Accessibility Equipment near you

The category runs from a twenty-minute job to a permitted installation with a state inspection, and companies rarely do all of it. Ask which of these a given company installs and services itself rather than subcontracts.

The 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design are freely published, and using them at home is a way of buying equipment that will actually work rather than equipment that fits. Three sets of numbers do most of the work when you are choosing hardware. Grab bars in the standards are installed 33 inches minimum and 36 inches maximum above the floor, with a gripping surface 1-1/4 inches minimum and 2 inches maximum in diameter, and 1-1/2 inches of clearance between the bar and the wall behind it. That clearance is the detail people get wrong when they buy a decorative rail: a hand has to pass around the bar, and a bar mounted tight to the tile cannot be gripped when it matters.

Ramps in the same standards have a running slope no steeper than 1:12 and a maximum rise of 30 inches for any one run, with landings at least 60 inches long at the top and bottom, and handrails on both sides where the rise is greater than 6 inches. Those figures are why a temporary ramp bought online is so often too short: the length is set by the height it has to climb, not by what fits on the porch.

Hold on to the distinction, though. In a private home these are a reference you choose, not a rule imposed on you, and where the person's own reach, grip or gait differs from the standard, the person wins. State or local law can add its own requirements, so ask your building department what applies where you live.

Homeowners are routinely astonished to learn that a platform lift at the back door falls under the state elevator program. The ASME A18.1 Safety Standard for Platform Lifts and Stairway Chairlifts is adopted by states the same way the elevator code is: Minnesota lists ASME A18.1-2017 among its adopted codes, states that only licensed elevator contractors may install, maintain, alter, repair or test elevators and elevator-related devices, and inspects residential vertical platform lifts. Whether your state treats a chairlift the same way is a question for its elevator or building program, and it is worth asking before the deposit rather than after the inspection notice.

A stair lift raises a second question that has nothing to do with the lift itself. The residential code sets a minimum clear width for stairways, and the rail and carriage of a lift take some of that width at the level where people put their feet. The stair still has to serve everyone else in the house, including in a fire, so the installation has to leave a usable path and a graspable handrail. Where your jurisdiction allows a narrower passage for an installed chairlift, it will say so in its adopted code, and the building department is the place to confirm it.

Electrical work is the other permit trigger. A lift needs its own supply, and a new circuit is licensed work in most states. Ramps that are built rather than set in place are structures, subject to permits and to zoning setbacks like anything else on the lot.

For veterans and service members, the benefit that most often fits equipment rather than construction is HISA, the Home Improvements and Structural Alterations benefit. VA describes it as providing medically necessary improvements and structural alterations to a veteran's or service member's primary residence, for allowing entrance to or exit from the residence, for use of essential lavatory and sanitary facilities such as roll-in showers, and for accessibility to kitchen or bathroom sinks or counters, including permanent ramping to improve entrance paths or driveways. It is a lifetime benefit, it is available for service-connected and, under its own criteria, non-service-connected disabilities, and it requires a prescription written or approved by a VA physician describing the project along with the diagnosis and the medical justification. That prescription requirement is the step that catches families out, because it has to come before the work.

VA also runs the larger Specially Adapted Housing and Special Home Adaptation grants for veterans with qualifying service-connected disabilities, which help buy, build or change a permanent home, and which can be drawn on up to six different times over a lifetime rather than all at once.

Outside the veterans' system, the public money is mostly Medicaid and mostly administered by your state rather than nationally. Medicaid explains that states can develop home and community-based services waivers for people who prefer to receive long-term care services and supports at home or in their community rather than in an institutional setting, that around 257 waiver programs are currently active, and that states tailor the service package and the target population. What your state's waiver covers, and whether equipment and home adaptations are in it, is a question for your state Medicaid agency and your area agency on aging. Ask before ordering, because these programs typically approve the work first.

Quotes diverge because the equipment classes are genuinely different, not because one company is greedier. What moves the price most is which device is being proposed, whether a stair is straight or curved, the rise a ramp or lift has to climb, the condition of the walls and framing the hardware fastens to, whether electrical work or structural backing is needed, whether a permit and a state inspection apply to the device, and what the service agreement and eventual removal include. Ask for the equipment, the installation and the annual service to be priced as separate lines.

LokalMatch connects you to installers rather than selling equipment. You describe the situation once: what the person needs to be able to do, the layout of the house, whether this is temporary or permanent, and whether any benefit program is involved. Accessibility installers serving your area receive the request and get in touch. Pros pay for the requests they receive; posting one costs you nothing. LokalMatch does not install equipment, does not set or negotiate prices, and does not vet, rank or recommend anyone, so checking licensing where a lift is involved, insurance and the service terms is yours to do. This page is general information rather than medical, legal or safety advice.