Adjustable Hydraulic Stilts

Every kid has probably played with a pair of home-made wooden stilts. And every tradesman knows the value of a good pair of drywall stilts when performing ceiling and wall repairs. The problem with both of these products is that typically you have to adjust the working height of the stilt before stepping into it. With the exception of stilts that actually have multiple perches built onto the upright poles, you preset the desired height of your perch, hoist yourself up, and hopefully navigate your surroundings with the skilled aplomb of a professional circus performer.

For those of us who might need the equivalent of stilt "training wheels", or for anyone who might need a product that could service a variety of heights literally "on the fly", then Adjustable Hydraulic Stilts are the answer.

Hydraulic Stilts look similar to the wooden stilts you used as a kid, except that uprights are comprised of a telescoping pressurizable aluminum tube. It might help to think of each stilt as similar to a hydraulic bottle jack. When you place your foot on the perch the weight of your body hydraullically jacks you upwards. Controls for the jacking mechanism are in the pole tube itself: Twisting the pole to the right and stepping repeatedly on the perch will cause it to elevate; twisting the pole to the center position will lock the perch into a fixed working height; twisting the pole to the left will allow air to escape and the pole will gradually deflate to ground level. There is nothing electronic about it. It is all human powered and uses existing technology.

The benefit to the product is that it is infinitely adjustable to any working height without having to unstrap and manually readjust the perch pegs. It's perfect for using in the garden when trimming high hedges and low tree branches. It's also useful when cleaning high windows in stairwells because it doesn't require the space or set-up of scaffolds and ladders on various levels.

Adjustable Hydraulic Stilts don't do anything that you couldn't do better and more securely with a scissors lift, but would be relatively low-tech, affordable to average homeowners, and be both operable and storable within a human-sized footprint.