This Elizabethan house stairlift installation case study was quite an interesting one. This one was interesting because it offered quite a challenge. The steps were uneven, the levels off, there were loose steps and turns were not 90 degrees!
With a preservation order on the family owned home (for 200 years), we had to be careful!
Elizabethan House Case Study
we had to be careful with this installation for a few reasons. Obviously we were careful not to damage any of the vulnerable bannister rails, and screws going into the steps had to be kept to a minimum. On a normal staircase, mistakes can easily be rectified and screws can come out and go in again. But with older homes such as this one, the stairs aren’t as resilient as a modern one.
As you can see here, the staircase doesn’t bend in exactly 90 degree corners, so a little juggling was required to get the stairlift rail in place.
Measure Twice Cut Once
The expression “measure twice, cut once” counted in spades here because a slight miscalculation might have meant a damaged step. Luckily our over 20 years experience in the stairlift business came into its own here.
Usually on an installation, the rail is connected first and then adjusted to allow the stairlift to pass safely past all the newel posts without clashing. With three sharp bends here, and awkward bends at that, it made the job extremely troublesome.
Luckily we have catered for many difficult staircases such as this before. Our expertise extends to stairlifts for awkward stairs, after discovering this problem years ago, and having to turn away customers previously, when stairlifts wouldn’t fit. This isn’t something we like to do. So we learned how to fit stairlifts on the most troublesome and difficult stairs, such as this one!
The Stannah 260 – For Awkward Stairs
Often with very difficult staircases, we will defer to the Flow X stairlift. The Flow X from Thyssen Krupp is the most agile stairlift on the market. However, as you would expect, this stairlift isn’t cheap. We chose the Stannah 260 stairlift for this one which comes with its recognisable double rail system. The double rail is perhaps less aesthetically pleasing than the single railed Flow X, but it isn’t as expensive either!
Here’s our chief engineer Scott testing out the stairlift after a recent call-out. This problem was a charging one, and likely the grandchildren playing on it according to the owners son! When the stairlifts stops short of its charging point, it cannot connect to the power source. It will beep to notify you of this, but some stairlift owners are unaware of the problem, and will turn off the stairlift to stop the beeping.
Since this stairlift wasn’t used frequently, it was left switched off and not charging for this reason!
Another one solved by the UKStairlifts team!
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