Are you thinking about fitting wheelchair lifts?

24 November 2021
 Categories: Business, Blog

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Are you looking for a way to ensure that your business premises are more accessible? Maybe your company occupies several floors of a building, and some of your customers struggle to visit the upper levels? Perhaps, you run a theatre, cinema or church, and the entrance to the building has steps that make it difficult for anyone in a wheelchair to enter the building. Accessing and moving around many buildings can be problematic for wheelchair users, but there is a simple solution. You can invest in wheelchair lifts to ensure that everyone can move more easily throughout the building.

Why not use a ramp?

Whenever anyone suggests fitting wheelchair lifts, one of the first questions asked is why a ramp isn't a viable alternative. Certainly, there will be times that a wheelchair ramp will be an acceptable solution, but often they are impractical. The biggest problem with ramps is the amount of space they consume. A ramp cannot be too steep if you expect someone to push a wheelchair up the ramp, but a less steep ramp means using more floor space. Often, the isn't the space to accommodate a sufficiently long ramp. Even if the required ramp is technically possible, do you want to take up a lot of space inside the building? Wheelchair lifts can do the same job, but occupy much less space in the building.

What type of wheelchair lifts should you consider?

If you are installing wheelchair lifts, there are several options you could consider. The several varieties of lifts will be suited to different situations, so the determining factor behind your choice of wheelchair lifts will be the way they will be used and where they will be situated. In some cases, you may want a lift on the outside of your building. An outside lift will be a different design to one that stays inside the premises.

Other factors that you must think about include noise and speed. If you operate a venue with fixed start times, and you expect to receive a lot of people who need to use the lift in a short space of time, speed will be important. If the wheelchair lifts are intended for occasional use in a retail environment, speed will be less relevant. The amount of noise the lift makes could be relevant. In a busy shopping environment, it may not be significant, but if you are fitting the lift in an office environment close to where people will be working, too much noise could be distracting for your employees.

Keep these tips in mind when looking for wheelchair lifts for your business.