One of the most important areas of the home to achieve full accessibility is the garage. For many of us, our home’s garage is the primary or most convenient entry point into our living space. If your home’s attached garage isn’t fully accessible, it could quickly limit your ability to move freely between your vehicle and your home. With this in mind, we’re often asked, “What are the most common ways to make your garage more accessible?”
Some people tend to assume a ramp would make the most sense when looking for ways to make their garage more accessible. But in reality, for most people and most homes, a ramp simply takes up too much room to be a practical solution.
Commercially approved ramps require one foot of horizontal travel for each inch of vertical travel. That means if you have three steps totaling 20 inches in height, that would require a ramp 20 feet long. While the requirements for residential ramps are more variable, in many cases they still occupy more space than a full-size truck! In short, for most homeowners, ramps become impractical when the vertical travel height exceeds one step.
Instead, let’s explore the most effective and compact garage accessibility lift solutions.
Types of Garage Accessibility Lifts
Aside from a ramp, several types of lifts and elevators can help make your garage accessible.
Wheelchair Platform Lifts
A common way to make a garage accessible for individuals who use wheelchairs is to install a vertical platform lift. These lifts consist of a 12- to 18-square-foot platform, a compact drive tower, side panels for safety, and a gate at the top landing. The gate at the top landing also has an electro-mechanical interlock, like an elevator, which prevents it from opening when the platform is not present and allows the gate to open when the platform is present at the top landing.
Speaking of safety, an essential safety feature in a garage lift is a pressure-sensing “safety pan” underneath the platform. This safety pan ensures that nothing and no one is crushed beneath the platform on the way down to the garage floor.
These common garage lifts are safe, reliable, compact, and versatile when properly installed.
Home Elevators
If you are building a new custom home or remodeling your existing residence, it may be possible to make all its floors, including the garage, accessible in one fell swoop. How? A home elevator.
From the lowest floor to the highest, home elevators can travel up to 50 feet vertically and typically include an elevator cabin size of 12 to 15 square feet in area, which is sufficient for many wheelchairs.
While it is not uncommon for a home to have a separate accessibility lift in the garage and a home elevator within the home’s interior, we always recommend having the home elevator serve the garage, if possible, for simplicity and cost savings.
The type of home elevator best suited for garage accessibility requires a shaft to be built. One shaft opening would then match with the garage floor, while the other openings would serve the remaining levels of the home.
Stair Lifts
Stair lifts, technically called stairway chairlifts, can also be installed in garages. However, they do not provide wheelchair accessibility. On the positive side, they are the most compact garage accessibility option. Additionally, they do not require construction since they are fastened directly onto the stair treads and do not require a shaft or other opening to be built.
The chair glides up the stairs (hence the term “stairglide” sometimes used to describe them) and then rotates at the top landing to allow the person using the lift to exit at the top safely.
We have installed many such stairway lifts in garages, even if only a few steps exist. If space is at a premium in your garage, and the person needing help with the stairs can transfer into and out of a chair, this might be your ideal option for garage accessibility.
Inclined Platform Lift
One more type of lift that is uncommon but sometimes the right fit for garage accessibility is the inclined platform lift, also called an incline wheelchair lift. These lifts are a cross between stair lifts and vertical platform lifts.
Like a stairway chairlift, inclined platform lifts travel at an incline along an existing staircase. Like a vertical platform lift, they have a platform large enough to fit a wheelchair. This means a person using a wheelchair lift does not have to transfer in or out of their wheelchair at either landing, which can make a big difference for many individuals.
These handy lifts are less common because they tend to be more expensive than stairway chairlifts or vertical wheelchair lifts, and they require significantly more room to operate than a stairway chairlift. Once the cost and space constraints are factored in, a stair lift, home elevator, or vertical platform lift often makes more sense or is a more desirable solution.
The Solution to Your Garage Accessibility Needs
Whether you use a wheelchair and need to get in and out of your home seamlessly or just need a little help making the few steps safer with a stair lift, several options exist. Why not ask the experts for assistance in this important decision? At Arrow Lift, we have been making garages more accessible for almost 40 years and would be honored to see how we can help you.
