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In this video I want to talk to you about porch lifts, show you a few
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situations where they've been installed successfully, just to get you thinking about first of all whether you'd want one or not and second of all where you
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might put it if you do want one. So this photo here shows just how unobtrusive
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porch lifts can be. I mean you wouldn't, this is on the front of a house, you
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wouldn't really notice it. It doesn't detract from the looks of the house, it's
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really quite simple. It doesn't interfere with regular use of the stairs. In this
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case, because there already was a concrete sidewalk in place, the preparation was minimal. All that was required was electricity to be brought
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close by. Generally that's a, well it's always a 120 volt circuit, but a little
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bit more capacity than a regular circuit. So 20 amps is usually what's
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required, but this is a fine porch lift in action. Now before I go on, I just
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want to differentiate porch lifts from stair lifts. They're quite different. Here we have a stair lift. I'm going to be talking about this in course
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number two of this program, but essentially what you have is a rail
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That's what this thing is here. It fastens, it's supported by the stairs
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along one side, and the rail is the only thing that supports the chair. The chair
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is supported by the rail, it's powered by the rail, and you simply sit on the chair
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hit the button, and then slowly that chair is going to go up the rail, and it
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it'll stop at the top. So that's the way stair lifts work, but as I said they're
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quite different from porch lifts, which are usually, though not always, outdoor
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things meant to accept a whole wheelchair or someone that might walk
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onto the lift as well. Now here we have another great lift. It's hardly noticeable
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at all. It's on the front of a house. This particular lift was installed at the
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same time that the stairs were reconstructed, so it fits right in, does a
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great job. The stairs are nice and shallow, they have a wonderful geometry
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to them, they'd be easy stairs to walk up, but if you don't want to walk up
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them or you can't, then the lift is right there, just sitting there ready to use
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Not much to distract the eye. Here's another lift, also on the front of a
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house, built into a new stair and deck arrangement. It's to one side. Once again
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this is the kind of thing that shows off porch lifts at their best. It really
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works quite well. Now this is inside a garage. Many garages are lower than the
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house they serve by a couple of steps, but those couple of steps can be quite a
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barrier. Now in a garage there really is no room for a ramp, so if you want to be
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able to get out of your car and then get into your house without climbing steps
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then this is what you need. And in this case, it really doesn't even take away
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from the space in the garage very much, because the space that the lift occupies
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is to one side of the little porch here, and you know, you certainly
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couldn't park your car there. You may be able to store a few things, but a great
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example of a not-too-standard application for a porch lift. Now here's another one. This is inside. Porch lifts aren't usually installed inside, but in
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this case we've got a split-level house. It's got four steps up. That's awfully
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short, an awfully short run for a stair lift, but a porch lift, as you can see
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fits in perfectly, works well. It just happens to be indoors. Here's another one
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This house is certainly, this house and lot would be way too small for any kind
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of a ramp, at least if you wanted to preserve the looks of the house at all
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It's not very far from the road. There's all kinds of landscaping that's going on
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All that would have had to go if you're building a ramp, but here we have a
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porch lift installed. In this case, it's actually very close to the front door
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much closer to the front door than the steps are, which are over here, but this
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is exactly what you want. In this case, this sidewalk you see here and this
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support pad was poured to prepare for the installation of the lift because, I
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mean, you don't want to be wheeling a wheelchair across grass or, you know
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using crutches or a walker or anything like that. You need a nice smooth surface right from the driveway, right to the lift, and that's what we've got here
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And finally, although most porch lifts top out at about 60 or 70 inches of rise
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there are some available that go quite a bit higher, and this is an excellent
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example of that. It's going up to a second floor door, so if you wanted, say
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perhaps, I don't know, a ramp at the front and a porch lift at the back
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some people do that, then this is the thing, especially if you want direct
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access to the second floor. You just go around the back of the house and get on
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the lift and then away you go. So this is an overview of what porch lifts are all
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about. I hope it's been helpful and really a necessary step, and I'll be
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getting to this later on in the course, but a very necessary step is to have a
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site visit from a trusted retailer of these things. That's the way it works
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because they're big, they require local delivery and installation and support, so
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they're always supplied by local suppliers, so you'll need to do a little
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snooping around. I'll tell you more about that later
