The Lift

The Gimp and his Gizmos – B

Most of our  house has been made accessible.The houses two floors but the second was small and I was willing to abandon it.The entry however  was a much larger problem.There are three that you down to the front porch.There are two steps leading down from the garage. Using the formula that a ramp will require one foot of length for each inch of drop, this would require a ramp 16 feet long inside the house.This length was clearly unusable.

We built a ramp along the side of the house which allowed me to get out of the carand flow around to the back deck coming in through the back door.This works well enough but the back door is not really a good way to get into the house. I had to get out of the car in the rain and because the back door does not have a lock it must be unlocked from the inside.

Clearly the answer in the long term was a way to get down the two steps from the garage.After a false start which will be described in another blog entry, we bought a lift from a caterer. The lift had been used in getting food on and off of a truck, but it was of a type designed to take wheelchairs off of busses. The unit has a sturdy base which bolts to the truck floor or in our case, the concrete floor of the garage. There is a hydraulic pump which moved two very sturdy arms. The whole thing is powered off the truck’s battery.

It was clear that while a significant current was needed, a large battery was not. We found a battery assist device, something to start your car when the battery is dead. It has a battery – can deliver a large current and has a built in charger allowing us to simply leave it plugged into the wall.

When we tried the device, the motor running the pump made a lot of noise. We took it in and they said that the brushes were bad and made a fix which helped but would not last. Then as my brother in law was installing it, the top popped off as the motor was inverted for insertion and the brushes fell out. It makes noise but works and we will see how long it lasts. The local dealer knows how to get replacements.

Operation is dead simple – roll onto the lift and push the up button. When it gets to the top it stops. Down simply opens a solenoid which releases the hydraulic fluid allowing a silent descent. Able bodied folks can simple use walk up the lift and take a single step to get in the garage.

Now I can drive into the garage and get in and out of the car without sitting out in the rain.