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I'd like to build a rolling ladder for my tall office closet using a kit. However, the shelving is metal ClosetMaid/Elfa-style and can't support a rod for the ladder to slide along.
My thought is to instead use a closet rod with supports on the left and right walls. Can this be feasible and safe? What other options might I have?
I'd put ledgers on the walls to the left and right of the shelves. By this I mean a board running horizontally the entire length of the wall, screwed in at the studs. This will give you something with some strength and stability to attach to.
You could run a steel pipe across from ledger to ledger, attached to the ledgers with floor flanges. I can say I have used 1" pipe and floor flanges this way for chinup bars many times and they held up well.
The weak point of the pipe is the threaded part, if it shears off it will be at the threads near the floor flange. If you want to be safe, run a 1" dowel inside the pipe. Even if the metal cracks, it's not going anywhere.
If the pipe is not sufficient, you could run a board across from ledger to ledger, just like a joist - you might even use joist hangers to fasten it to the ledgers. That would give you the surface the ready made rolling ladder kits want. Joist hangers are made to carry weight vertically, not horizontally, but I think they'd be strong enough for this purpose. If you want something stronger in the horizontal direction, that's easy enough to work out.
Kits are available for constructing sliding ladders; I plan to set ip one or two in my library. Try a good woodworking supply house. Don't expect it to be cheap, but a few hundred should do it.
It looks like your closet is around 6' across and perhaps 12' tall. With that narrow a space, how about having the ladder lean diagonally across the front of the shelves (e.g. top-left to bottom-right in your picture)? You could have a hanger or ledger board across the wall to the left of the shelves, with the top of the ladder hooked over the board and running down and right, sloped to the 12 degrees cited by @OrganicLawnDIY. If necessary, you could put a second board across the wall to the right of the shelves so you could run the ladder the other way. Bonus points for putting a third board higher up so that you could hang the ladder vertically from when not in use.
