How Much Weight Can a Stair Chair Take?

Type this question into a search engine and you will get page after page about stairlift weight limits. Useful if you are buying a rail for the wall. No use at all if the actual question is whether anybody will come to the house on Thursday and get your father up the front steps.

So here is the answer about the service, which is what people are really asking, and which nobody publishes.

Weight is only half the question

Families ring up and lead with a number, because they have been made to feel that the number is the problem. It is a factor. It is not the only one, and quite often it is not the decisive one.

What actually decides whether a stair chair can do a job:

• The rated capacity of the equipment. Every powered stair chair has one, set by the manufacturer. It is a hard limit, not a suggestion, and no reputable operator will go past it because the mechanism is what is holding the person.
• The staircase itself. A straight run is a different job from a flight that turns on a winder. Tread depth, width, headroom and whether there is a handrail on both sides all matter. A narrow turn can rule out a job that the weight alone would not.
• Whether the person can sit upright and stay seated. This matters more than most families expect. Somebody who can sit supported for five minutes is straightforward. Somebody who cannot be seated safely is a different conversation entirely.
• Where the weight sits. Two people of identical weight can be very different jobs depending on build and on whether they can bear any weight through their legs at all.
• The transfer at each end. Getting into and out of the chair is often the harder part of the visit, not the stairs.

This is why a photograph is worth more than a number. Send us a picture taken from the bottom of the stairs, looking up, and one of the front steps from the sidewalk, and we can usually tell you on the call.

Why families keep getting refused

If you have made six calls and got six polite refusals, it is worth understanding what is actually happening, because it is rarely what the family assumes.

• Most ride companies stop at the curb. Curb to curb is the standard, and it is written into what they are insured to do. The steps are outside the service, at any weight.
• Most home care agencies do not do stairs at all. An aide is trained and insured to steady somebody, not to move them up a flight. That is a separate service with separate equipment.
• Ambulance crews will not do it as a booking. They will respond to an emergency. They are not a scheduled lift service, and increasingly they will tell you so.
• Some operators are quietly under equipped and would rather say they are busy than say their chair does not go that high.

None of that is your fault, and none of it means the situation is impossible. It usually means you have been asking the wrong kind of provider.

What to ask before you book anybody

Four questions. Ask them in one breath and write down who answers cleanly.

• What is the rated capacity of the equipment you are bringing? Not what the staff can manage. What the chair is rated to.
• How many people are coming? The answer should be two. One person doing this is not a service, it is a risk.
• Have you seen the staircase? If nobody has asked you for a photograph or a description, they are guessing.
• What happens if you arrive and decide you cannot do it? Get the answer before the day. A crew standing in the hallway saying no, with an appointment in forty minutes, is the situation you are trying to avoid.

What we will tell you

We will give you the rated capacity of our chair on the phone, before you book anything, and we will tell you plainly whether we can do the job. If we cannot, we will say so on that call rather than on your doorstep.

Our stair assistance is two trained staff and a motorized stair chair, $200 a visit . The person stays seated and secured throughout; the mechanism carries the load and the staff control the descent rather than take the weight. Nobody is lifted under the arms and nothing is installed in the building.

We turn down jobs. Not often, but we do, and we would rather do it on the phone.

If the answer really is no

Sometimes it is, and a family that has been told no six times deserves better than a seventh no. These are the routes that actually work when a stair chair is not an option.

• Bring the living downstairs. A bed in the dining room and a commode is not a defeat. Plenty of people live well that way for years, and it removes the staircase from the problem permanently.
• Ask whether there is a ground floor lavatory that could become a shower room. This is the single most valuable modification in an older house and it is cheaper than most families expect.
• Ask your Aging Services Access Point about home modification funding before paying out of pocket. There are programs, they are underused, and the assessment costs nothing.
• For medical appointments, ask whether the visit can be done at home. More can than families realize, including blood draws and some imaging follow ups.
• For a genuine emergency, call 911. Always. Here is what a lift assist is and is not.

What it costs, and what else is out there

Stair assistance is $200 a visit. Wheelchair transport is $115 each way, or $230 round trip, within five miles and then $2 a mile. Home health aide care is $45 an hour with no minimum contract, if the wider problem is the day rather than the stairs.

If you are weighing this against installing something permanent, here is the honest comparison against a stairlift, including the point where the stairlift wins.

Where to go from here

Book stair assistance here, or call and describe the staircase. Send the two photographs and we will give you a straight answer, including a no if that is the answer.

Care Remedy Inc, 100 TradeCenter Suite G-700, Woburn, MA 01801. Call 781-957-8076 . Home health aide care, wheelchair transportation and stair assistance across Greater Boston, with offices in Woburn, Brockton and Springfield.

Note on sources: equipment capacities are set by manufacturers and differ between models, so always ask the specific operator about the specific chair they are bringing. Our rates are current as of publication. This article is general information and is not medical advice. In an emergency, call 911.