Short lift height wheelchair lifts?

[LJH]

Hello All,
My wife and I have purchased a new house which is going to make my life significantly easier and super excited. With that said we do have to add a few things for it to work.

The first, and most pressing is a lift into the house from the garage. the height from the garage floor to the doorway is about 22" and while the garage is very decently sized doing a ramp long enough to get me in is going to take up a lot of space. Because of that, I started looking at lifts but want to get some input from people who have experience with this sort of thing.

• What do you use and what has been your experience.
• Any out of the box ideas.....making something work that was not necessarily designed for the application? I looked at pallet lifts but there are no cost savings.

Any and all info and ideas welcome.

Cheers,
Jim

[pfcs49]

I needed a 31" lift to get to the office area of my auto shop in 1995.
Four vendors quoted me $8,000 to 12.000 for a legal lift.
I picked up a Braun side entry lift from a Ford van for $250.
I installed it in my shop with a little modification and used it five days a week before selling the place in 2016 (21yrs) with absolutely zero maintenance!
It also was pretty quick up and down.

I ran a 5/16" steel line down from the cylinder on the left, and into the basement where I put the lift-pump with a 12V Honda battery and a trickle charger. The battery was good/used and lasted 15 years! I guess you could say that was maintenance.

I welded a mount/supporting tab to the left side column at the upper floor level and put a lag bolt into the wood.
At the top of the right column, I welded another tab and put a long 1/2" carriage bolt through the end of the petition.
I was worried that the top left column would need to be supported, that the frame would twist when living weight, but it was fine and perfectly stable without one.

I welded some flat stock onto the bottom lateral part that the deck folds down onto to make the deck only go to 90* (in the van app, the lift hinges out from the top so the telescoping inner section of the sides clears the side door opening at the floor, and thus, un-altered, the angle to the frame is greater than 90*)

I highly recommend hunting one down. IMO this lift was superb. You could spend big bucks on a lift and in terms of simplicity, reliability, and function, it wouldn't compare!
Of course-you have to remember to hold your place on the deck when elevating
It's designed so the mini-ramp-strip across the outer edge raises as it rises to prevent your falling off. I just welded the hinges so it hits the floor. I suppose if it were on the side of a van, it might be handy to stop your rolling when the van was on uneven ground and the deck was tilted down by the terrain the van parked on, but it never was a problem with the deck being plumb.

I also have a three story dumbwaiter (rope pull) elevator in our barn house, I paid up for that unit! $1,200.
But we had to install it, of course. But that's a whole 'other story.

[baldfatdad]

I made one out of a motorcycle life. Air powered, so would work if power went out. A buddy of mine bought a lift out of a van. Has a battery and charger (even hooked it to a solar panel).

[NW-Will]

I love that rope pull dumb waiter lift.. it's awesome.

Would you share some more pictures and and any other details you have please.

Did you manufacture it yourself? buy it? new ? used ?

Any video of you using it ?

I needed a 31" lift to get to the office area of my auto shop in 1995.
Four vendors quoted me $8,000 to 12.000 for a legal lift.
I picked up a Braun side entry lift from a Ford van for $250.
I installed it in my shop with a little modification and used it five days a week before selling the place in 2016 (21yrs) with absolutely zero maintenance!
It also was pretty quick up and down.

I ran a 5/16" steel line down from the cylinder on the left, and into the basement where I put the lift-pump with a 12V Honda battery and a trickle charger. The battery was good/used and lasted 15 years! I guess you could say that was maintenance.

I welded a mount/supporting tab to the left side column at the upper floor level and put a lag bolt into the wood.
At the top of the right column, I welded another tab and put a long 1/2" carriage bolt through the end of the petition.
I was worried that the top left column would need to be supported, that the frame would twist when living weight, but it was fine and perfectly stable without one.

I welded some flat stock onto the bottom lateral part that the deck folds down onto to make the deck only go to 90* (in the van app, the lift hinges out from the top so the telescoping inner section of the sides clears the side door opening at the floor, and thus, un-altered, the angle to the frame is greater than 90*)

I highly recommend hunting one down. IMO this lift was superb. You could spend big bucks on a lift and in terms of simplicity, reliability, and function, it wouldn't compare!
Of course-you have to remember to hold your place on the deck when elevating
It's designed so the mini-ramp-strip across the outer edge raises as it rises to prevent your falling off. I just welded the hinges so it hits the floor. I suppose if it were on the side of a van, it might be handy to stop your rolling when the van was on uneven ground and the deck was tilted down by the terrain the van parked on, but it never was a problem with the deck being plumb.

I also have a three story dumbwaiter (rope pull) elevator in our barn house, I paid up for that unit! $1,200.
But we had to install it, of course. But that's a whole 'other story.

[pfcs49]

"love that rope pull dumb waiter lift.. it's awesome.

Would you share some more pictures and and any other details you have please.

Did you manufacture it yourself? buy it? new ? used ?

Any video of you using it ?"

https://www.carecure.net/forum/sci-c...96#post2431896

Go to that post; the pictures of the mechanicals is on the next page; I have no video, maybe sometime I'll do that

[juniorsenior]

Do you have a picture/video/post of it?

I made one out of a motorcycle life. Air powered, so would work if power went out. A buddy of mine bought a lift out of a van. Has a battery and charger (even hooked it to a solar panel).

[August West]

For a garage maybe an inclined platform lift works best. Because it is in line with the stairs. Otherwise, if the lift and stair are side by side that may eat into the space for the car.

[LJH]

Hello All,
Realized I never updated what I ended up doing.

Our contractor was not excited about engineering the platform to deal with the cantilever loads of a bus/van lift but I did look and they can be found cheap for sure. While I was looking for bus/van lifts I came upon a guy advertising a used Burno verticle lift on eBay. After some back and forth we struck a deal at $3400 installed. The lift is their outdoor version and has the cold weather package, battery backup, and looks like it had very little use. I have been using it for about a month now and it is nice not having to deal with a ramps especially when I have packages, firewood, tools, etc.

Believe it or not but we were able to sell the Stair Chair from the old house for $1000 to a guy who is reselling it, he even removed it for that price. I asked him about the pricing of the lift I was looking at and asked me to get the serial number to check the age. He said it was a 2016 and he said that was a very fair price, he also said that if we were to buy it new with all the options and install it would be right around $10K

The new house has been a game-changer, I am completely independent in the shower, the open floor plan makes it super easy to get around, the deck is fantastic especially now with a Solo Firepit on it. The garage is great, I can get in and out of the car in the garage so I do not get wet when it is raining or snowing and if I am just running to pick up the kid I can just leave the wheelchair in the garage and not worry about it. All good.

Thanks all for the ideas.

Cheers,
Jim

[juniorsenior]

Would you post some pictures of your setup if you wouldn’t mind?