5 Tips To Make Your Home Wheelchair Accessible

Mod­i­fy­ing a home so that it’s suit­able for a wheel­chair user can be a chal­leng­ing process. But by learn­ing from the experts, you can get a head start on the plan­ning process. In this lat­est post, we offer five tips for mak­ing your home wheel­chair acces­si­ble.

1. Con­sid­er the Entrance. The first step to con­sid­er is how to mod­i­fy the entrance to the home for the wheel­chair user. You should build a ramp or ensure a smooth path to each home entrance. When work­ing with the ramp design team, make sure the ramp is wide enough to accom­mo­date the person’s wheel­chair and review the poten­tial for adding handrails to any ramp space inte­grat­ed around the home.
2. Install a Stair­way Lift. Stair­way lifts are now mak­ing it eas­i­er for those in wheel­chairs to quick­ly trans­port them­selves up and down stairs in the home. The instal­la­tion of a stair­way lift can help wheel­chair users retain their inde­pen­dence with­in the home envi­ron­ment and ensure that each area of the home is acces­si­ble to them. When inte­grat­ing a stair­way lift, ensure that the lift includes a swiv­el seat so that the wheel­chair user main­tains full ease of move­ment.
3. Low­er Door Knobs. One impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion that is often over­looked when address­ing home acces­si­bil­i­ty issues is door knobs. Door­knobs should be low­ered so that wheel­chair users can eas­i­ly get in and out of rooms in the home. When pos­si­ble, home­own­ers should also con­sid­er adding auto­mat­ic door open­ers with­in the home that can be used to sense when a per­son is wait­ing and to open auto­mat­i­cal­ly.
4. Replace Cord Phones. Cord phones are a nui­sance for those in a wheel­chair. They can quick­ly become tan­gled dur­ing use and it can often be hard to access the phone in time when it’s ring­ing. To make the home more acces­si­ble, try to add a num­ber of cord­less phones in rooms through­out the home. This will ensure the wheel­chair user is able to main­tain com­mu­ni­ca­tion with friends and fam­i­ly while alone in the home.
5. Low­er Kitchen Coun­ter­tops and Appli­ances. Wheel­chair users often strug­gle to main­tain their kitchen clean­ing and cook­ing rou­tines. To make the process eas­i­er, you can bring in a con­struc­tion team to review the process of low­er­ing kitchen coun­ter­tops and mak­ing appli­ances more acces­si­ble. This will ensure all kitchen items are eas­i­ly avail­able through­out the day.

By work­ing with trust­ed home mod­i­fi­ca­tion spe­cial­ists, you can trans­form your home for ide­al use by wheel­chair users. To dis­cov­er more on the mod­i­fi­ca­tion process, speak with our team today!