Useful Guide to Build a Residential Access Ramp

Accessibility ramps are a kind of blessing for people with movement disabilities and elderly persons. It gives them the opportunity to move around the house independently, safely, and comfortably either with wheelchair or hand crutch support. Considering how they aid in free mobility of disabled or aged members, many households are getting residential access ramps installed today. 

While building and installing a wheelchair ramp seems easy from outside, there are many factors to consider beforehand. Here’s a guide to help you.

The right wheelchair ramp is the one customised to your mobility requirements. There are many suppliers which tailor-make ramp solutions as per the needs of the households. They consider the types of vehicles i.e. wheelchairs, strollers, hand crutches that will be given access to, entrance design of the house, permanency and even the budget that the family is willing to spend on the ramp construction. 

How will the ramp look? Whether it be plain or simple structured or will have a contemporary, stylish look with spiral design and complementing handrails and a shade. Apart from these basic design concepts, there are other important aspects of residential handicap ramps to consider which include the slope, width of the ramp, and length of the ramp. These aspects will obviously depend on the space or area at your entrance where you want to lay the ramp and the way it will be absolutely safer to the users. A professional provider of ramp solutions will take care of these after personally analysing the space.

To ensure the sustainability, resistant, and load capacity of the ramp, you need to build it with sturdiest materials available like wood or metal.  Besides, it should be firmly established and gripped with the ground to ensure that there are no chances of them to slip out of place due to harsh weather conditions like rain or storm. The support handrails should be made of the same sturdy material and unfinished or unpolished to provide good grip to the users when they slide up or down the ramp. 

The surface of the ramp is perhaps the most important factor after the slope of the ramp to ensure the safety of users. The surface must be made slip-resistant irrespective of the materials the ramp is built of. Most architects make the surface rough textured with peculiar carves or designs. This is most needed to ensure that the surface does not get slippery after rain or snowfall. Besides, to prevent the ramp’s surface to become corrosive or weak over time due to rain or snow, provide a concrete shade over the ramp. 

This illustrative guide is presented to make you aware of the facts that make residential access ramps ideal and safe for the elderly and disabled persons. However, everything may not go in your favour if you get a pre-built ramp from any home-improvement store. This guideline is helpful to carefully construct a ramp from the scratch with the help of an exclusive ramp solutions seller. 

The author is a professional architect and designer of residential access ramps of an innovative ramp solutions supplier, that offers residential as well as commercial solutions. In his free time, he writes a blog that provides guidelines on the installation of residential handicap ramps in the safest way. 

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