to say did you see this story about the council building a 10 storey ramp for disabled access to a house?

[livelablove]

This is a mad one, what were they thinking? picture

[dayshiftdoris]

Ahh yes Mrs DV I forgot about my uber wide doors, external and internal...

Even upstairs ones which you couldn't get to if in a wheelchair!

[Twighlightsparkle]

They were allegedly offered numerous more suitable homes but for whatever reason turned them down and insisted on the ramp.

Can't quite understand why they sold their story to the media

[ApocalypseCheeseToastie]

Cant believe they werent offered a house move tbh, my friend was offered a fully adapted home despite the fact they already owned their own because it ass cheaper than the cost of renovating their existing house.

To spend 40k on a ramp is just ludicrous.

[deakymom]

apparently it cost £40.000 and they could have installed an outdoor lift for £10,000

[CouthyMow]

My house is meant to be disabled access. I can't even get a Mac Major over the threshold without hurting myself, fuck knows how the last resident got the power hair over the wooden bit at the bottom of the doorway. My wet room is lovely...except it's NOT. I'm luckily not in a wheelchair YET (will be in the future, riddled with arthritis and am only 32, have the wet room due to epilepsy), but the doorway isn't wide enough to get a wheelchair through.

Plus there's the small fact that the shower itself has been broken since I moved in almost 8 months ago, and the HA's repair contractors don't seem able to organise a puss up in a brewery, let alone find the special part that they ordered 5 months ago that's SOMEWHERE in their warehouse...

Can't get a DFG here because I already have the wet room (despite the fact that it's not useable as a wet room).

I couldn't get a DFG in my last place either because they knew I'd have to move as the house was too small. Went 9 years there without a wet room too...despite having a room large enough, with the correct gradient to where the drain would be sited, just with no actual shower, with a large enough door to get a chair through.

No common sense at all.

[CouthyMow]

They won't even let them put a gate on it to try to prevent people from using it as a skateboard ramp.

A split-level lift would have been a better solution, and would have cost around the same.

[dayshiftdoris]

I live in a house built in 2006 so it meets the upgraded access building regs for wheelchair users....

There is a step out the back door (not ramped) and steps in the back garden though I believe this is not covered by the building regs.

There are lowered light switches, highered plug sockets yet the house is physically not big enough for a wheelchair... I know because I was in one for awhile... I had to take off my kitchen door so to access the kitchen at all.

The stairs have two turns on them which are built in such a way that there is absolutely no way to have a lift

But the best was the ramp from the front door... I am told it met building regs but it was unguarded and a paving slab width from my front door was a drop of about half a metre. You couldn't safely turn a buggy on it never mind a chair and the lip on the door prevents entry to the house
We ended up putting a little fence round it after my son fell off it

Absolutely ridiculous that this house would be considered disabled friendly. The OT dealing with me said there had been cases that these newer houses have been turned down for adaptions because they met these building regs!! Thankfully I didn't need mobility support for long but had I needed it I was warned I would have hell of a fight proving that the house wasn't already suitable!

[Dawndonnaagain]

Been here since 2007. Still have no ramp. No grips for the shower, no grips for the bath or any of the lavatories, nothing for the stairs. So, at 55 I am washing and bathing a nine stone chap who is taller than me and a dd who is also taller than me. Whilst dh couldn't manage on his own, dd could with the right adaptations in place.
Tossers.

[Binkyridesagain]

The builders who have built the ramp (only last week) left building slabs outside of the 'site', in an area that they had been told was regularly used and could not blocked off or have anything stored there. These slabs fell on my sons leg, leaving a 6" long bruise. My DH will be writing an email tomorrow, politely telling them that our tolerance levels are now non existent and to get the fucking job done properly. Included will be another snag sheet, pictures of the mess the builders have left, the dangerous ramp and the injury my son has sustained.

[HairyMaclary]

'Put up' any grab rails ...

[HairyMaclary]

We were 'offered' something like that for the DFG grant we applied for for DS1. In the end we had to turn it down as we own our house (with a massive mortgage) and the unsightly mass of concrete would have devalued the house more than we could afford. They couldn't offer is any compromise and walked away. So we still have 3 steps to get DS up into the house and they refused to out any grab rails up as it 'wasn't safe'...

[Anatana]

Sorry, crosspost, Binky. My sympathies -I have been there. It's a nightmare. Hugs!

[Anatana]

Yeah, our rule is to never ever use a specialist disability company/supplier/contractor. They are always, ime, overpriced and underskilled predators stuck in the 1980s. Avoid!

If I can't find a mainstream solution then I will commission a custom one. But never pay the disability markup!

amazon £59.95
disability store £138

(I could do this all day).

[Binkyridesagain]

Mrs De vere We have the disabled faclitlited grant because DD was 18 at the application stage we got the full amount, which I though bloody great, at last life will be easier, we can get alterations done.

The down side is, that I have to hand over £20k on top for this crap job. AND I have no one to complain to, no way of changing what they have done, I am close to going to the papers and my local MP.

I am tired of the battle, I thought that I was getting a service that would make life easier for all of us, \I thought that someone who is employed to design facilities for disablilites would know the basic reguirement of building regs, I thought that a good job would be done.

Anyone that is going down this route, check everything over and over and over again. we have had 5 drawings for one ramp, none of which match what has been installed, the bedroom and wetroom does not match spec and does not match any drawings. and no where has a wheelchair user been taken into account.

[Pixel]

We had a pub that was almost 250 years old and had survived that time without any major disasters. There was a small entrance lobby with an outer door and an inner door which had been used quite happily by those of our customers who were wheelchair users all the time we had been there. Then for some reason during our regular fire safety check, we were told that the inner door would have to be put on the other way round as it was 'unsafe'. Result: Wheelchair users could no longer get in or out of the pub by themselves! So much safer obviously! Our protests fell on deaf ears because you have to tick the correct boxes and completely ignore common sense don't you.

[Anatana]

It would have been SO much cheaper. Step lifts start around £4k! Or if she can transfer then a stair lift and a little secure shed for a chair, or a trailer for the chair...oh there are so many cheaper and better solutions to that problem. You can get lifts up actual cliffs and chairs that wind round sea paths for less than that.

Council adaptations are amazingly, hilariously, legendarily terrible. We design our own now. (Some councils let you do this, and tender the work yourself.)

[Binkyridesagain]

We have a specially built wet room for a wheelchair user that the wheelchair user can't use, the shower area is too small for her to sit in without the bathroom flooding and in order for her to use the toilet she has to enter the shower area, which causes her wheelchair to wobble and the wheels to freely spin.

To get out of her specially built bedroom to the out side world she has to pull a wheelie to get over the threshold because the floor isn't at the right height, the wheelchair ramp is not level and there are trip hazards at the bottom landing because they couldn't be bothered to lay the slabs correctly.

This is all done by a company that the council has decided is competent at designing facilities for the disabled.

[WestieMamma]

You can get outdoor platform stair lifts which would have utilised the existing steps. Just wheel the wheelchair onto it, press the button and up you go. Ridiculous solution from the council.

[roadwalker]

Building regs are 1:12 so presumably thats how much ramp was need for the gradient, they have to rail
I don't know why they didn't install a step lift or an outdoor stairlift, it would've looked nicer and probably been much cheaper

[sadbodyblue]

MrsDeVere ridiculous isn't it. common sense seems to bypass some people and worse than that some bloody humanity and empathy for people's needs.

[RandomMess]

MrsD that's silly too, my friend ended up paying for her own bathroom alterations because what SS would pay for was so stupid.