Housing adaptions: Electronic sliding door for bathroom? (urgent advice needed)

Snowbelle

Hi everyone,

I'm going to view a house in a couple of days & the biggest accessibility hurdle will be the bathroom.  I'm trying to work out what the cheapest ways to be to adapt to make it accessible would be, so I know how much I could bid.
From the floor plan, it looks like there would just be enough room to drive the powerchair straight into the bathroom & for there to be 5-10cm between the end of the powerchair & where the door would be.... But the wheelchair would then be blocking an ordinary door, so there would be no way an ordinary door could close.

I'm wondering whether it's possible to have an opaque, electronic, remote activate sliding door for a bathroom?  
(I can see automatic ones, but that would be useless when wheelchair will only ever be 5-10cm from it - it would never close!!  So would need to be opened & closed by a remote button).
(I can also see lots of clear glass automatic sliding doors, but no opaque electronic sliding doors).
And finally I wanted to check humidity wouldn't cause issues with an electronic door to a bathroom.

I would also need to know how much space it would need - so I can check when I view how many centimetres it will be form back of the wheelchair to the doorframe & if there is definitely enough space for a sliding door to close behind the wheelchair. 

Thank you very much in advance for any help/tips/pointers that anyone can give,

Snowbelle

newborn

Woah.... Steady. I would urge you to look at Habinteg (and Greenwich) disability designs. But very importantly, think low tech first.  The sorts of ideas you have will walk off with more than the house is worth. You need a friendly builder anyway, so pay for their time and get them to advise methods first, prices second.

If you tell them you want an all singing all dancing gadget show, they will do that. (You are right to suspect that anything electric or gadget dependent will promptly go wrong. And lock you in the bathroom if there is a power cut, too.) 
If you give them the problem, and ask how to solve it, they will do that instead. 

Manual sliding doors, simply on a track, like a sliding wardrobe door would be  really cheap. How much power do you have in your arms?  It is not as heavy as sliding a patio door, because it need not be weatherproof, just conceal the person inside. Tracks are easily available. Cost next to nothing. Doors can be really cheap, and need not even be sold as doors. You need something to cover the hole in the bathroom wall, but if it is hanging on a track and you can't see through it or round it, the job is done. 

By the way a simple giant hook and eye would lock it shut when you are inside, so it does not even need to have to marry up with conventional bathroom door catches.  
 
Another possibility is folding, using a door sliced vertically in half and piano hinged. If the door is just a plain piece of board, it could even be concertina'd .   If you use the sliding idea for getting into the bathroom you would also have the option of making the opening as wide as you like.  (But it would need a replacement support, and a prop while they knock out, if it is a supporting wall)

 But this other door you mention, which would be blocked, could be made to cooperate by either being hung to go the opposite way, or sliced down in half.  Or, although obviously you know the floorplan and I don't,  could that too be converted into a slider?. 



You probably already know that anything from a teaspoon to a car is priced at the normal cost, multiplied by at least ten or more like fifty, if it has a 'disability' label on it.  Stay mainstream.

 

poppy123456

I'll 2nd the manual sliding doors. When i lived in an adapted house some years ago the bathroom had a sliding door and it was so light and very very easy to close. When closed the handle could be moved to lock the bathroom.