Help with small pulley hoist.

[jmpgino]

I have a clothes pulley that has two metal frames, that five wooden rods go through. The metal frames are linked up with rope that go through two small pulleys screwed into the roof. The system is raised and lowered by the two ropes being joined together and tied around a hook.
My question is as follows. My wife and even myself are finding it hard too raise and lower when wet washing is placed on the lines for drying. She does not even raise it up anymore, so I end up doing a limbo dance going under it.
I have been looking for a low cost electrical system that would enable us to push a button, for raising it up and pushing another for lowering it. I was thinking of using a clothes dryer motor but have no idea of how to put the system in reverse, meaning up no problem but how do I get it down
I understand this is not quite a welding project however it could well end up being part of one.
A lot of you chaps work in all areas of manufacturing, so I thought your brains would help me...............I doubt when all fully loaded the whole system has more than 150 Lbs but my wife is only 107 Lbs soaking wet.
So any help would be very kind of you.

[Bistineau]

Several pictures of the set up would help greatly over just your description. From different angles too. Kinda hard to get a mental image of what you are describing.

[go2building]

https://m.northerntool.com/northerntool/product/detail.do?itemId=148817&categoryId=&path=&productN ame=false
Hand cranked winch

[go2building]

https://m.northerntool.com/northerntool/product/detail.do?itemId=148817&categoryId=&path=&productN ame=false

Hand cranked winch

[kevin]

go to harbor freight and look at the small electric winchs used on recreational vehicles, they are 12 volt, very inexpensive at harbor freight, or try northern tool

[willy]

Check out www.surpluscenter.com and look for linear actuators - not sure if this would be the complete solution but may give you some ideas....

[Meltedmetal]

Yup a picture's worth a 1000 words. I also am not really getting a good idea of what you have already installed. However I think in the spring I'm going to have to do something similar to what you're doing. I had in mind either a cheap hand winch(the kind you find on small boat trailers) or some kind of captive hand driven capstan. I plan to mount the clothesline pulley on a single wheel carriage rolling on a piece of pipe mounted vertically on the corner of the house.(Sounds more complicated than it is) I'll be interested to see what you come up with.
Meltedmetal

[Cgotto6]

Electric hoist from harbor freight. Under $150 and has hand control with reverse

[Goodhand]

Here is a source for a worm gear winch that spools and unspools during cranking. Advantage of the worm gear type is that it will hold the line load when stopped. I suspect that the cheapest of these will crank with a drill driver when lifting/pulling light loads.

http://www.amt-usa.com/s.nl/it.A/id.562/.f

[Country Metals]

Northerntool.com - 100% more quality, 10% more cost

I personally do not trust anything HF sells that is electric

If you want cheaper, go with a manual boat ratchet. You can easily slip a cable on it and it won't worry about weather. I would make a longer release lever though if she uses it all the time. I would purchase a HF boat ratchet AS LONG AS it has a solid release/locking mechanism.