Accessible House Questions

[Ferdinand]

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

[Ferdinand]

I need some of the ‘door gripper’ doorstops.

 

The ones where a ball goes into a socket to hold the door open, and then needs a tug to release it.

 

The reason is I need a door to stay open to allow a wheelchair through without the wheelchair keeping bashing the door open.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations for such a product or similar?

 

Thanks

 

Ferdinand

[ToughButterCup]

Well, I'd like to ask how to have grab handles in a wetroom without the handles making it look as if the wetroom is in a hospital.

Designing wetrooms for older people seems to have been forgotten - more likely avoided : because its hard.

[Jeremy Harris]

One thing I thing would be useful would be to have a neat and inconspicuous way to turn the glass edge of a shower panel into a grab handle.   The same goes for the edge of washbasins, it has to be fairly easy to just slightly alter the edge profile and improve the strength of the washbasin fixing, so they do double duty as grab handles.

 

Ken McCloud touched on the poor design of disabled living aids on this weeks Grand Designs.  He went so far as to try getting around in a wheelchair to see some of the challenges it posed.  He was also pretty disparaging of some of the stuff specifically made for the purpose, that would look more at home in an institution than a home.  Not sure I'd trust him to come up with better designs, but it might have got a few other people thinking about this.  With building regs changing to try and make homes more future proof, it seems only logical to extend this to the design of multifunctional every day items.

[Jeremy Harris]

I agree, it is a heck of a challenge, but the alternative is that sometimes the less able will just impose loads on items that were just never designed to take them.

 

I'll admit to an interest in this, as my late father was a wheelchair user for the last decade of his life, and converting our 1930's built house so that he had a degree of independence was a nightmare.  Even the doorways all presented significant challenges, being too narrow for a standard width wheelchair.  I also have a paraplegic friend, who visits fairly regularly, so I did ask his advice as to what would make things easier.  The changes I designed in that made the most difference were making all the doors 33" wide, having dead flat level thresholds everywhere in the house (also makes cleaning easier), and providing wide turning spaces, so it's easy to just twizzle a chair around where needed.  Some minor changes were to breach building regs in the downstairs WC, as if we'd put the loo the specified minimum distance from the wall it would have made a wheelchair transfer harder (I explained this to our building inspector, with a note from Steve, our expert in the day to day use of this stuff and he accepted it)  Apparently it's easier if the loo is a bit closer to the non-transfer side wall, as that helps by being able to be leant against.  I changed the way some doors open on Steve's advice, to make it easier for a wheelchair user to grab the handle and open the door, without the door then partly blocking access.  The other main change was increasing the size of the 90deg wheelchair turning space outside the back door, at the top of the gentle access ramp.  The larger this level turning area can be the better, apparently, as one issue is that wheelchair users may like to be independent, but they inevitably find that able bodied people "hover" around, taking up space where they need to manoeuvre.

 

Finally, thinking ahead to the future, I included sections of 1" thick plywood in the stud wall up behind the plasterboard alongside the stairs, to allow the easy attachment of a stair lift.  I also made sure there was more space than really needed at the base of the stairs, so the lift rail and seat can extend well beyond the base of the stairs and remain out of the way.  There's also a power point there, in the form of a fused outlet, for a stair lift power connection.

 

One thing I didn't do, and wish I had, was pay more attention to task lighting.  There are areas where a little more light would make things easier.  I'm finding that as I get older and need to use reading glasses from time to time, I also need a bit more light to see thing close up more clearly.  I've already increased the brightness of the LED strip lighting under the kitchen wall units, and need to do something similar in the bathrooms, and above my desk.

[Ferdinand]

I think I have already posted answers to some of the above in other threads eg elegant grab handles. Will drop pointers in.

 

My mum has been in her wheelchair for the last week or so due to a sudden weight loss / weakness, and it has been ... interesting. Has moved downstairs about 3 days ago,so my time is being swallowed at present.

 

We just have room to wheel her in by the loo in the bathroom I have documented. This is because she is very small, and the wheelchair is folding so it can ‘breathe in’ slIghtly to fit.

 

One real detail is that the existing 400mm bathroom rad is wide enough to keep the wheelchair an extra 2” out from the wall. If I switch that for a 300 then it will fit between the chair handles which means she will have to come 2” less forward to move onto the look. It sounds small, but when you are only just able to stand up it is a big difference.

 

F

 

 

Edited September 20, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

My friend reminded me that sometimes really small changes, that would seem to be of no consequence to an able bodied person, can make all the difference between being able to access an area or not.  A point in question was that issue of the spacing of the toilet away from the wall.  Building regs requires that the side of an accessible toilet, with oblique access, must be at least 400mm from the centreline of the toilet to the nearest wall.  I moved ours over by 50mm, as that then makes all the difference between being easily able to use the adjacent wall for support well and not.  Seems a small change, just 50mm, but as my friend said at the time, small changes make a huge difference, not just physically, but also in terms of confidence.  Accessibility is as much about the person feeling secure through any manoeuvre as it is about providing enough space, handholds etc. 

 

Steve's classic demonstration of that is in the pub.  He will don leg irons, lock them at the knee, and use crutches to get around and stand at the bar,  His reason for doing this is entirely practical, even though it's a bit uncomfortable.  Standing on leg irons at the bar people don't accidentally spill beer over him, something that apparently happens all the time if he stays sat in his chair.  His perennial joke is that he's the only one of us who won't fall over when pissed, as he's had decades to get used to being legless...

[ProDave]

What interested me in in this weeks GD, is the design the actual user came up with for his wet room, did not look to me to meet Scottish Building regs for an "accessible bathroom"  with regards to activity spaces and circulation spaces.

 

Clearly it DOES meed his needs and enables him to get from his chair to the various appliances so it suggests to me, building regs requirements that are imposed on us, may not be that well thought out and may not be what a disabled user actually needs.

[ToughButterCup]

I've tried hard to make our house one in which we can maintain our dignity for as long as possible.

 

Downstairs can work as bedsit. Accessible wetroom, noggins in the joists ready for a hoist, wheelchair access throughout the downstairs area - right from the car door. A semi protected indoor garden with easy to fiddle with raised planting. Neons on sockets so I can tell at a glance if they are on or off, an extra wide (1400 mm) front door. 

Additional cost? About £2000. 

 

One visitor reminded me to make the house over to the children soon. 

"... otherwise the Local Authority will sell the house to pay for your care, and you wouldn't like that after all this effort " 

 

Not sure about the ethics behind that suggestion. Can't think about it at the moment. 

[ProDave]

3 minutes ago, Sensus said:

The best way to deal with an individual solution is to get the the disabled person, the designer, and an Occupational Therapist together to work it out on site.

Yes, but my point is, you do that and get a tailored solution in a new house, and building control come along and fail it.

 

Or would they agree to depart from building regs if they could clearly see it met the users needs?

[jack]

1 hour ago, Sensus said:

... given the hatred of trained professionals around here

 

I doubt there's a single member here who hates trained professionals.

 

I don't doubt that many feel some professionals could do with acting a little more, well, professional.

[Jeremy Harris]

2 hours ago, Sensus said:

 

They will very certainly agree to depart from B.Regs in specific circumstances, particularly if backed up by the professional intervention of an Occupational Therapist.

 

I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth on that comment already, given the hatred of trained professionals around here, but the truth is that the ways a lot of disabled people work out for doing things themselves are often potentially dangerous or harmful to them... it often takes an OT to show them why, and better, safer solutions.

 

 

Exactly what I found with the toilet I moved over to the left a bit.  I just explained to the building inspector the reason, showed him the notes covering all the suggested changes to the house that my mate had drawn up, and he was more than happy to allow it.  Not even a hint of an objection from him.  My experience was that most building inspectors seemed to be well-endowed with common sense, and were happy to take a pragmatic view of something that met the need spelled out in the regs, even if it didn't meet the letter of the suggested means of compliance in the approved documents.

 

And, FWIW, As a trained professional, I have no hatred at all towards anyone, be they trained professional or not.

[Ferdinand]

Can we avoid *too* many diversions on this topic ... intended as a long term resource thread.

 

(Said with the full authority that I haven’t got).