Having an elevator installed in your home use to be something most of us would never consider. I guess the only elevators most of us saw inside a home were in shows like “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”. It always seemed owning an elevator was outside the budget of an average person. As years pass and the greatest generation, Baby Boomers, age gracefully and live longer, they want to to stay living inside the home they own instead of moving to a new location. Most of them never considered how challenging stairs would be years after they buy their home. Also, people are living longer these days with the average lifespan in the US being close to 80 yrs. This means that even after retirement, people are living an additional nearly 20 years.
This can be a problem to those that purchased homes with multiple floors. Most homes are not designed to have an elevator in it so an elevator shaft or hoistway inside the home can add up to hefty costs. In some cases you would need a general contractor, electrician, structural engineer and architect before you even hire an elevator company. There are many variables that play a role in the scope of work that would need to be done, not to mention the fact that you are losing living space once you have your elevator installed.
Many people are familiar with a wheelchair lift. Most have seen them in commercial places like hotels, court houses and even airports. The average lifting height is only around 5 ft for most of the ones you see in those places. Take that same style of wheelchair lift or vertical platform lift (VPL) and put it on a home that has a porch and all of a sudden you have a porch lift for wheelchair users to access their home from a deck or porch. This works great for homes that have slightly elevated entrances.
