69bbb VIDEO ACCESS RAMP DESIGN TOUR

In this video, I want to give you a tour of the detailed plans for an access ramp or wheelchair ramp that I designed for this course

There's no shortage of general drawings about ramps on the internet and other places

but there are very few that provide the kind of details you need to actually build one, and that's what this plan is all about

Everything's been thought through, all the parts fit together in a logical way, and everything you need to know to build a proper access ramp is right here

These plans are printable, so you can get a hard copy and take it to your building site

This video is all about a tour of the details that you'll want to know about

Starting with the foundation, I'm showing two different approaches here. Right here we have the concrete pier approach, which is what I recommend for decks in general

and that's the kind of thing you'd want to use if your access ramp was going to be completely permanent

Not all ramps are. Sometimes you know that the person living in the house might be there another four, five, six years

and you don't necessarily want to have the ramp there all the time

So getting rid of concrete piers after the fact is kind of difficult

but that's why I've included this option here, where the wooden post extends all the way into the ground

and it's resting on some concrete that's been blooped down into the hole after it was dug

just as a solid footing, maybe five or six inches deep. The beauty of this is that if you do want to take the ramp apart, you can just pull those posts out

A machine could, any kind of a machine with a loader, could grip onto the top and pull it out

and you fill in the hole, and it's basically disappeared. So two different foundation options to consider

One of the main features of any ramp is the slope, of course, and you need to get that right

Down here you'll see the maximum slope. So the steepest that an access ramp can be is this ratio of one to twelve

So twelve units of horizontal run for every one unit of vertical rise

That's as steep as a ramp can be by law in most places

If you've got the room, then it's better to spread that out a little bit and have it even shallower

One and twenty is a very nice slope, very safe, and these are the numbers that inform everything else that you do as you're building your ramp

Another major part of the ramp is the landing. Most ramps need a landing because there's just not enough room to extend a landing-less ramp out in any straight direction

So this allows you to turn corners. It also makes it safer, too, because the slope is broken up by at least one landing, which can make things safer

The landing's very important because it's got to be quite solid. In this particular illustration, you can see there's the downward ramp is resting against the landing

This upward side that goes down to the ground level is also resting on the side

So you need to invest some effort to making it solid. So we've got some six-by-six posts here

That's what I recommend for everywhere on the design. You could get by with something smaller, like a four-by-four, maybe, but it's quite a jump down

The six-by-six is necessary, though, so that you can cut these notches here

There's a notch here on this face of this post, and there's also a notch on the other side

And that allows you to install some what I call perimeter joists here in this design

Because the joists aren't just bolted to the side of the post, but they're actually inset

they're resting on a ledge of wood down here, and that makes it very strong

So you can see the same sort of thing here from the top

So we have the posts. There's one here and one here. And you can see the perimeter joists. This is one here, and this is another one here

And they're let in, as the carpenters say, they're let in to a notch in the side of the posts

And that makes a very solid platform from which to build the rest of the ramp

Now turn your attention to the bottom of the ramp, so the place where it would rest on the ground

There's a couple of things going on here you need to know about. You don't just want the edges of these ramp joists to rest directly on the soil

I mean, it's going to look fine at first, but it is also going to sink slowly into the ground

Things usually do, unless they have some kind of a proper base

And in this case, that is these patio slabs here. You're going to need at least two, probably three, to get the width you need

If I was building one of these, I'd use what's called foundation slabs

which are thicker than patio slabs, maybe twice as thick. And they're reinforced, so they're quite strong

And they're meant for resting heavy things onto the soil. So, the reason these patio slabs don't extend all the way to the tapered end of the ramp

is because if they did, you wouldn't be able to drive deck screws down

through the deck boards into the joists, because the screws would go through this thin part of the ramp joists

and wouldn't have any place to go because it would be hitting the masonry

So, the patio slabs don't go all the way to the end

I do recommend a piece of pressure-treated wood along the bottom here

to kind of tie everything together, to tie all the ramp joists together

But leave the very tapered end unsupported by anything but the ground

so that those deck screws can extend down through. You'll probably also have to use some construction adhesive on here

because there's not a lot of wood for those screws to bite into once they've gone through the deck boards

And you'll need to secure that properly at the bottom end. Another thing I'd like to turn your attention to are the fascia boards

So, that's these boards here that define the side of the ramp

If you look at the top view, you can see that the fascia boards extend in a continuous line

In this case, that's the side of the ramp. And it meshes nicely with the fascia board on the landing

And it just kind of wraps around, and it creates a nice final edge

And the way the framing is structured, it is a continuous run

from the side of the ramp here to the side of the landing

Now, one other thing to notice here, the reason I designed it this way

was so that we would have room for the joist hangers to support the ramp joists

So, this is the top view here, and this little angled piece here

is the top view of the edge of a joist hanger, which is a metal bracket that supports joists in applications like this

If this joist was all the way out to the edge, we wouldn't be able to secure this side of the joist hangers

But by insetting it, we've got a nailing surface here and a nailing surface here for the joist hangers

And we still get the nice continuous run along the sides. So, it all works out nicely, and there's no wasted wood

It just works out perfectly, and you get a nice smooth-looking edge

Another thing to pay attention to now as you're understanding the design

is the railings. The support posts for the railings extend right down to the foundation

either the top of the concrete pier or all the way down into the ground

And that continuous post is very important for a solid railing. The design here has two horizontal or sort of horizontal members

There's the top handrail, and many ramps just call it a day there

without anything extra. But having the mid-rail makes things safer. It's not like there's a whole lot of danger of anyone going through

underneath that handrail, but why take the chance for an extra, you know, a few lengths of 2x4 applied to the outside of the posts

You've got a nice, safer arrangement like that, too. While you're looking at the railing, take a look here, too

This board here, this is the top edge of the fascia board, the 2x12 fascia board

And notice how it extends up higher than the deck boards. This is a requirement in a lot of places so that nothing can ever roll off

the edge of the ramp. The rim is there to contain any wheels or crutches or walker legs

that might get too close to the edge. It's just not going to fall off

That's why the fascia needs to be as wide as it is

Now, there are lots of other details in the plans here. If you're going to go ahead and build a ramp at your place

it will, by definition, be a kind of custom job because every house

every lot is a little bit different. The plans here give you the building blocks of what you need to know

in order to do that customizing for your situation. But if you run into any issues, just contact me

We'll figure things out together following these plans, but maybe we'll have to come up with a few modified details

and that's what I'm here for. So feel free to contact me