Stairlifts

Whoever sells you the chair, BCA tells owners to have a stairlift fitted by a registered lift installation contractor and serviced by a registered lift maintenance contractor. You can look a firm up in BCA's directory of registered contractors, and a company registration number (UEN) on its own does not qualify a firm for this work. Once the stairs are measured, get the model, the rail, where the chair parks at each end and the full installed price in writing before you pay a deposit.

Start with the shape of your stairs. A straight flight takes a straight rail, which Stannah cuts to length from mass-produced rail. Stairs that turn or have a landing partway are likely to need a curved rail, and Stannah makes its curved rails to measure for each staircase, a more complicated job than a straight one. A rail end that folds out of the way of a door at the bottom (Stannah's hinged rail), a second flight or an outdoor model also change the price. When you compare quotes, check whether each one includes fitting and the Permit to Operate application. Then there are the yearly costs. BCA requires servicing at the maker's recommended interval, or every three months if none is given, and an inspection and test every year with an independent engineer or inspector present. A firm price needs the stairs measured.

A seated stairlift means getting out of the wheelchair at one end and into a seat or a second wheelchair at the other. If those transfers are unsafe or impractical, look at a lift that carries the wheelchair, and the route to it, rather than assuming a chair lift solves the access problem.

Yes, if it climbs a full flight. Stairlifts are regulated as fixed installations, and the exemption for small home stairlifts applies only when all three conditions are met. It rises less than 1,000 mm, it presses down with less than 150 newtons as it moves down, and it serves a single home. A full flight between floors rises more than that, so it needs BCA's Permit to Operate before anyone uses it.

Renting or buying used doesn't change the rules. The stairlift still needs a BCA-registered contractor to install and service it, and a Permit to Operate before anyone uses it. With a used curved rail, the catch is fit. Stannah makes each curved rail to measure for one staircase, so one taken from another house can't be assumed to fit yours.

With Stannah's rails, it means a few screw holes in the treads and nothing fixed to the walls. Stannah fixes the rail to the stair treads, not the wall, with screws holding its legs to the treads, typically on every other stair. Those holes need filling when the stairlift comes out, so ask where the fixings will go on your stairs and how they will be made good.

Stannah's can, because they run on batteries that the rail charges. Its straight rails have a charging strip that charges them wherever the chair stops. Its curved rails charge them only when the chair is parked at the charging point at the top or bottom, and the chair beeps if it is left anywhere else. In a power cut the rail stops charging, so the chair runs on what is left in the batteries. Ask how many trips the model you are quoted makes on a full charge.

For a stairlift that climbs a full flight in one home, BCA sets servicing at the maker's recommended interval, or every three months if the maker gives none. The yearly inspection and test is separate, and a BCA-registered contractor carries it out with an independent engineer or inspector present. Keep the service reports and the current Permit to Operate together.