handle will be drawn out of the MP during a pulldown. The handle has a ½ inch magnet 14 in its center.

FIG. 3B

This figure shows the wand 4. The wand is 36 inches long, is made of wood, and is an extended cylinder with diameter of ½ inch. It has a ½ inch magnet glued to its top and a thin, rubber cap glued to the bottom. The cap extends ½ inch up the base. The wand will pull the handle and rope out of the MP during a pulldown.

FIG. 3C

This part shows the interactions between the MP, handle, rope and metal screws. The handle is partially extracted from the MP and is flipped over to reveal a pocket 5 for the handle. There is a ½ inch hole 6 in the MP from which the rope will emerge during a pulldown. The rest of the rope is in a box of its own, as seen in the next image. Two screws 7 are positioned to be attracted to two ¼ inch magnets 8, when no pulldown is underway. Those magnets will keep the handle in its pocket to prevent the rope and handle from falling down.

FIG. 3D

This part shows the area above the MP as seen from the attic. The rope is anchored to the platform with a screw 9. The rope 13 passes through a small hole 10 and into a box 1 which is about 3 inches long, 2 inches wide, and 2 inches high. The box is located on the top side of the platform and is the repository for the rope when no pulldown is underway. During that time the rope 13 is coiled up inside the box 11. When the pulldown is activated the rope at 12 is pulled through the large hole 6 and down. The rope 13 and handle 14 will also be pulled down. The passage of rope from inside the box and the passage of rope and handle is smooth and easy. See figures FIG. 3C and FIG. 3D in the sequential steps of Sheet 2.

Discussion

Note that the two small magnets in the internal side of the handle have a small diameter of ¼ inch. When the handle is in its pocket it is kept there by the attraction of these small magnets to the 2 metal screws. This is a rather weak attraction but it keeps the handle in place. When a pulldown is activated the ½ inch magnet in the wand and the ½ inch magnet in the external surface of the handle easily overcome the holding attraction of the smaller, ¼ inch magnets in the hidden side of the handle. This is a key element of this invention.

It will be obvious to one skilled in the art that there are other applications where the concept of a wand with several magnets could be used to reach high places. It will be a simple matter to adjust the pole lengths, string lengths and magnet sizes to apply the invention to such cases.

The Magnetic Pulldown improves the look of the pulldown, as shown in the attached images. And users love the safety, convenience, snap of the magnets, and visual loss of the hanging eyesore.

We note that the lead author (Manuel Zuniga) of this invention has a working prototype at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. The other two inventors have seen it and have exercised the invention.

Finally, we state a Preface to our five claims, which are on the next page. Those claims apply to an attic staircase, which is a device to gain access to space above a walkway. Such a device is the 1931 patent U.S. Pat. No. 1,811,708 by F. E. Bessler, which pivots a platform cut from the ceiling, down, about halfway to the floor. During the pivoting the device unfolds a ladder to reach the floor below. In most embodiments of this device it is lowered by a person who pulls on a rope attached to the platform. This action is called a pulldown. When the platform is in the ceiling it is flat with the ceiling and is, therefore, nearly concealed. But the rope and a handle, which a user must grab to pull the device down, is still in view. Hiding the rope and handle is the goal of the present invention. Our claims and figures show how we meet that goal.

Claims

1. An elongated box, the magnetic pulldown (MP) 1, is firmly attached to the under side of a 4 foot long by 2 foot wide platform 3, which will be pivoted down as part of the attic ladder. This box stores a rope 12, 13 and part of a handle. The handle 2 is nestled in a cutout 5 in the middle of the MP and it has a ½ inch magnet 14 pointed directly down towards the floor. The handle also has two ¼ inch magnets 8 on the sides pointing up. Those smaller magnets and the rope are not visible. So the MP has a clean, even elegant, look. The magnets keep the handle and rope in place until a user wants to access the attic.

2. The invention uses a 36 inch wand 4 with a ½ inch magnet on its tip to connect with the ½ inch magnet in the handle 14 to pull it down. The wand is made of a light material like wood because there is very little force needed to pull the handle and rope out of the MP. The wand also has a rubber cap glued to its bottom, covering about ½ inch to give the user some traction when a pulldown is underway.

3. The MP 1 also has two metal screws 7, on the left and right sides of the handle's cutout 5. They serve two functions. They are screwed into the platform 3 to give the device some extra rigidity and they are targets for the ¼ inch magnets 8 on the back side of the handle 2. The small metallic attraction is what keeps the handle in its nest when no pulldown is underway. The rope 12, 13 is attached to the back of the handle with a washer and screw. There is a ½ inch hole 6 in the back center of the MP. That hole continues through the platform and through a box which resides above the platform. That hole allows the rope to be stored in the second box, as described in claim 4.

4. The invention has another box 11 about 3 inches long, 2 inches wide, and 2 inches high. It is attached to the platform 3 from the storage space and it houses the rope 12,13 which will be pulled out and down when a pulldown is started. The rope is anchored to the platform with a screw 9 just outside the box. It passes through a small hole 10 into the box and lies there curled around 12 until a pulldown is started. At that time the rope exits the box through the ½ inch hole 6 in the box, platform, and MP 1. The passage of rope from inside the box and the passage of rope and handle is smooth and easy.

5. The size of the magnets, 8, 14, and the placement of screws 7 is very carefully calibrated. Note that the two small magnets 8 in the internal side of the handle 2 have a small diameter of ¼ inch. When the handle is in its pocket 5 it stays there by a weak attraction. When a pulldown is activated the ½ inch magnets in the wand and the handle easily overcome the weaker magnets 8 in the hidden side of the handle. The handle and rope are pulled, smoothly, into the room below.