Installing a stair lift in your home is a great way to increase the number of years you can live at home, even if you or a loved one have health limitations that make it difficult to go up and down stairs.

As a real estate agent, I was out with an elderly client last week who was looking at buying a new home. She already had bad knees, and had to take the steps slowly as we toured different properties. One of the things she was attempting to find was a new property that she could continue to live in even if she became wheelchair bound or unable to go up and down the stairs on her own.

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 customer gave me a little bit of an education about what is required to install a stair lift. Fundamentally , she was looking out for a long, straight run of steps from first to the second floor. We found it in one of the new construction houses we looked at, so they are definitely out there. Stairlifts can be installed on other sorts of staircases too, naturally, but as with everything, the more complicated it is, the more expensive it is.

If you are building or purchasing a home that you wish to grow old in, it’s an excellent idea to consider ahead how the home can be changed to fit your wishes when you’re older. Some things – like wide corridors that may accommodate wheelchairs – are nice features you could need to have anyhow

Other things, like grab bars in the bath tub, are easy to add on later if they become necessary.

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 could be a challenge for many seniors.

Perhaps you’ll want to consider installing a stair lift.

A step lift consists of a little chair you sit on which runs up and down the stairs on a track installed on an adjacent wall. Your steps must be against the wall or have a braced railing to bear the full weight of an individual sitting on seat, and the weight of the track mechanism itself. The 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, can be brought up and down on the stair lift.

Although they can be costly to install, many seniors are so satisfied about the concept 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 abilities as they age.

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