Stairlift advice

crafty*kate

Hi, I hope this is in the right place.

My Gran (84, v. immobile) has a stairlift in her house that is about 15+ years old. It's time to replace it (it's making weird noises and not working properly, has been serviced but I think it's just coming to the end of its natural life).

How do we find a good, reputable stairlift provider? What sort of ballpark figure should we be looking at? It's only a straight staircase, no turns, about 13 steps I think.

Another problem is that we are on the Isle of Wight, and none of the big names seem to have a local agent - therefore, if anything went wrong they wouldn't be able to send an engineer immediately.

Where on earth do we start looking? I am so worried she's going to phone someone from an advert in the paper and get the first one offered her.

Thanks in advance,
Kate

Chorlie

I had one fitted early this year, I had a curved one which is double the price of a straight.

A straight one starts at just over £1000 and goes up to closer to £2000.

The company I used which isn't in your area, but might give you a few ideas on price and makes is:

http://www.amwstairlifts.co.uk/

I had mine paid for via my OT, try getting your gran assessed by your local health trust and they will tell you what she needs and where to get it, they may pay for it.

Mojisola

Definitely get an assessment done. The OT should give you a list of things which your Gran needs to have on the stairlift. If a salesman tries to tell you that your Gran doesn't need these things (because they don't have them on their models), turn him away immediately.

We found buying a stairlift a similar experience to having bad double-glazing salesmen at the house. The same tricks were being used - manager's discount if you sign up now, a stairlift returned which we'll do for a special price if you sign up now, I shouldn't tell you but prices are going up next week so you need to sign up now, etc.

We bought a Minivator which has performed well and was one of the cheapest and the only one that had all the features the OT said Mum needed.