In order to maintain the car more conveniently, many people choose to add a lift in their garage. In the market, there are many types of lifts for us to choose from. The common ones are different heights of scissor lifts and column lifts. But in different situations, there are only a few styles of lifts that really fit your garage, so you need to choose carefully.
The average home garage does not have a ceiling high enough to accommodate a full rise lift, including: some scissor lifts, and most column lifts. Full rise lifts can raise the car about 67 to 84 inches, and they’re big and heavy. Most post lifts are permanently installed on concrete floors. Some designs can be moved, but not easily. Their capacity starts at around 6,000 lbs and then increases substantially. These lifts are therefore not practical for most home garages.
In fact, lifts that are really suitable for home garages can be divided into two height lifts: low rise scissor lifts and mid rise scissor lifts.
Many of low rise models are portable. These handy lifts typically offer a lifting height of about 28 inches or so. They are the easiest to fit in a home garage because they take up the least amount of space. Granted, they offer less clearance than other scissor lifts, but they offer plenty of work clearance for DIY’ers with a creeper.
On the other hand, mid rise scissor lifts are the most popular in the market by far. These models typically raise to about 48 inches or so. These lifts are very popular with body shops, brake shops, as well as home car buffs.
There are two types of mid rise scissor lifts to choose from.
Portable scissor lifts: they have an “X” layout, which is designed for easy movement and storage. Roll it around from one bay to the other. And they take up very little space. You can just park a car over it when it’s not in use, so you won’t even know it’s there. But if you want to access the full underside of the car, it is not suitable for you. You could choose the following one.
Double platform scissor lifts: these lifts offer an open center, so you can access the full underside of the car, which can significantly improve your work efficiency.
