This platform lift was much more affordable than installing a home elevator, which would have required a shaft.

Adding a Wheelchair Platform Lift to a Staircase


This platform lift was much more affordable than installing a home elevator, which would have required a shaft.
This platform lift was much more affordable than installing a home elevator, which would have required a shaft.

When my wife suggested to me three years ago that her dream was to buy a 19th-century historic home, my reaction was mixed. On the one hand, I believe dreams are meant to be fulfilled, and I wholeheartedly support my wife’s passions. On the other hand, as a life-long wheelchair user, I wasn’t convinced of the practicality. After all, we had a fully-accessible ranch-style home I’d designed and built 13 years earlier. Life was easy and good, right down to my beloved roll-in shower. However, in my mid-40s, looking for my next life change and adventure, I was intrigued by my wife’s dream of a “forever home.” I’d enjoyed growing up on rural land, and the thought of an old farmhouse on acreage seemed a tantalizing break from development living. But would I — a 21st century power chair user with CP — be able to reside in a 19th-century home?

As we began looking at homes, my accessibility concerns proved true. On the east coast, in our region, single-story homes are extremely rare — non-existent in the circa 1900 era. We found countless dream homes, but all were multiple-story, with grand staircases. They would make great settings for a remake of Gone with the Wind, but how could they be practical for a power chair user.
After several months of looking at homes and frustration, I finally realized all was not lost and, in fact, I became inspired by the challenge of making a historic home wheelchair accessible.

The biggest hurdle? How to get from the first to the second floor. Bathrooms and kitchens are relatively easy to make accessible; however, getting a power chair to a second floor would take some thought, expense, and technology.

I began by looking into residential elevators. While wonderful and appropriate for my mobility needs, they had major drawbacks. First, an elevator needs a shaft, so a physical space and substantial construction were needed. Second, such an elevator costs around  $50,000, which is a lot to put into such a niche aspect of a house, likely putting it over market value. Lastly, an elevator takes months to order and install, with a lot of unknowns when retrofitting a 100-something-year-old home.

With an elevator ruled out, I turned to incline platform lifts. If you’re familiar with a conventional stair lift that uses a chair on a track, it’s the same concept, only instead of a chair, it’s a platform that you roll your wheelchair onto and travel up the staircase. The cost is around  $15,000, and as long as the staircase is of appropriate dimensions, installation takes less than a day. With this technology researched, I knew that if my wife and I could find the right home, with the right staircase, we could install such a lift.

As our house hunt continued, we paid special attention to staircase layout and dimensions. The incline platform lift I wanted, manufactured by Harmar, required a straight-up staircase — no bends! — that was wider than 37 inches with at least 57 inches of floor space at the landing.  After spending over a year looking, we found our dream home, built in 1829, with a staircase that appeared compatible with adding a Harmar incline platform lift.

We purchased the home, and the lift was installed with a few predictable hurdles when working with an older home — wall studs weren’t on center, and the overall width of the staircase varied by an inch from top to bottom, making a tight fit at points. Nevertheless, the lift worked!

The biggest challenge ended up being not with the lift, but the weight of modern full-size power chairs. Some full-power seating, complex rehab power chairs weigh in at 400 pounds unoccupied, so it’s easy to exceed the lift’s 500-pound weight capacity. Fortunately, I’m slender and have a compact power chair that works within the lift’s capacity. However, for most individuals, a manual wheelchair is the most compatible mobility product for this type of lift.

As home projects tend to go, adding an incline platform lift to a 19th-century farmhouse wasn’t without its challenges. But for the first time in my life, I have an accessible multistory home. Although this isn’t a practical project or living arrangement for everyone, I have observed that the cow pasture does appear greener from the second floor.


Support New Mobility

Wait! Before you wander off to other parts of the internet, please consider supporting New Mobility. For more than three decades, New Mobility has published groundbreaking content for active wheelchair users. We share practical advice from wheelchair users across the country, review life-changing technology and demand equity in healthcare, travel and all facets of life. But none of this is cheap, easy or profitable. Your support helps us give wheelchair users the resources to build a fulfilling life.

donate today

Comments are closed.