Are Home Elevators Worth It for Aging in Place?

Transcript of Interview: “Are Home Elevators Worth It for Aging in Place?”

**Mike Barnes**
I don’t know about you, but when I think about homes with an elevator, I think about when I was a little kid, it would be a massive palatial estate. In fact, the town I grew up in near Dallas, at one time there were only two elevators in the entire town and they were in office buildings, not in a house. But now it’s fairly common. You can see it just in a simple house.

**Kim Barnes**
And it is becoming much more of a realistic option for people who want to be able to stay in their homes longer. Today we’re talking to Todd Beck of Harmar, and we’re going to talk about Todd. The idea that, you know, again, that typically we used to think of an elevator as only in, you know, a 20,000 square foot home. And really now it’s being seen as a way to help people stay in their home longer if that’s what they choose to do.

**Todd Bick**
Yeah. Hello, Kim and Mike. You’re exactly right. You know, shaftless elevators kind of hit the market not too long ago and they kind of, you know, came in as a, you know, a way to, you know, get into the market with an elevator that can actually add value to your home. Traditionally, a full blown residential elevator has lots of construction and can easily be upwards of $100,000 or more.

Whereas a shaft elevator, you know, minimal modifications to your home, no bulky machinery or separate rooms needed, really, just, you know, one floor to the next, pretty simple, you know, minor construction type stuff. And you could be in for half that cost nowadays. Yeah. And when I’ve seen it in action, it is really sort of. It’s just so interesting to see how it operates where it just sort of disappears into the ceiling above.

**Kim Barnes**
Talk a little bit about, you know, sort of how it operates.

**Todd Bick**
So, you know, on the ground floor you would have essentially a cabin or a cab in which the user would enter and, you know, you hit the button, you hold it, press it, and essentially the elevator will continue to move up a set of rails that’s kind of mounted at the back. And the floor of the elevator will become the ceiling on the ground floor.

So once the elevator is in the up position, you really don’t have anything underneath it. It’s pretty wide open and free and aids for moving space through. So then on the top floor, when the elevator is there, you can enter an exit on the second floor and vice versa. When the elevator’s in the down position, the top of the elevator becomes the floor of the second, second story.

So it’s kind of a neat, you know, neat mechanism that Allows, you know, it to disappear essentially and be out of the way, which, you know, it really takes that in a, you know, the obstruction out of it.

**Mike Barnes**
And when I think about it, I think it sounds like major, major constructions like mouse is going to be messed up for a month trying to put it together.

But it’s not like that. It’s fairly simple. Correct.

**Todd Bick**
simple might be a little of a stretch. You know, you are in fact having to, you know, cut a hole into the floor and then obviously put a brace, we call it an aperture. But essentially, you know, anywhere where there’s a kind of an open space between floors, you know, a certified and trained dealer and contractor can easily do that work.

And, and you know, I wouldn’t say it’s challenging or difficult and certainly not a month long process. I would say a couple days to a week at most.

**Mike Barnes**
That’s amazing.

**Kim Barnes**
So you really just need to have the space. It’s not all this extra space. You just need sort of the space to be able to have that cab and be able to have, you know, the clearance, I guess, on both floors.

**Todd Bick**
Correct. Yep. Yeah. You no longer are confined to putting it in a corner or putting it in a, you know, a closet that’s stacked on top of each other. A shaftless elevator could really be really be put anywhere as long as there was available space on the, the two floors.

**Kim Barnes**
Obviously it’s still an investment for a family to be able to put in, but just the, the sort of, the comparison to being able to, if you can stay in your home another year, two years, three years, four years longer, if, especially if that’s what you choose, that you really want to be able to stay at home, you know, even with mobility challenges, that’s where that elevator is going to really come in.

**Todd Bick**
You know, aging in place is, it’s a, it’s real and it’s, it’s in front of us now with the aging population, you know, there’s so many people turning 65 every day and they are facing real challenges going into skilled nursing care facilities and independent living centers and things of that nature. And those places, you know, they do carry a pretty hefty cost for a level of care. You could be anywhere.

I think the national average is somewhere just under 40,000 for independent living centers and specialized nursing care centers can be easily over a hundred thousand depending on the level of care needed. So, you know, that’s an annual cost. And when you talk about an elevator, you know, let’s just say you were somewhere under, you know, maybe just under 50,000 for the total project. That’s a one time cost with installation.

So it’s really, it really becomes an affordable option. When you’re thinking about staying in your home for multiple years, the investment is certainly in favor of the end user.

**Kim Barnes**
And talk a little bit about just who’s a good candidate that because you could be on a, you can be using a walker, you can be using a wheelchair, right? I mean, you can.

**Mike Barnes**
You have multiple sizes, correct?

**Todd Bick**
We do offer three different sizes.

We offer the compact version which is really for one person and really tight houses or maybe inner city type environments. We have a twin model or two person model that can also have a seat in it. And then we have an extra large model which can easily accommodate two people or potentially one individual in a wheelchair. And so, you know, the three different sizes pretty much cover the majority of what you would see being able to from the first floor to the second floor or whatever it may be.

You know, it obviously depends on the size and the space available and weight capacities and things of that nature.

**Kim Barnes**
Do you think of other things as far as, you know, I know that I’ve seen or heard examples of people being able to, you know, carry up their laundry or things like that where, you know, you may not think, oh, I need an elevator just because I need to carry my laundry.

But if I’m, if I’m having some challenges with my mobility, we know stairs are dangerous and you know, there’s a lot of fall upstairs. So if I can not have to try to be juggling laundry and walking up the stairs if I’m a little unsteady, you know what. Are there other examples that you can, that you could share that are scenarios like that.

**Todd Bick**
You know, home accessibility products like elevators and even stairlifts and vertical platform lifts and things like that that my company manufactures.

They’re not just for people with disabilities. You know, we see this whole aging in place category, learning how to be independent and having your home accessible to you so that you can live a complete independent lifestyle. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be somebody who’s had challenges or in a walker. It could just be somebody who needs a little extra assistance. And yeah, it’s great for lifting suitcases and laundry.

We see a lot of people are using them to bring their maybe older pets to the second floor or whatever it may be. So it is, it is being used for lots of different purposes just outside of the individual person needing, you know, a product to get them to the second floor.

**Mike Barnes**
We talked a little bit about the price and about the comparison with living somewhere like assisted living or independent living.

But what does it do to the house? Because I assume that it raises the value of the house by having an elevator

**Todd Bick**
in does. I mean, you know, when people see a home for sale and it has like a vertical platform lift or a stairlift in it, you know, they may not need that product. And so it actually, you know, typically needs to be removed for somebody who might not need it.

Whereas an elevator has multi purpose, you know, it could be used just for ease of getting to the second floor for, you know, non mobility challenged individuals and things. And so yeah, we do see that it does increase the value of a home. You know, Realtors continue to, to talk about it as a, as a benefit and we’re starting to see a lot more press about how adding an elevator to your home can certainly, you know, not only increase the value, but increase the attractiveness of, you know, that, that factor of, you know, having an affluent product at a, at a lower price point.

**Kim Barnes**
Yeah, well, I would think too that in many cases, you know, if you have all bedrooms upstairs and you have somebody who can’t go up and down the stairs easily, that that makes it really hard to live in their home where if you have the way, a way like an elevator to get them up to the second floor pretty easily, then they can utilize that part of their house where maybe they’ve been had to create a bed in the downstairs or something like that where it just allows them to talk about that all the time.

**Mike Barnes**
In our Facebook group, people say mom and dad can’t get upstairs. So now they’re living in the living room, they’re living in the dining room. So this gives them the option of being able to get upstairs.

**Todd Bick**
It’s really magnificent. I don’t know if you’re really familiar with all the things that Harmar can bring to the table, but we do have a government contract. We service about a thousand veterans every single month.

And we talk to a lot of veterans and some of them are in fact living on their couch or sleeping on their couch. They haven’t been to their bedroom in many, many years. And so when they get our types of products, you know, we’re delivering this level of independence to them. And it’s, it’s really wonderful to, to hear the stories afterwards once the products are installed and how now they can, you know, really enjoy the full Benefits of their home because now they can access all different parts of it.

**Kim Barnes**
So what would you say to an older adult if the adult child is saying, hey, mom and dad, we think we should look into getting an elevator. And they think, oh, gosh, that’s only for fancy people, or, you know, we don’t need that, or that kind of thing. What would you say to an older, you know, what. What could an adult child say to their. Their parent to help them see that this might be something to consider?

**Todd Bick**
There’s lots of statistics of, you know, fall prevention and fear of falling. I’m dealing with my own family at the current moment with this exact conversation. It is very scary, and some of the outcomes are not. Are not great at all. And so really educating, you know, those children to make sure they have all the facts and so that they can get the parent comfortable with, you know the products that would be, you know, put in their home to make them safe.

**Mike Barnes**
You need to make sure that you find a certified dealer, someone who works and gets it done, right?

**Todd Bick**
That’s right. You know, we’re the manufacturer, but we work with, you know, local trained and certified or factory trained and certified, you know, dealerships throughout the country.

You know, we would want to pair that individual that has the need up with one of those, you know, trained specialists. These are the local experts. They’re familiar with the products and what can be done. They either are general contractors or work with general contractors, you know, to really offer that personalized service and really give it that personalized touch. Right. So they’re the ones that. That an end user would call if there was an issue or a concern or if the product needed warranty or service.

You really want to have that local connection and relationship with. With somebody who’s in your hometown that can take care of you and make sure that everything is working properly and receives all the, you know, the required, you know, maintenance.

**Mike Barnes**
And I assume that’s who makes the final decision about where it is in your house. Because I’m thinking about our house, which we only have one story, but I’m thinking, well, would it be in this room? Should be in a back bedroom? Do they know this is the best place. Let’s see. Let’s look at the ceiling. Let’s look at the second floor. Let’s put it here.

**Todd Bick**
Yeah. Usually dealers will review options during a home evaluation. Okay. So they’ll come out to the home, they’ll set up an appointment, come out to the home, usually 30 minutes. They’ll review all the. The possible locations that it maybe could go, see where the person maybe thinks they would want it and.

And if that’s a good location, or they could suggest alternate locations within the home as well. Yeah, great. That all happens on the first, you know, first meeting with that, you know, specialized dealer. Yeah.

**Kim Barnes**
And it also doesn’t really take that long of a time from the time they decide, yes, we want to get the. Let’s put in an elevator. How long does it usually take before it could actually be installed? And obviously, depending on how busy the dealer is, but realistically, what kind of timeframe are you looking at?

**Todd Bick**
So it’s a lot faster than you think. You know, Harmar maintains all of its elevators in a stocking position in the middle of the country, so they’re ready to go and ship at a moment’s notice. The challenge in most states is that, you know, these do require permits for some of the construction that is needed.

You know, to cut that hole in the floor and things of that nature. And so, you know, some states are very good and fast with permits, and some states, unfortunately, are not. So I think that would be the limiting factor is how quickly a permit can be secured. But all that being said, if a permit is secured pretty fast, a dealership can schedule the installation almost right away. The product would be ready to go.

**Kim Barnes**
So really something for families to think about as a. As an option, as an investment into their home. But that would allow them, their parent or themselves to be able to stay in their home longer, which I think is the the whole goal here.

**Todd Bick**
Yeah. Aging in place is becoming an incredibly large market because of the elevated costs of, you know, skilled, you know, skilled nursing centers and independent living centers and things.

Those costs are real and quite high. You hear lots of horror stories about, you know, bank accounts being drained. It’s one of the first questions that gets asked by the admissions departments of each of those centers is, you know, have you prepared for this financially? It’s a major investment. And so having these products that can help you stay in your home safely, you know, and having an affordable option can really extend, you know, that individual, you know, staying with their family in that home safely for a much longer period of time.

**Mike Barnes**
Well, no horror story here, Todd. You’ve given us some great information. We really appreciate talking to you today.

**Todd Bick**
Yeah, you guys as well. Thank you. Really appreciate your time. And, you know, I would. I would end on simple note, just reach out to Harmar. We’re happy to pair you up with a certified, factory trained, you know, dealership in your area and tell you a little bit about what we can help you do to achieve your independence in your home.

**Mike Barnes**
That’s great. Thank you so much. I think what Todd says is right. Besides the fact that Harmar helps us so much, but the fact that that anything’s possible now and we have to get out of the old days and think about when we were a kid and elevators being so rare that it is possible. It can make life so much better for all of us. Just amazing. Do you have any other stories or any other interviews you’d like us to discuss? Please let us know. Parenting aging parents. 400;”>.

*This transcript is auto-generated. Please excuse any typos or mistakes.