Stairs and aging in place

I live in a multi-generation home and as each generation ages, we make accommodations for their mobility challenges.  One of the biggest issues is stairs.

We've had a few stair lifts installed, where the person can sit on a chair and the system goes up and down no problem.  

Except each stairlift has had big problems.

1. (the smaller of the problems) - it doesn't work in a power outage.  Power outages are frequent enough here that it needs to be taken into consideration and getting a grumpy old guy out of the chair on the stairs is really dangerous for those helping.  And caused a hospital when they got stuck and no one was there to help and they tried to get down the stairs on their own.

So the support people replaced that one with a battery-operated one that can work once or twice in a power outage.

That's not the worst problem.

2. The stair lift takes up too much of the stairs.  The first one took up over 3/4 of the width of the stairs.  The second one took up over half.  This is folded UP.  Which the old guy never did because it was too dangerous to reach down the stairs to fold it up or down.  That left us with doing the dangerous task of leaning over the stairs to fold the chair lift if we wanted to get by.  

It's made much worse because we carry heavy boxes of wood up these stairs in the winter.  The stair lift made it quite dangerous as we had less than half the width of the stairs to navigate through (usually at the top of the stairs).

When that old guy moved into a care home, we donated the stair lift to a local charity as soon as they could come and uninstall it.

...

And now we are wondering if the technology has improved.  We don't need it yet, but as the next generation ages, they find stairs a challenge.  

Are there any options out there these days that could get around problems one and two?

Or maybe there are some other ideas to make stairs safer and easier to climb?

There are a variety of aids that I have encountered in my time volunteering on ambulances.

I think the biggest consideration is how ambulatory the person is. Can they get up the stairs with some assistance or do they need to be carried?



I have seen both the mounted style and an unmounted walker style that isn't as bulky as a full sit down stair assist. I have heard the same complaints about size and creating a hazard in themselves because of it.

There is also something to say about the addition to non-slip material onto stairs as well as the potential of utilizing high stability shoes even in the house.

We should try to let people age with grace and dignity. I know that I would want to stay in my home as long as I could. Ideally forever!

Timothy Norton wrote:

I think the biggest consideration is how ambulatory the person is. Can they get up the stairs with some assistance or do they need to be carried?

At this time, a stronger (and two foot longer) railing would be enough.  But we're looking to the future for ideas as we have an offer of funding if we do it soon, that funding might not be there when we need the lift-thing.

The goal is what will do the most good for the longest time / most mobility issues.  

The assumption will be the ability to walk with some aid.  We have other plans in place if anyone ever gets so bad they need a chair to get around.

I just saw a realty ad for a house with an elevator. And then I saw this thread.

r ranson wrote:But we're looking to the future for ideas as we have an offer of funding if we do it soon, that funding might not be there when we need the lift-thing.

I don't know how substantial your funding offer is, but the confluence of events got me wondering what would it cost to put an elevator in a residence. I'm a little confused by the way this article opens: https://www.bobvila.com/articles/home-elevator-cost/ -- saying the average cost is $2-6K (USD) and then later, the more believable range seems to be more like $12-60K. It's a lot of money (and of course it'll take up space), but it might be worth it for an ongoing need.

Home elevators are definitely on the list of possibilities.    

The placement is tricky because it's an old house.  We could put it in an in the way corner where it's visible, goes from a public space into a guest bedroom, and looks pretty ugly (not a fun choice).  We could put it in a good place, but move one heck of a lot of wires and plumbing that are in the way (also not a fun choice).  Or...???  I don't know.  Maybe there are more options we haven't found yet?

And do they work in a power outage?  I haven't found that out yet.  


And then there's the idea of a dumb waiter for moving firewood to the upper level.  That comes in quite cheap and is usually just a door in the floor and a lift shaft underneath.  That would get rid of problem 2 from the first post if we got a normal stair lift.  

Some stair lifts that I have seen on TV have a backup battery.

Have you tried one of those?

Anne Miller wrote:Some stair lifts that I have seen on TV have a backup battery.

Have you tried one of those?

Our second stairlift had one.  It could make four trips on a battery (or five if it was three down, two up).  

That worked well for short power outages.  With the old house set up, that would be about half a day as that old guy made a lot of trips up and down the stairs.

For the current set up, it would be enough to last a week without power (longest so far is 10 days) as there isn't as frequent need for going up and down stairs.  

But the big problem was how much room it took up on the stairs.  I've often wondered if rebuilding the stairs would work.  It would allow some better support walls to be put in and we could widen the stairs.  But permits and stuff means this probably won't happen.  

I love the dumbwaiter idea and the elevator idea. The dumbwaiter - and laundry chutes - used to be very commonplace,  and for good reason, and I've always though that if I ever designed my own home, it would have both - maybe 2 chutes, depending on the size of the house.

For the cost of a new stair lift can you instead instead remodel the main floor of the house so the elders in the house don't need to go up and down the stairs daily or ever?

I am building my house with aging in place.  Even though it has a basement, main floor and loft I am building it so everything we need for day to day living is on the main floor.  As climbing stairs gets more difficult we will be able to use the basement and loft less and less or not at all and still have everything we need except storage.  The only stairs we will need to climb is the two steps inside the covered porch to get in the front door.  And there is plenty of room to replace them with a ramp when the time comes.

Just wanted to mention that you can use many of today's chair lifts as a dumb waiter as well as the lift. We needed one and ours gets used for shifting loads up and down as well people moving. It has a remotes at the top and bottom so you can run it as needed.
It also has a backup battery so will work through outages.

J Hillman wrote:For the cost of a new stair lift can you instead instead remodel the main floor of the house so the elders in the house don't need to go up and down the stairs daily or ever?

We learned from the last generation of ageing in place that it's not possible with this house.  Too much is split between the levels and funding is for mobility aids, not major renovations.  

Dian Green wrote:Just wanted to mention that you can use many of today's chair lifts as a dumb waiter as well as the lift. We needed one and ours gets used for shifting loads up and down as well people moving. It has a remotes at the top and bottom so you can run it as needed.
It also has a backup battery so will work through outages.

I'm curious about this.

The two lifts we had previously fit one human but wouldn't hold on to a box of wood or a laundry basket.  The arms and other safety features got in the way of non-human shaped items.  If we used it to carry the weight of the firewood, then we would have to walk up with it to stop the box falling off.

But that was neigh 10 years ago.  Maybe the technology has gotten better?

I have a friend locally who installed a "2 person" or "1 wheelchair" sized elevator but A) she ran a construction company and B) it was in new section being added to the existing house. It wasn't cheap and it wasn't idiot-proof, but it allowed her elderly MiL to participate in events in the new area. So I can understand the difficulty in making it work.

However, I also saw a video of one in England where they actually added the elevator to the outside of the house, with doors added through the house walls. This would have to be done very carefully in our wet and windy climate, but I consider England to have quite similar climate to ours in some ways. I'm not sure they would have any sort of battery back-up.

I do think the technology has changed and things like remote triggering and electric folding mechanisms are out there, but complexity adds cost and power demands. I totally agree with planning now, particularly if you have access to extra funding.

Maybe knowing how wide your staircase treads are would be helpful to someone in the know?

r ranson wrote:

I'm curious about this.

The two lifts we had previously fit one human but wouldn't hold on to a box of wood or a laundry basket.  The arms and other safety features got in the way of non-human shaped items.  If we used it to carry the weight of the firewood, then we would have to walk up with it to stop the box falling off.

But that was neigh 10 years ago.  Maybe the technology has gotten better?

Ours has both foldable arms and seat and has a seatbelt built in. Our recycling bin and laundry baskets fit just fine. Those don't even need the belt to be stable. For a few of the moving boxes, we did need to use the belt, but not often. It would work for wood, but you might need to find the right size and shape of box for that.
We did pay extra to have the heavier duty version put in since we are not small and didn't want to risk the lower weight capacity.
The installation tech said he had quite a number of people who used it mainly for laundry/groceries since they could still walk the stairs but could no longer manage to carry anything too.

Can you do a small extension and have an elevator or dumbwaiter at an exterior point?

I had a broken knee for a while, stairs became a problem.  Now I am designing the ground floor of next project to have one small bedroom and shower/compost toilet in case that ever happens again... so that is one thing, it might be esaier to accomodate the stairs-challenged by removing the need to use stairs.  

Every physical therapist I have ever met and some research concludes:  Squats are life!   My regimen now includes 10 free squats all the way to the floor and back up daily.  Even the elderly can build muscle if they try, and a 5 g dose of creatine also helps a lot.  Start with assisted until the individual can manage on own.  Slow is better than fast, and knees over toes is far better than how its generally taught, for the info on that there is yt chan Knees Over Toes Dude to explain.  PTS will disagree with that but pro athletes will not.  

An DIY elevator using an sturdy electric winch, platform in framed cage, steel cables and 4 square feet of space somewhere is another option, likely more pleasant and safer  for all concerned.   It wont block normal use of stairs, will serve as dumbwaiter too.   Various vids out there on doing this in garages, it will work in houses too.