Moving into a two story house, does anyone have experience of home lifts?

jerrymeyer1980

Hi everyone, 

Great to be a member of the Scope Forum! 

I just wanted to share my thoughts on a recent change to my living circumstances. I suffer from a very bad lower back and have found stairs a problem most of my life. I currently live in a single-story property but have recently been blessed with the opportunity to move to a larger home in Northumberland, here is the catch, it's a two story property. 

I've been looking into the solutions available and there is the obvious stairlift route but one that has really caught my attention is homelifts. I've found a few companies that offer them in my local area, one of them being <moderator removed - links to paid for services not allowed on community>. It would be great if anyone who has had experience with this company or anyone that has any experience with the homelift solution as a whole. 

I would really appreciate any advice or guidance. 

Cher_Alumni

Hi @jerrymeyer1980 and a warm welcome to our community, how are you doing today?

It's great that you have the opportunity to move to a new larger home and having a home lift installed sounds like it would make your impairment more easily manageable

Unfortunately, I've had to remove the link you included to a specific business as the promotion of paid for services isn't allowed on our community (please see our house rules).  But, I'm sure our members can offer their general experiences and stories about getting a home lift and the difference it made to their life.

Take care and I hope you have a fab Thursday.

jerrymeyer1980

Thank you for your message Cher. 

Sorry about that, I completely forgot to give the rules a read!

Have a great day

Sandy_123

Hi @jerrymeyer1980 stairs lifts will be the cheaper option, there actually quite good. You can also rent them so when they break down can be fixed.

Cress

I think they seem far better then a stair lift...but I'd insist on one that came with star trek sound effects and captain kirk saying 'beam me up, scotty' ....

calcotti

A couple of points to consider are
A floor lift results in a loss of floor space - a stair lift may be less intrusive.
If you need to sell the property in the future removing a stair lift and making good is a bigger job than removing a stairlift.
However stairlifts are not for everyone and the configuration of the stairs and location of doors neat the top and bottom of the stairs makes a difference to how easily they are fitted - but there are lots of configuration options.

poppy123456

I've lived in a house some years ago that had a through lift for myself. It was already installed in the house before i moved in. Whist they are a good idea, i totally agree with Calcotti, the space you need in each room is a huge amount because those lifts are far from small. I had a 20 foot living room but the amount of space it took from the room was insane and it became very annoying. It's always kept upstairs when not in use, which is also annoying.

You also need to make sure that there's nothing in the way at all times, otherwise you could get stuck. A few times i've known myself get stuck coming down because something had fallen off the back of the chair onto the floor, or my cat had been playing with something while i was upstairs. I was alone each time and to say it was frightening, is an under statement.

You also need to think about the work involved with installing these lifts and the maintenance required afterwards. If i had the choice between that and a stair lift, the latter option would win hands down.

Binky1234

I would personally consider a stair lift due to what many have experienced on having a lift, that is what is so good about this forum people advice on experience.

I know where I live the local council fit them via a social work/OT report so maybe that would be another option for you. 

You could call and  see if your local council offer this service.