Electric Stair Chair

It doesn’t matter what type of staircase you have, straight, curved or even spiral. any of these could take the installation of an electric stair lift of some kind.

It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that the straight ones are going to be the easiest to fit and therefore the least expensive.

Curved stairs are more problematic in that there is no such thing as a standard curve on a stairway. Builders more or less do their own thing when putting in a staircase that necessitates a curve.

Naturally a spiral staircase is the most in need of customized tracks, the whole lot have some degree of curve on them. However, how marvelous to know that having a spiral stairway doesn’t mean that you cannot have an electric stair lift to help either you or someone in your family who cannot manage the stairs, for whatever reason.

There are some stairs that go so far, reach a quarter landing and make a 90-degree turn and carry on up. It has been suggested that perhaps two straight lifts could suffice in this case. This would definitely lighten the load as far as expense is concerned.

The problem with a curved stairway, other than the initial installation is that you could never sell it on after you no longer need it. As I mentioned, curvature of stairways is not standardized in any way. Finding someone who needs one and has a curve identical to yours on their stairway, would be harder to find than hen’s teeth.

Thinking along those lines, if you had the 90-degree turn with the small landing and installed two straight lifts, this would mean that you could definitely re-sell the straight lifts and recoup some of your outlay, if and when you no longer needed the facility of an electric stair lift.

Apart from carrying a passenger, the stair lift can carry heavy loads up or down the stairs, laundry for instance, anything at all that could be a problem for someone who has enough problem getting themselves up and down the stairs without the extra problem of carrying something.

The ‘stuff’ could either be sent up on the lift alone, or on the knee of the passenger. Either way it would definitely be easier on the painful joints of the potential user. I have to mention here, it would also be a lot safer. Someone not steady trying to juggle a heavy burden on steps is a definite recipe for disaster!

There is a choice between totally electrically driven lifts and battery driven models. There are different ways of thinking on these two choices, for instance, it is thought to be better to have a battery as a backup power supply, on the electric stair lift, to cover any power cuts, and this is a perfectly valid point.

There are models which run totally on batteries.

However, you also need to consider that a battery has a finite life, you can only re-charge them for a certain length of time before they need replacing, i.e. once every 18-24 months. You have to weight up the cost of replacing batteries, which is not cheap against the cost of electricity. I think the ideal thing would be an electrically driven lift with a battery just there for emergencies, that would prolong the life of the battery quite a lot.

There are quite a few points that need to be considered when contemplating buying a stair lift. Also you have to take into consideration the actual needs of the potential user as to which type you purchase. Don’t rush into this, take your time to make sure you get it right the first time, otherwise you could just be virtually flushing money down the drain.