Stair Lifts – Do They Make Sense For You?

Installing a stair lift in your house is a good way to extend the quantity of years you or a loved one with mobility impairment can live in your own home. They are great if you or a friend or family member have health restrictions that make it tough to go up and down stairs.

I was out with an older woman last week showing her property (I am a real estate agent). She already had bad knees, and had to take the steps slowly. One of the things she was searching for was whether her new property would accommodate a master on the main level ( if it did not already have one ) and a step lift on the steps.

I believed she would just need to take a look at one-level houses, but each home she looked at had a staircase in it. One home had a sweet Y-shaped staircase featured in the sitting room that split off in 2 directions. One home had a precarious old staircase leading to the completed basement, and one home had a plain, old school 2-level staircase that went to the upstairs. My customer said to me that this wasn’t precisely what she was on the lookout for and claimed she would “know it when she saw it.” It had been hard for her to work out online whether the houses she had an interest in would accommodate a step lift because most realtors don’t feature the stairs in their website pictures.

This client gave me a bit of an education about what it takes to install a stair lift. Basically, she was looking for a long, straight run of stairs from the first to the second floor. We actually found it in one of the new construction homes we looked at, so they are certainly out there. Stairlifts can be installed on other types of staircases, of course, but as with everything, complication adds expense.

If you are building or buying a home that you want to grow old in, it’s a good idea to contemplate in advance how the home can be modified to suit your needs when you are older. Some things – like wide hallways that can accommodate wheelchairs – are nice features you might want to have anyway.

Other stuff, like grab bars in the bath tub, are simple to add on later if they become required.

What’s not as straightforward to plan for is if you’ll need wheelchair access to upstairs rooms of the house. Even if you are not in a wheelchair, going up and down the steps can be a challenge for many older people.

You might decide that putting a stair lift in is a great way to handle the situation.

A step lift runs on a track that’s installed on the side of the steps and plugged into the wall for power. Your steps must be against the wall or have a braced railing to accommodate the full weight of somebody on a seat, and the track along the wall. A step lift will help you bring groceries and washing up and down the steps, too. Just about anything you can carry, provided you do not surpass the safe weight limit for the chair lift.

Though they can be costly to install, many seniors are so cheerful about the idea of having the facility to remain in their own homes as they age, they are more than prepared to pay the price to have their home upgraded to accommodate their changing ability to get around.