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Recovering from a second hip op within 7 months gives time to think about stuff. In our case it's how to apply SMART tech to enable older folk to extend the range of things they can do No matter how you fight it, getting older slows you down. Things stop working. For no good reason some things start to hurt. Other things need almost constant gentle first aid. Some things fall off - or out. Some things disappear. Other things double in size and visibility. But then if you read BH for more than a few minutes, you find yourself surrounded by people keen to improve things in the house. And lots of evidence of what can be done to make some of the challenges outlined above less daunting. But reading the threads can be hard work. The Tsunami of new terms and quaint acronyms add to the difficulty of wading through the wide array of market offers. I need things that can for example switch this on or off, or on and off randomly, or make it easy to switch that thing on when I'm not there tell me that the solar pv has finished charging the water tank tell me I'm likely to get a healthy dose of solar radiation tomorrow - less likely to need to boost my water tank let me look at a plug socket and tell me it's 'on' when I'm the other side of the room. [... ] insert your need here .... I'd like to use this thread to be a low-level introduction to help inform readers about the technical assistance that can be made available to help older folk make purchase decisions based on evidence presented and discussed here and elsewhere make recommendations based on user-experience. make judgements on whether a 'tech' approach to a problem can be thought of as DIY or not summarise common concepts make those concepts easy to understand give practical examples of how BH members have applied 'tech' to make their lives easier - with a particular focus on 'getting-on-a-bit' I'd like this place to be where we can present simply expressed evidence. And a place to encourage, and maybe put a smile in someone's mind.

Hi all, we are considering purchasing our neighbour's house to create a 2-way entrance to our site. My question: supposing there were 8 - 12 dwellings on the site, would a partial in-out such as this be acceptable? ie one that starts 2-lane but narrows to 1 lane?

I have written a number of articles about adapting a house to be more suitable for use by people who are frail, older or disabled. This is a list so that anyone interested (or not interested) can find them slightly more easily. Converting a Downstairs Bathroom into an Accessible Shower Room Cost for this was just over £2k, including about £1k for the Fitter Labour and £250 for a shower seat and grab rails etc. A full replacement would have cost about £2500, with perhaps £1250-£1500 of materials. For a DIY version it would have cost £1200-£1500. A detailed set of 6 articles about my downstairs bathroom being made into a shower room: Accessible Ablutions - Strip OUt Accessible Ablutions 2 - Ducts for the Future Accessible Ablutions 3 - Half Way Photos Accessible Ablutions 4 - Finished Photos Accessible Ablutions 5 - 3d Printing Accessible Ablutions 6 - Costs and Components Project Discussion thread: Recommendations for Bathrooms for Elderly / Disabled A forum post where I reflect a little after some time of using the new shower room. Adding a Bath to the a large upstairs shower room Before and after articles with 3-d model, finished video, and debate leading to design changes: Bathroom Refurbishment Project (1) - Comments Please Bathroom Refurbishment Project (2) - Proposed Design Bathroom Refurbishment Project Finished More will be added as and when. The next projects are a further bathroom refurbishment upstairs and an accessibility ramp on the front path.

I have recently (had) installed on our downstairs doors a set of doorstops that would prevent doors needing to be reopened from behind the swing, and hold them open when they do not need to be closed. Even oak suffers eventually from too many "Open that Door" impacts. This was needed to help make the house more accessible or an older person, who sometimes used a wheelchair. So the requirement was: Something to hold an open door, open. That would catch the door relatively gently. Such that the door could be closed again with a relatively gentle tug by an older person. This is the product I used, which is a "Rauken DS-002 Stainless Steel Soft-Catch Magnetic Door Stop in Brushed Satin Nickel, Wall Mount-2 Pack", at about £16:00 for a 2-pack. Reasonably easy to fit, well made and recommended. The magnet is strong (though a little variable across half a dozen examples). I fitted them half-way along the back of the door, but towards the edge of the front door for a stronger attachment to be less vulnerable to any draught-driven opening if both front and back doors were open at once. The only issue with fitting is registration between the two halves, if the door is not to be quite parallel to the wall. One way would be to attach one half, chalk the end, then test open the door to see where it touches the chalk. Another is to put it on with a single screw initially (out of three) and then adjust later. A third option is to have long, thin, arms and a stubby screwdriver and hope the dog does not tread on you. The main limitation is that this product requires approx 6 inches (150mm) between the back of your door and your wall. If you meet those requirements, then I can recommend. It also comes with Amazon Prime, so no delivery charges at this time. It is perhaps worth trying a smaller order first to see if they work for you, as it is on Prime. There are options which are a little cheaper, but I am currently short of pfaff-time so I went for the one with the larger number of good reviews.

Arthritis is a useful spur to taking the issue of (in)accessibility seriously. In our current house, every electrical item was installed by a sparky who frankly could not have given a flying foxtrot about anything other than his miserable, introverted, shrivel-hearted, spiteful self. Its now quite gratuitously painful to isolate (for example) our oven. To do that , I have to ; kneel down (Challenge No.1 - mitigated by knee pads and kneeling with the aid of a chair) open a cupboard under the oven (Challenge No. 2 - easy) bend down and squint into the depths (Challenge No. 3 - painful but acceptable) reach to the back of the cupboard (Challenge No.4 - painful and long-winded - I have to grope for the switch because the isolator has no neon). If Great Crested Newt Towers (Salamander Cottage) is about anything, its about getting systems to serve the inhabitants. Not the other way round. This isn't just a Materials First House: it's a People First ( well after America First of course) house. I have to hope that the area immediately above our kitchen worktop (the splashback) is not merely a line of 13 Amp sockets (8) , isolators (3 or 4), task light switches (3) . I want to keep the area above our worktop clear, simple. But as usual, the practice of simplicity is the opposite. Has anyone managed to design the space above the kitchen worktop that addresses both the issue of accesibility and simplicity? This image is stolen fair and square from Scolmore's promotional material - illustrating perfectly the way that manufacturers simply ignore accessibility: what can you isolate easily in this kitchen? Nowt.

This is a thread about all the features and detailed questions related to adapting a house to be more accessible. I hope it will become a resource thread. Ferdinand