Searching for a new home can be a time consuming, laborious task, but imagine how much more difficult it must be if you need to find a home that meets your wheelchair access requirements. Home builders are not in the habit of building properties that meet the needs of the wheelchair bound, which means you either need to find one that has already been modified by a previous owner, or you need to spend the money to make the changes on your own. The latter can be expensive, but there are ways to have it done that will not set you back a fortune.
One of the biggest challenges that wheelchair bound people face is simply gaining access to the home via the front door. Houses are not usually built with the front door flush to the ground, and generally have a few steps that need to be navigated first. While there are some people in a wheelchair who can navigate stairs with a little effort, it’s certainly not the safest solution. This usually means that a ramp has to be installed, which usually means that some pretty heavy construction is required. It also means that you are left with a permanent ramp that makes your home harder to sell if you ever need to move. The good news is that it’s now possible to purchase modular wheelchair ramps that can be easily installed at your property without any type of construction needed. The ramp, and disabled steps if needed, can be placed over the existing steps without doing any damage, and all the work can be completed on the same day.
Where you may need to do a little bit of work is with the width of the door and the interior hallways. The inside is seldom an issue, but wheelchair access requirements dictate that a clearance space of about 36 inches is needed to allow easy access for a wheelchair. As far as hallways go, that amount of space is usually enough to allow ease of movement in all directions, including turn radius, when operating a wheelchair inside the home. Sometimes the simple act of reversing the direction that the door swings open can help with access at the front of the home.
The doors that are within the home can present a bigger problem for people in wheelchairs, as changing their swing direction usually doesn’t do enough to open up the required space for wheelchair access. Again, this used to mean cutting into walls and tearing down lintels in order to widen that space, but that is no longer the case. There are now disabled doors available that fold down the middle and slide away to open up the full frame of the door. This usually adds about 88mm to the existing space, which is more than enough to accommodate the average wheelchair. The handles on the door are set at heights that can be easily reached, and there are no parts that will catch fingers or cause issues of other kinds.
The beauty of these types of doors is that you will not have to have them all removed and replaced with the original fittings if you move home. They look just like regular doors, and it is only the way that they operate that makes them different. Homeowners who are not confined to wheelchairs will also enjoy the extra space that they provide in the home, particularly in tighter areas such as the kitchen or bathroom, which means they will not see disabled doors as being something that somehow hurts the value of the property.
What we didn’t mention when discussing wheelchair ramps earlier in this piece is your ability to take them with you should you decide that you need to move to a new home. Rather than having to go through the process of finding a home that meets your wheelchair access requirements again, you can simply disassemble the ramp at your existing home and take it to your new place. Since no heavy construction is required to install them in the first place, there will be no indication that a ramp was ever placed there at any given time.
There are a number of other smaller things that will need to be taken care of inside the home to make it more accessible and functional to someone in a wheelchair, but the ramps and doors are really the big ticket items. By using modular ramps and stairs, as well as adjustable disabled doors, you will get almost all the access you need without having to lay out a lot of money to get it done. You will also save a ton of time, as these installations can be done in a matter of hours rather than days.