It can be both risky and dangerous for people who are mobility challenged to use the stairs. This is because any fall can be dangerous, but a fall down the stairs can result in hospitalization or worse. As you get older the risk of a fall down the stairs increases as does the risk of injury from the fall. A stair lift is one device that can be used to help prevent this risk and increase the overall safety of your stairs.

A stair lift can be installed on most staircases and usually is not too expensive. This is really only true of straight staircases, because a stair lift for a curved staircases is incredibly expensive and takes months to install. A straight stair lift, however, can be installed in a few hours and costs a small fraction of what a curved stair lift costs.

The installation is fairly straight forward for a straight stair lift. It is important to get accurate measurements of your stair case, though, because the dealer will have to cut the track to fit your stairs. The track is, in most cases, bolted directly to the stairs and will travel the entire length of the stairs. If you have an exceedingly narrow staircase then you might be forced to install the track onto the wall, but there are several low profile stair lifts available and this is seldom necessary.

After the track has been installed, the rest of the installation is fairly easy. Usually the car, which consists of a chair and an electric motor, is shipped attached to a separate piece of track. This piece of track is attached to the top most portion of the stair track and then the car is simply reversed onto the stairs track. After the car is on the permanent track that is attached to the stairs, the temporary piece of track that the car shipped on can be removed and discarded.

People in many different situations can benefit from using a stair lift and it greatly reduces the risk of serious injury. While the installation can be installed in most cases in a few hours, if you are not comfortable with the installation procedure, contact your dealer and arrange professional installation.