Astaren,
Just reading through this post, and have almost been down this road before with my stepdad. A couple of questions. IF you go with a winch system, will you be able to build a robust enough structure at the top of the "elevator shaft" that can distribute the weight properly to the supporting walls. I'm thinking, without doing a lot of calculations here, that you're going to have to build a pretty significant set of walls from normal construction grade lumber to support the weight of your maximum passenger load PLUS the elevator mechanism itself, not to mention the joist itself to be able to carry that load. That also probably means beefing up the foundation that is going to support this area of the house, since you'll have a narrowly concentrated area of weight instead of the weight being distributed along a foundation or kneewall or something along those lines. All doable of course, but definitely things to keep in mind. The manlift idea is probably pretty doable as well, but again, you would want to beef up the slab under this area, since a manlift is NOT light to start with, and if you're going to throw a platform onto it as well as 6-800 lbs of passengers that would be a lot. Also, with a manlift, give serious thought to ease of maintenance as well as safety while you're under there replacing a hydraulic unit, or greasing the various lubrication points. Also, you would need a way to even get the thing into place, whether it be driving it into place on the slab, building a concrete and steel platform for the manlift to be bolted to, as well as bracing it from all sides to eliminate the inevitable sway (maybe something along the lines of the type of railing used in garage doors running up the sides of the elevator shaft and meshing wheels into these shafts from each side to eliminate sway. The challenge with a manlift of course would be the controls, unless it was simply available to who was operating it at the time. No matter how I look at it, it sounds like a lot of work. When we were contemplating it, we actually had a working set of elevator controls and floor switches (to stop the elevator at each floor) from an old bank building, thankfully it never went further than the idea stage though. Whatever you do, good luck and be safe. If it were only for your personal use, it would be less of a concern, but if you put your family members on it, any mistakes made by you might be paid for by them, although I'm sure that has already crossed your mind.
