Telescopic loft ladder
A telescopic loft ladder has two stiles with sections that are telescopically collapsible within each other, rungs having lateral ends each connected to respective sections the stiles, retractable pins in the ends of the rungs for engaging holes in the stile sections to retain them in an extended position, and levers on the rungs that automatically operate when two rungs contact one another to disengage pins of the upper of the contacting rungs from the holes to permit collapse of the next higher rung. Each uppermost stile section is rotatable relative to the section connected to the uppermost rung of the ladder and has circumferentially and axially offset pin receiving holes. At least one resilient element biases the next to uppermost rung away from the uppermost rung to ensure that the locking pin of the uppermost rung engages a hole in the uppermost stile section as the ladder is lowered.
1. A telescopic loft ladder comprising:
two stiles each including sections that are telescopically collapsible within each other;
rungs having two lateral ends each connected to a section of a respective one of the stiles;
retractable pins in the ends of the rungs for engaging in holes in the sections of the stiles to retain the stile sections in an extended position; and
levers on the rungs that are automatically operated when two of the rungs contact one another to disengage the pins of an upper of the two contacting rungs from the holes in the stiles to permit the collapse of a next higher of the rungs;
wherein an uppermost section of each stile is rotatable relative to a section connected to an uppermost rung of the ladder and has pin receiving holes that are circumferentially and axially offset from one another; and
wherein at least one resilient element is provided for biasing a next to uppermost rung away from the uppermost rung such that the levers on the uppermost rung are disengaged from the next to uppermost rung when the stile sections are moved to the extended position.
2. The telescopic loft ladder as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the resilient element comprises helical springs contained with the stiles and acting between the stile sections connected to the uppermost rung and the next to uppermost rung.
3. The telescopic loft ladder as claimed in claim 1 , wherein circumferentially spaced holes intersected by a common plane normal to a longitudinal axis of each stile are provided near a lower end of each uppermost stile section.
4. The telescopic loft ladder as claimed in claim 1 , wherein a lowermost rung is provided with a hole to receive a pole engageable with a next to lowermost rung, in order to raise and lower the ladder.