Home Lift Installation
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Terry - Somerset
Established Member
I have been through this thought process - albeit in our last house. There is no immediate need but wanted a documented costed solution before it becomes forced through circumstance.
- stairlift - simple, quick to fit, relatively cheap, but a constant visible reminder of infirmity
- lift - difficult for many to find ~1 sq m vertically without seriously compromising house layout - eg: lose a bedroom. A smaller issue in a larger house. More costly than stairlift.
- convert attached double garage. Currently mostly serves as workshop but if I get to the stairlift stage the workshop may be decoration rather than useful.
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How much approximately is a lift?
MorrisWoodman12
Established Member
Are you aware that Stannah Stair Lifts now offer a turbo lift?As you get older there is one more vital accessory, a small recording device like an old fashioned dictaphone. Then you can record a message to yourself before you set off and replay it when you arrive. It avoids that "Now, what did I come upstairs for?" moment.
It gets you upstairs so quickly that you don't have time to forget what you want up there.
This is a bit close to the bone, and I'm not even 45 yet!Are you aware that Stannah Stair Lifts now offer a turbo lift?
It gets you upstairs so quickly that you don't have time to forget what you want up there.
@joncooper27
We had a lift installed 2 years ago (wife is a full-time wheelchair user), our 2nd lift (not in the same house). The first lift several years ago was a through-floor platform lift, quite industrial/clinical looking. The cost then was I think around £4000 to go one floor up. As @Terry - Somerset said, putting a lift inside a house loses most of the utility of one room per floor unless you have very large rooms, so we lost a dining room and small bedroom. Whilst the lift installation includes a strong-enough-to-walk-on cover over the hole in the first floor so you can't fall down the hole (it is lifted up by the platform lift when it comes up from the ground floor) you can't put any furniture within 300mm of the lift footprint on either floor.
In our latest house we didn't have any room inside to put a lift so we had a lift shaft and lobbies added. The house has three storeys so this was not cheap. This time we went for a cabin lift. Total cost >£70k!! The lift itself was £25k, basically ~£8k per floor. But the house and location are what we wanted and the room sizes are perfect so worth the spend.
A through-floor lift goes through the floor (!!) and doesn't have a full cabin (no full-height walls and no ceiling). You cut a hole in the ground-floor ceiling/first-floor floor, fix some steel uprights, and the lift attaches to those. On the lower-priced ones you can see and touch the walls, more expensive ones have a shaft/tube. On all through-the-floor lifts you have to keep the button pressed to keep the lift moving. These tend to use an Archimedes screw to drive the lift up and down.
A cabin lift is what you get in many shops and hotels, but built for the domestic market. A full cabin with walls, floor and ceiling, and you don't have to keep the button pressed as you can't touch the building walls so can't get hands and other bits of anatomy trapped! These are typically about £8k per floor and up. Ours is hydraulic, you can get archimedes, belt drives and pneumatic. There is even a cabin lift that fits externally to the building without a shaft.
https://www.levellifts.co.uk/products/shaftless-cabin-lift/ . Cabin lifts tend to require a pit, although this can be as little as 50mm.
HTH
Steve
We had a lift installed 2 years ago (wife is a full-time wheelchair user), our 2nd lift (not in the same house). The first lift several years ago was a through-floor platform lift, quite industrial/clinical looking. The cost then was I think around £4000 to go one floor up. As @Terry - Somerset said, putting a lift inside a house loses most of the utility of one room per floor unless you have very large rooms, so we lost a dining room and small bedroom. Whilst the lift installation includes a strong-enough-to-walk-on cover over the hole in the first floor so you can't fall down the hole (it is lifted up by the platform lift when it comes up from the ground floor) you can't put any furniture within 300mm of the lift footprint on either floor.
In our latest house we didn't have any room inside to put a lift so we had a lift shaft and lobbies added. The house has three storeys so this was not cheap. This time we went for a cabin lift. Total cost >£70k!! The lift itself was £25k, basically ~£8k per floor. But the house and location are what we wanted and the room sizes are perfect so worth the spend.
A through-floor lift goes through the floor (!!) and doesn't have a full cabin (no full-height walls and no ceiling). You cut a hole in the ground-floor ceiling/first-floor floor, fix some steel uprights, and the lift attaches to those. On the lower-priced ones you can see and touch the walls, more expensive ones have a shaft/tube. On all through-the-floor lifts you have to keep the button pressed to keep the lift moving. These tend to use an Archimedes screw to drive the lift up and down.
A cabin lift is what you get in many shops and hotels, but built for the domestic market. A full cabin with walls, floor and ceiling, and you don't have to keep the button pressed as you can't touch the building walls so can't get hands and other bits of anatomy trapped! These are typically about £8k per floor and up. Ours is hydraulic, you can get archimedes, belt drives and pneumatic. There is even a cabin lift that fits externally to the building without a shaft.
https://www.levellifts.co.uk/products/shaftless-cabin-lift/ . Cabin lifts tend to require a pit, although this can be as little as 50mm.
HTH
Steve
A quick note on stairlifts. If you need something to get a wheelchair user to a different floor, you need a wheelchair at each floor. So stairlifts are really only useful for people who have some ambulatory capability.
You can get external lifts that then only require a knock through the walls for the doors. If the noise I bought didn’t have as many windows everywhere I would have opted for this type of lift. They are insulated, and allowed under permitted development, I understand,.
Cabinetman
Established Member
I have always thought that the air pressure ones in "glass" tubes are really cool, but are they any good?
They fitted one in the escape the chateau series on tv
They fitted one in the escape the chateau series on tv
Yes they do look cool, saw it on Escape. £40k upwards and I'm not even sure they can fit a decent sized wheelchair.
I hope you put those nice boards aside safe and sound. 4 long and 4 short, ideal for something i should think.
Inspector
Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck!
As is a raised bed or a compost bin.
Pete
Pete
I’m sorry to say, they went in the wood recycling skip at the local refuse centre. I know, it’s tragic, and I agree..,,,my excuse is I have so much stuff and at present no where to put it. I’m between workshops, I’ve sold the old house where my workshop was and still the build of the new one isn’t complete. Insulated ceiling, wiring, UFH, screed and resin floor before I can move the stuff in. New driveway, tender the outside and finish the rain water stuff before it’s fully complete
AES
Established Member
@deema: Thank you very much for a very interesting and informative post.
Unfortunately both my wife and I are at the stage where the stairs are becoming "impossible"! As our house is built on the side of a steep slope, we have the situation where from outside the front door the house looks just like a bungalow, but go out into the back garden (down steps!) and it becomes a 3-storey house.
Stair lifts are common here too, but having spoken to several local estate agents the story seems to be the same as in UK - they detract from the value of the house (unless you remove them).
As we're both at the stage where any DIY except of the lightest nature is VERY difficult, and not having looked at prices for a "proper" lift like yours (we doubt that we have the space) we are now in process of selling the contents of my workshop, all the gardening tools, etc, etc, and moving out to a ground floor flat.
That has been an awful decision to reach (we love this house and the area) and we'd originally intended that we would be here "for ever". As above, that ain't happening.
The best of luck to you and yours (not to mention the dogs) and thanks again for detailing your own solution. From your pix that lift looks great. I don't know if it's just a "psychological" thing, but to my mind the addition of a "proper" lift adds an air of luxury to any property.
Unfortunately both my wife and I are at the stage where the stairs are becoming "impossible"! As our house is built on the side of a steep slope, we have the situation where from outside the front door the house looks just like a bungalow, but go out into the back garden (down steps!) and it becomes a 3-storey house.
Stair lifts are common here too, but having spoken to several local estate agents the story seems to be the same as in UK - they detract from the value of the house (unless you remove them).
As we're both at the stage where any DIY except of the lightest nature is VERY difficult, and not having looked at prices for a "proper" lift like yours (we doubt that we have the space) we are now in process of selling the contents of my workshop, all the gardening tools, etc, etc, and moving out to a ground floor flat.
That has been an awful decision to reach (we love this house and the area) and we'd originally intended that we would be here "for ever". As above, that ain't happening.
The best of luck to you and yours (not to mention the dogs) and thanks again for detailing your own solution. From your pix that lift looks great. I don't know if it's just a "psychological" thing, but to my mind the addition of a "proper" lift adds an air of luxury to any property.
@AES I’m sorry to hear you’ve decided to move and loose the workshop. My father hung up his tools a few years ago, he decided that he was no longer sufficiently dexterous to use them safely any more. That was a truly sad day for both of us as I had always 3njoyed our hours in the workshop tigether.
In the UK the cost to move is horrendous, and a lift here is a ‘cheap’ option in comparison. There are options I believe for almost every situation. Internal lifts eat space, we would have opted for an external lift, however as odd as it sounds we didn’t have a wall where it wouldn’t have compromised a significant window.
In the UK the cost to move is horrendous, and a lift here is a ‘cheap’ option in comparison. There are options I believe for almost every situation. Internal lifts eat space, we would have opted for an external lift, however as odd as it sounds we didn’t have a wall where it wouldn’t have compromised a significant window.
