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Tips and Advice

Here are some useful tips and advice on buying, installing and using a disabled stair lift

• Always let a home visit precede a purchase of the disabled stair lift. Never purchase a stair lift before a professional or, at least, the salesperson pays your home a visit to inspect the layout of your home. The reason for this is because you might need to customize the stair lift to fit your staircase or you might need to make some small changes or additions to your home before the disabled stair lift can be installed in your home.

• You will need to have a power outlet near the staircase. If you don’t have this, you will need to get one installed or have an electrician putt one near the staircase before the disabled stair lift can be used.

• There could be potential problems if you have doors too close to the staircase. You see, the disabled stair lift’s rail may go BEYOND the top and bottom of the stairs. So, it may obstruct opening or closing of the door. If this is the case, you may need to call in a professional to take a look at the place and find a solution to that problem.

• Take into consideration the height of the user(s) and the height of the disabled stair lift’s seat. This will affect the ease of use for the user. You don’t want them to struggle just to get on and off the stair lift and wheelchair, so, choose a stair lift with seat height suitable for the user(s).

• If the staircase is dark, it would be wise to install some lights at the top and bottom of the staircase. If the place is too dark, the user of the disabled stair lift might stumble and fall. Being close to the staircase, a stumble could very well be fatal or extremely dangerous.

• In order to independently use a disabled stair lift, the user will need to have considerable control over his or her upper body. Therefore, paralysis in either whole body or one of more hands should be taken into consideration. To maneuver the disabled stair lift, the user needs to press and hold down buttons, so, if they do not have use of their hands or parts of their hands, this could be a problem.

• Most disabled stair lift models have rails that mount on the stair treads, not the wall beside the stairs. So, make sure the stairs are not rickety or in poor condition. Unstable stairs could result in malfunction in the middle of use.