Garage Question: Hanging tire rack from ceiling without attic access?

I want to hang a tire rack between my garage doors from the ceiling to store two sets of winter tires/wheels out of sight.

The plan was to build a rectangle out of pipe, and then suspend that from the ceiling.

The issue I have, is that only "half" of the rack has accessible attic above. I had wanted to drop threaded rod down, and use pipe hangers/rod to suspend the rack, but not sure how to do this on the other side.

The floor joists don't line up with where the rack is, so I figured my options are either lagging a big 2x6 to the ceiling first, and then maybe using pipe/flanges bolted to that?

Or... some kind of channel with a trapped nut bolted to the ceiling first (into joists/truss), with rod hanging down from that in the right spot?

I would use some big screws to anchor a 2x6 to the ceiling, and mount a few pulleys on it. That way you can hang your tire racks from the pulleys and have easy up/down.

In reply to xflowgolf:

Assuming the attic floor joists are spaced 16" O.C., open up the sheet rock and attic flooring to allow you to place a 6 foot length of 2x6 on top of the floor joists. Then use a Simpson DTT1Z connector to attach a threaded rod to the 2x6. That will spread the loads over several floor joists. This is much safer than using lag bolts.

Simpson DTT1Z image

What you are looking for is called unistrut. Its a C shaped channel that you lag against a wall or ceiling and hang things from. Want to know what it looks like, go to any store and look up. All the lights, heat ducts, etc. hang from this stuff. Home Depot sells it along with all of the different types of hangers that slide into the channel, and its not that expensive. Just had to run over 300 feet of gas pipe in a sewage treatment plant. Went thru a whole pickup truck load of this stuff.

What makes the other half un-accessible? Is there a finished room above or just too tight to get a human into the space? Which way do the joists run? If you are trying to run parallel with the joists that is going to stress out a couple of them and may result in sagging. If you are running perpedicular you should be able to spread the load over many of the joists. If you use a piece of strut ( a "U" shaped channel, comes 10' long with holes every 2") and run it across the top of the joists you can hang threaded rod through the ceiling and then attach your frame below. Depending on your load you would want at least 3/8" rod or better still 1/2". For two sets of wheels and tires I would think you will be looking at at least 200 pounds. As long as your other half is just tough to get to and not finished above you should be able to slide the strut across the tops of the joists. They make a captive nut (spring nut is what you will ask for) that you could screw the rod into from below. I would only use these where you have to, they are strong but I always like to drop the rod through the holes with really good washers and a well seated nut, no worries about the spring nut slipping out of the channel. The pulley idea sounds slick so you can load on the floor and then hoist up.

Why not build one that's lagged to the studs in the wall, or buy one of the ones Tire Rack sells.

unistrut or superstrut(brand names, same stuff) is your friend. find rafters, lag strut up into them, use the sprung nuts that slide up into the strut to hang your threaded rods.

we use it all the time on people lifts for disabled vets for the VA.

Unistrut is a good option, as is timber. My concern with the lags is splitting of the attic floor joists. They are likely only 1-1/2" wide. Inserting a lag in a manner that meets code (3/4" edge distance min. from the center line of the lag) requires placing it exactly on the centerline of the attic floor joist. Placing a 2x (or a unistrut piece) above the joists, so that it transfers loads by direct bearing onto the attic floor joists does not risk damaging the structure of the building.

There is a finished bedroom room above the garage. Only the third stall has an attic. I'm looking at building this into the space between the garage doors, 1/2 in the 3rd bay, and half under the second bay (with floor joists above it).

I'll look into the unistrut option. That's one of the things I was thinking of, just didn't know what it was called.

CharlesE wrote: Unistrut is a good option, as is timber. My concern with the lags is splitting of the attic floor joists. They are likely only 1-1/2" wide. Inserting a lag in a manner that meets code (3/4" edge distance min. from the center line of the lag) requires placing it exactly on the centerline of the attic floor joist. Placing a 2x (or a unistrut piece) above the joists, so that it transfers loads by direct bearing onto the attic floor joists does not risk damaging the structure of the building.

How many houses have been modified with no regard to "meeting code" and not fallen down? Millions?

Predrill to prevent splitting. Use a bit that is slightly smaller than the shank so the threads fully engage.

CharlesE wrote: Unistrut is a good option, as is timber. My concern with the lags is splitting of the attic floor joists. They are likely only 1-1/2" wide. Inserting a lag in a manner that meets code (3/4" edge distance min. from the center line of the lag) requires placing it exactly on the centerline of the attic floor joist. Placing a 2x (or a unistrut piece) above the joists, so that it transfers loads by direct bearing onto the attic floor joists does not risk damaging the structure of the building.

This sounds like magic code to me.

I've been building for 39 years, and have never heard a "code" guideline like this.

You are describing pull-out strength (withdrawal resistance), which would be impacted by species of wood, moisture content, dia. of lag, length of lag, size of pre-drilled hole, etc. etc.

Since no one said the diameter of the lag, the distance from the edge can not be determined.

There are guidelines that say they should be no less than 1.5X the diameter of the bolt from the edge to the centerline of the hole. In other words, a 1/2" lag could be used in a 2X framing member, a 9/16" one could not. A 3/8" lag could be used, and would need to be 9/16" from the edge to the center.

But none of this matters. More importantly, it's a bad use of the hardware. Lags are not designed to be used this way. Lags are designed to go into the side of a timber member, not the edge. They work in shear, but more importantly they clamp one framing member to another. A lag in the edge supporting a load vertically relying on only the strength of the threads in an unknown wood is a bad design. Unistrut is also a bad design for the same reason only worse- the likelihood of using a smaller screw is compounded.

So, I agree. It would be MUCH better to have a member (wood, pipe, etc) above the ceiling joists that spread the load to several joists.

2nd best choice would be brackets secured to the wall- at least the fasteners would be in shear.

xflowgolf wrote: There is a finished bedroom room above the garage. Only the third stall has an attic. I'm looking at building this into the space between the garage doors, 1/2 in the 3rd bay, and half under the second bay (with floor joists above it). I'll look into the unistrut option. That's one of the things I was thinking of, just didn't know what it was called.

If your tire width is 10" (which it is probably not), 8 tires would only need a total of 80".

That would only require 3/4 of 1 garage bay.

Your threaded rod idea is right. If you have to extend into the 2nd bay, consider it largely a cantilever. Your bottom pipes will be supported primarily by the threaded rod in bay #3, and overhang into bay #2 a little. This will not have much weight on it- Unistrut will work fine.

You could also build this into the front (outside) wall above the garage door. Screw a 2x4 into the wall studs, screw another into the ceiling joists so the outside of the 2x4 is the depth of your shelf, cut a piece of plywood for a floor and screw that to the 2x on the wall. Screw another 2x4 along the other side of the plywood and then add vertical 2x4s to connect the ceiling 2x4 to the outside shelf 2x4. Soup

Not a tire rack, but I have a 1" pipe pullup fixture I made that is flange-mounted to a 2x6 that I mounted to the bottom of 4 or 5 joists. The load it sees is MUCH higher than a similar sized tire rack. Like this (not mine, but very similar)

I built mine to be primarily supported by the wall.

I did add chains for safety supports but they are held in by small lags.

I made it out of old bed frames and 3/8 bolts. Any strong angle iron would do.