Does your aging parent’s home need a stairlift?

by | Housing, Quality of Life

How does a chairlift work?  

Falling down the stairs is one of the most common accidents for the elderly. Those falls can lead to serious injuries.

If your aging parent has a two-story house and wants to “age in place”, one way to help prevent falls is a stairlift, or sometimes called a chairlift.

Harmar is a company that manufactures stairlifts and other mobility solutions and is a Partnering Sponsor of Parenting Aging Parents.

Kim Barnes of Parenting Aging Parents talks with Marine Fitsch-Mouras of 101 Mobility, a Harmar certified dealer in Houston, Texas.  They discuss how a straight stairlift works, the installation process (it’s easier than you probably think), how to keep it running smoothly, what happens when you remove it and why your parent might want one sooner than you think.

Harmar does have options called ‘power swivel’ and ‘power footrest’ that will swivel the seat and raise/lower the footrest with the push of a button which makes it easy for people to operate the stairlift if they have limited ability to grab a handle or bend over to lower the footrest.

Harmar has dealers across the US. You can click here to find a dealer near you. If there’s not one near you, call the customer service number on the website and they’ll find someone who can help you. 

Read the full transcript

Transcript of Interview: “Does your aging parent’s home need a stairlift?”

Kim Barnes: If you ask most older Americans where they want to live, most of them are going to want to stay at home. But if there’s a two-story house, that can become a little bit of a problem. So you might be thinking about, well, would a stairlift be the answer? Today I’m joined by Marine Fitsch-Mouras from 101 Mobility in Houston. They are a Harmar certified dealer. Thanks so much for joining us.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Absolutely. My pleasure!

Kim Barnes: When you think about a stairlift, I think a lot of people just have, don’t know what to imagine. And so, how easy is it to be able to get something like this and be able to put it into your home?

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: So that’s a loaded question because there’s a lot of different types.

Kim Barnes: Right!

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: But it is usually extremely easy. Something like this is gonna go on any straight staircase. So they’re stocked. You can get them very quickly. It’s gonna depend on your dealer schedule, but they could be installed the same day or the next day if it’s an emergency.

Kim Barnes: And how do they work? Because I think there’s a lot of just misconceptions of how it’s gonna work.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: So, you have a chair, you would get into it, put your feet on the footrest, and just go up with the button. 

Kim Barnes: And there’s also a seatbelt if you need it?

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: There’s a seatbelt if you need it.

Kim Barnes: Okay.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Once you get to the top floor, you’re gonna have to swivel. So you press down and swivel. So that you’re able to go off on the landing safely instead of next to the stairs.

Kim Barnes: Right.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: That way if you lose your balance, you fall back into the chair instead of into the stairs as well.

Kim Barnes: So then you would get up and go on your way up to the second floor.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Exactly. 

Kim Barnes: Gotcha.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: And then I just go up, I push up. And I go. 

Kim Barnes: One of the things that’s interesting too is that the railing at the bottom folds up automatically as you went up.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Yes. 

Kim Barnes: So that just kind of keeps the area more clear.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Exactly. So if you don’t have a wall like we do, the rail when it goes down would be a tripping hazard. In this case, you would need something like this, which is called an automatic folding rail. That’s going to fold up and clear the space so that it is no longer a hazard.

Kim Barnes: Okay, so then you’ll come, and it just automatically comes back down.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: And you can see how it automatically comes back down.

Kim Barnes: Okay, awesome. The other thing that I think is interesting is that when I envisioned a stairlift, I imagined having to have, you know, studs in the wall and, you know, but it just is going on the stairs itself.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Yes

Kim Barnes: So if you had to remove it, it actually wouldn’t be that difficult later on either, right?

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Exactly. It leaves small screw holes in the stairs. So if you have carpet, it’s barely noticeable. If you have hardwood, a little wood putty and wood stain can’t fix it.

Kim Barnes: Okay, gotcha. So that also makes it much faster to install as well, right?

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Absolutely. It only takes about half a day to install a straight stair lift.

Kim Barnes: Right, so you’re not coming in for a whole week and making a big mess. Okay, so once you have this in place, well, let’s start with who are the right types of people that could use this? Because obviously, there’s probably, you’ve got to be able to get into the chair, right? Whether yourself or with some assistance.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Absolutely. So you do need to have some trunk stability. You need to be able to sit down and be able to hold yourself in place in the chair. That being said, we have a lot of people who use walkers or wheelchairs and they have a wheelchair on the bottom, a wheelchair on the top. And they’re able to transfer either with help or without help to be able to still use the stair lift as a solution.

Kim Barnes: So once you have it installed, do you have to do things to keep it maintained?

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: About once a year is what we suggest. And that’s just gonna clean the rails, clean the strips.

Kim Barnes: Just keep it running well.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Okay.Yes. 

Kim Barnes: Yeah. Okay. So, the maintenance is very simple. Just once a year, like having your air conditioning system checked.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Exactly.

Kim Barnes: Okay. Got it. Now, what about a warranty if there’s ever a problem?

Marine Fitsch-Moura: So, this one specifically has a three-year manufacturer warranty on all of the parts and a lifetime warranty on the major components. So, that ensures your investment is protected over the years. The major components are going to be, for example, the motor, which would be the most expensive thing to replace. Usually, they also come with labor warranties depending on who you’re purchasing it from.

Kim Barnes: Okay, so checking on what that is.But the other thing that is a little bit unique about this one is that once you fold it up, it’s going to be very narrow to take up not as much space on the stairs so that other people, like if you had other family members that wanted to be able to walk up the stairs, there’s still room to be able to do that.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Exactly. So this would come up and then it only takes about 12 inches from the wall. 

Kim Barnes: Okay.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: You’re able to use the stairs even if this is installed.

Kim Barnes: How do you talk to your parents potentially if you think, okay, maybe they don’t need it yet. Obviously, if they’re already in a wheelchair or they’ve had a fall or a hip break or something like that and they need it. But what if you just think, I think mom and dad could really benefit from this because I get worried about them going up and down their stairs just from a safety perspective is more of a preventive.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: It’s very important to stress how much easier it’s going to make life for them and how much freedom and independence it gives back. Because we do get some pushback from the older clients or the parents, etc. That takes it a little bit as an ego hit that they need a stairlift. But once they start using it, they realize they can, you know, put the laundry on it. Or they don’t have to dread going up and down. It gives them back that entire mobility and freedom to live fully in the house as opposed to just one story at a time.

Kim Barnes: So this is obviously an investment. You’re making a little bit of a change to your home. How? But I guess if you look at the investment of this versus remodeling or things like that.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Absolutely. Well, this is an easy solution and it can be a temporary solution as well. It’s a fast and easy solution to get your parents up the stairs so you don’t have to either move them out into a community or an assisted living facility or you don’t have to remodel the downstairs. So it is one of the most cost-effective solutions to get that to happen.

Kim Barnes: And there are often, you mentioned that before when we were talking that there’s even rental options.So you can either rent it or maybe some dealers also offer some financing options.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Yep. We offer rentals and rent-to-own. So that helps put, or helps in the financing side of it too. But also if you’re still considering the options, you might appreciate a rental for a couple months before you decide if you want to purchase it.

Kim Barnes:  Kind of try it out.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Exactly. Try it out. See if it works for you. See if it works for your parents. Sometimes if your parents are coming over, but they don’t live at your house, for Christmas, for example, you can just put it in your house and they can access the guest room. No problem on a very temporary basis.

Kim Barnes: Right, because I don’t think people think of it as it could potentially be sort of a short-term solution

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: It can be a very short-term, yeah. 

Kim Barnes: And the Harmar also has a model that can hold up to 600 pounds, is that right?

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Yes, exactly. That’s the highest weight capacity stair lift on the market is the Harmar XL.

Kim Barnes: Okay. Gotcha. So that again, if that’s a consideration. So I think the biggest thing that I’m learning is that this is something that a lot of people might have just thought that again, it’s going to require a contractor and a remodeling and all of that. But really, you go through certification from Harmar. There’s more than a thousand certified dealers across the country and they’re going to give you specific training to be able to install these.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Exactly. It’s important to buy from somebody who has actually been trained because not only are they going to install it correctly, but they’re also going to be able to service it if it does have problems in the future. Just like a car, you don’t expect it to run perfectly for 10 years straight. So you do want to buy from somebody that is going to provide you that service and has the knowledge to troubleshoot it in the future as well.

Kim Barnes: Sure. 

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: On top of being able to install it properly, because we have seen some poorly installed stairlifts when we’re out for service.

Kim Barnes:  Sure. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for this great education.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: You’re very welcome. 

Kim Barnes: Hopefully, we’ve kind of dispelled some of the maybe myths or misconceptions or concerns that people might have about what it is, what it might be like to have a stairlift.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Absolutely. 

Kim Barnes: So thank you for your time.

Marine Fitsch-Mouras: Thank you. 

Kim Barnes: And if you have other topics you’d like us to discuss, just let us know. parentingagingparents.com.

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

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