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Advice for Designing an Accessible Home
Snowbelle
Member Posts: 43 Courageous
I would really appreciate any advice or point me in the direction on where I can get information and advice on designing an accessible home. I am in the lucky situation that I will be able to influence how my new house will be built & designed. I want to make sure the house will be accessible as possible (& ideally future proofed).
Accessibility needs:
- wheelchair accessible (may need to be accessible for a tilt & recline wheelchair. I don't have one yet, but wouldn't be able to get around without one at least a few days each month.
- Reduce need for physical energy expenditure - I have ME so have a low physical & cognitive activity threshold & going above that causes my health to decline
- sound-proof (noise sensitivity)
- reduce Electromagnetic frequencies (I don't know for certain if I'm sensitive, but know a lot of people with ME are, so it makes sense to design in a way to reduce EMF as much as possible e.g. there are curtains made out of thin metal that block EMF - but I've no idea of their details or where to get them.
- as much as possible useable from a sitting or reclining position.
- decrease need to raise arms above head.
- as much natural light as possible (sensitive to aritificial light)
I'd love any ideas for where to get information, tips of adaptation to include, or needs I might not have thought of to consider.
Thanks so much,
Snowbelle
Accessibility needs:
- wheelchair accessible (may need to be accessible for a tilt & recline wheelchair. I don't have one yet, but wouldn't be able to get around without one at least a few days each month.
- Reduce need for physical energy expenditure - I have ME so have a low physical & cognitive activity threshold & going above that causes my health to decline
- sound-proof (noise sensitivity)
- reduce Electromagnetic frequencies (I don't know for certain if I'm sensitive, but know a lot of people with ME are, so it makes sense to design in a way to reduce EMF as much as possible e.g. there are curtains made out of thin metal that block EMF - but I've no idea of their details or where to get them.
- as much as possible useable from a sitting or reclining position.
- decrease need to raise arms above head.
- as much natural light as possible (sensitive to aritificial light)
I'd love any ideas for where to get information, tips of adaptation to include, or needs I might not have thought of to consider.
Thanks so much,
Snowbelle
Replies
Scope community team
Have you had a look at this article from BuildIt?
We also had a guest blog a few months ago that might be of interest to you, at least in terms of getting some ideas. It might also be worth speaking to an occupational therapist about what they'd recommend from the ground up.
Scope
Here is some more information about them:
We believe that having an accessible home in an inclusive setting can transform the lives of disabled people and those around them. We want communities to include disabled people, offering places to live that meet their needs and provide the highest levels of independence, choice and control over their daily lives.
Our mission is to champion inclusion by providing and promoting accessible homes and neighbourhoods that welcome and include everyone.
you are extremely lucky to have a say in what you want, good luck.
My own ideas would include ensuring more than enough electric points, because at stages, people may control their world from bed, e.g. closing curtains etc.. At installation, it costs hardly any extra to put ample capacity in your consumer unit. Ceiling tracks and similar will be in the Habinteg.
Greenwich says ignore the standard building regs regarding the so called 'wheelchair door and turning circle dimensions', based on old style chairs, because who knows if you may have a future visitor with a bariatric chair? Wider is wiser!
The other thing is to make everything reachable, e.g. a ceiling light bulb is hard to replace, or ask a helper to replace, but a lamp is easy.
Underfloor heating means no wall rads to crash into. But I suggest never have rads under windows, in fact mainly don't have conventional windows. Modern design tends in any case to use floor to ceiling, patio, maximum natural light,. A view of nature is uplifting for anyone, but for those spending a lot of time indoors, it is vital that from a sitting or lying down position, there is a view. Ideally, even the bedroom needs an opening patio or french doors, so people can get into the sun while in bed.
Obviously people put themselves forward as kitchen designers for silly money, but be careful because what you personally want might be different from what their imagined wheelchair user is supposed to be given. Also, some of the flashy high cost stuff is in fact available at any old IKEA or Homebase or similar. A lot is o.t.t., such as having worktops and sinks rising and falling, when for most people, what is right for you is right. It often isn't standard worktop height but there's no reason why ordinary units can't be used, just without the plinth on the bottom, or just selecting units that lend themselves to cutting off .
Wall hanging loos are good because you can choose the exact height, and because they are so easy to clean underneath. You are designing, so you know what suits for side transfer, or if you need the over-chair. You can design-in ledges and rails round rooms and in bathrooms, so it doesn't look medical, but it just happens to provide effectively grab rails all over the place for furniture-walkers.
The last thing is to make the house eco-friendly, in as many ways as possible, because nobody knows if there will be water and power shortages within a few years. Maybe a back up generator would make sense for people who cannot afford to be without power. And a decent water store, for those who cannot go and collect from a water cart. You need to anticipate being so well insulated that your home will keep out future heatwaves. Also, there are already whole home air filter systems similar to the one-room dyson cool, to remove dangerous micropollution, which will get worse.
It would be interesting to know if full spectrum daylight lighting is easier to live with than other bulbs.
One aspect is that presumably the house will be not only your home but your private asset. It would primarily need to meet your individual requirements, but a disabled friendly house might as well be as universally friendly as is compatible with that.
Obviously the objective is to stay, ideally for the rest of your days. But shockingly, given the dearth of accessible housing, there is no effective register and no premium. Mostly, because horrid ugly institutionalised retrofitting makes homes unattractive, it is expensively ripped out before the next occupants view it.
If you can make it desirable, you increase, instead of decreasing, your investment, and perhaps more imortantly, you produce a lasting legacy of a worthwhile addition to the world's housing stock.
Will you have semi-separate quarters for resident carers?
Will you have an automatic wash-dry loo?
There are lots of mini decisions, where you need not to let the builders do whatever is standard.
Are you sensitive to off-gassing from paint, glue, chemicals in construction materials?
There are natural materials to substitute, and they need not invariably be costly.
There are work-rounds for many obstacles to independent living, e.g. some wheelchair users have ingenious tricks to shut doors behind them. Forums archives will help.
There is a range of cupboard and door closers which will include some impossible and others ideal.
Door closers are a huge avoidable frustration, mainly because builders W R O N G L Y, and belligerently, adjust them to suit a fit young male manual worker like themselves, not the weakest frailest potential users including those in wheelchairs or barely able to walk. (Building regs suggest maximum 20 newton opening strength, but the word ' maximum ' is not, not, not, a legal definition of 'mandatory minimum'. )
Builders and town hall officials have a vague notion that somehow the fire brigades insist on unopenable doors, in order to trap, and therefore to ensure the incineration of, all cripples and kiddies and other weaklings.
They don't.
Also here some info on legislation on access to dwellings: https://www.rapidramp.co.uk/legislation-to-dwellings
I wish you all the best in your research.