Courtesy of Karen Braitmayer

By Karen Braitmayer

If you are looking for an alternative to stairs in your home, you probably think first of an elevator, but two other basic devices are marketed for home use: platform lifts and chair lifts. Both are common solutions to getting up stairs when climbing them becomes troublesome or difficult. Each is useful for different purposes and different users.

Chair lift

When walking up or down stairs becomes difficult (or even unsafe) a chair lift may be all that is needed to allow a user to sit and ride up/down a full flight of stairs in safety. A chair lift is a seat that runs on a track over an existing staircase and is intended for interior applications and retrofit applications in existing homes.

The chair seat should have armrests, a seatbelt, and a footrest to ensure a stable ride. The controls for the mechanism are on the seat arm, allowing users to control the movement independently. Chair lift tracks are designed to follow the stair, with most able to curve 180 degrees around switchback stairs or to curve to a bottom or top landing. The seat and footrest often fold up, allowing more room on the stairway for family members to pass by when the lift is not in action. Note that chair lift users who also use wheelchairs or scooters will need one for each floor served by the lift, since these devices cannot accompany users while they are ascending/descending stairs.

Platform lifts

If a wheelchair or scooter user wants to rise more than a few steps in a wheelchair, and a ramp isn’t practical, a platform lift would be a great solution. This device appears to be a mini elevator that is open to the elements. It consists of a four-sided box with gates on either end or side and an interior platform that rises within this housing to bring the user to the next level. These are designed for both interior and exterior applications and can rise as far as 72 inches. One manufacturer even calls these “porch lifts” because they are often considered as a solution to the problem of reaching elevated porches or garage entries when the vertical distance is too great for a ramp in those locations.

Platform lifts require house power, have controls both inside and outside of the device so they can be operated independently, and have safety mechanisms to prevent lowering the device onto pets or items that may have gotten below. They also have battery backups in case of power failure. These are appropriate for retrofit installations to existing homes.

Elevators

Adding an elevator to an existing home is the most requested item I am asked about—and the most challenging one, too. An elevator is the most versatile device as an alternative to stairs: it allows users to ride in their mobility device if they have one, it is fully enclosed, more than one person can ride in it (depending on size), and it has increased safety and independence controls.

The addition of an elevator to an existing home requires finding a location in the house that allows a large shaft to be constructed that punches through multiple floors and a nearby area to contain the machinery. Some homes will accommodate a new elevator in an addition to the exterior of the home.

In new or remodeled homes, an elevator is easy to plan for, even for a future installation. Providing large closets stacked on each floor can accommodate a future elevator without the headache of carving out space in existing rooms. Regardless of the final location, residential elevators, when fully installed, are quite attractive, with doors that appear to be just closet doors and interior finishes that can match your home interiors. The addition of an elevator increases the usability of your home for you and future owners and therefore can boost the value of your home.

Each of these three devices can increase your independence and safety within your home. Evaluating your current and future needs and the particular conditions of your home will help you select the right device for you.