The Easy Reach Plant Pulley is a ratcheting spring-return pulley designed to make it quick and easy to lower high-hung plants for watering. Although the Easy Reach Plant Pulley (ERPP) is intended for hanging plants, it should be possible to repurpose them for other uses.
After installing the ERPP, you reach up, pull the hanging plant down for watering, and then let the ERPP pull the plant back up. By no means is this a new technology – similar mechanisms are used in hose reels, drop lights, extension cords, and key/ID badge reels.
Larger pulley systems, such as Racor’s HeayLift, are great for bulk storage, but what about smaller equipment, such as hardware buckets, bike repair stands, extension cords, or items that don’t really stow away neatly or easily?
Lee Valley Hanging Basket Pulley
Lee Valley offers a made-in-UK hanging basket pulley, and with a 4-25 lb capacity and 32″ height range, it looks to be pretty capable for shop or garage use. Would you use these pulleys in such a way?
The ERPP is available at ~$10 for 2, and Lee Valley’s version is $13.40. As with most other as-seen-on-TV products, there’s a chance that the ERPP will soon pop up everywhere at discounted prices.
Easy Reach Plant Pulley via Amazon
Product Info (and auto-playing commercial) via ERPP
If given enough range, these things could be used as “tool balancers” that could hold something, say, like a glue gun, power screwdriver or other tool close at hand while building something. Somehow, I don’t thing the simple plastic mechanism would hold up to such duty for long. But ya get whatcha pay for.
I’m interested in the easy reach plant pulley