Building a wheelchair accessible ground floor extension

obeat

obeat

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I live with my very elderly parents, and one of my sisters acts as a carer. We are considering building a ground floor extension that would be wheelchair accessible and have a wet room and a downstairs bedroom. We would be self funding.



Any many tips and advice on what to include and what to leave out would be welcome.
 
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Good luck with it. I assume you have considered the alternative of moving to a bungalow if any are available in your area. I assume the extension is for you.

I moved to a bungalow 20 years ago for myself and daughter. It's such a bonus for both of us not having to use stairs. What will you do if one or both parents need a downstairs bedroom?

I am now at the stage of wondering what happens for my daughter when I'm no longer here. A 3 bed bungalow is really too big for one person. Given your parents are very elderly, I assume you have taken into consideration what you will do when they are no longer with you.

Sorry, I'm sure you have thought it through, that was more general comments for anyone else considering the same.

As to practicalities, the usual stuff about ramps at entry door, wide doorways, door handles easy to use, room to manoeuver the chair are all taken into account. Others here who use indoor wheelchairs will be better able to advise.

Choose a builder who has a good reputation for completing projects in the timescale they specify. Be prepared for a lot of noise. We had major work done soon after moving in. A big bonus was the builder suggested I could contact him on days when either of us was too sick to cope and he would reassign his workmen for the day. I only used it once when I had a crashing migraine. He also warned us once when they were going to do an extremely noisy task so we could arrange to go to a friend for a few hours that day. Despite all that, the noise and disruption set us both back significantly for a year or more.

Also it was well worth paying a bit extra for the architect to supervise the project, not just to do the design. He spotted a couple of mistakes and made the builder fix them.
 
It’s a great idea, @obeat.


Structural:

I would try to make the area as big as you can. If you or one of your parents becomes confined to it, you will be grateful for any space you manage to get in there.


A carer will need somewhere to put things before coming into the bedroom. A little staging area outside the bedroom would be useful, where they can set down a tray, leave jugs of water, leave/collect laundry etc. It will make things much easier for the carer and much nicer for the person in the bedroom (especially if sensitive to noise etc). Even a narrow shelf goes a long way. If you have room, a sink, mini-fridge and kettle might be very useful.


I always wish my bedroom, which is downstairs, had a door to the outside. If it’s possible for the downstairs bedroom to have a door/sliding door to the outside, that would be amazing. Not essential though.


A window looking onto some nature rather than a wall if possible. Nature can also be arranged after building.


Think about ventilation. If it’s possible to have a window on either side of the extension so that you can get a cross-breeze through to air the place really well, that would be ideal. That matters during heatwaves, if you can rarely open a window because of noise, if someone is incontinent etc.

I can actually get a cross-breeze by opening the ensuite window and propping the ensuite door open when the bedroom window is open. It’s amazing what a difference it makes compared to just opening one or other window.

Think about how it will be during very hot weather. Consider ways to prevent excessive heat entering like careful window placement, exterior shutters (this will affect window choice), solar glass, brise-soleil, and ways to deal with it like air conditioning. Having your contractor do this now will be infinitely easier and more effective than trying to do it after the fact.

As @Trish says, wide doorways. Really wide. Don’t just do the minimum 90cm. Go as wide as you can. Even if you’re skinny, wheelchairs are not, even the narrow ones, and they’re hard to steer. Walkers/rollators etc need room too. Make your life easier.

Similarly, any corridor needs to be wide.

Ramps need space. If there’s just a small height difference between the extension and the ground outside, it will be nice and short. If there are actually a few steps, you’d be amazed how long the ramp needs to be. So minimise that height difference to minimise the ramp length.

Handrail(s) on the ramp.

A roof that won’t leak. Particularly important if it’s a flat roof. A former neighbour did an extension with a flat roof and it was leaking within a year. Make sure you have a good contractor who really knows how to do the roof right.

Hooked up to main house smoke alarm, or equivalent.



Interior:

A very good fan in the wet room.


Little grab rails everywhere in the wet room, even if none of you need them now. I find the most useful one is right up by the shower. (I can give you exact measurements of where it is in relation to shower head and shower stool if you like!) At least one by the toilet. Have these in the plan so that the builder knows to reinforce those areas, so that when you grab the grab rail the whole wall doesn’t come down.


You might want a raised toilet if the person using it will have difficulty getting up from seated position.


A wall-hung sink, so that you can sit at the sink. Also makes cleaning a lot easier.


Storage in the bathroom, e.g. a wall-hung cabinet, so that the carer isn’t constantly running around getting toilet roll, shampoo etc. Always go for more storage than you think, but don’t let it take up space on the floor which will be needed for medical equipment.


Hooks. More than you think. Towel rails (can be long grab rails). More than you think. Anticipate accidents where you might need to hang things to dry.

Wall-hung shelves and cabinets can be very handy in a small space where you need the floor to be free.


If mobility is already a problem, consider handrails where there is no furniture to hang onto. If you can't bear the idea of that, think of deep panelling that has a little lip at the top that you can kind of lean on.


Blackout blinds and/or curtains, motorised if financially possible, so that you can operate them by remote control and/or from your phone.


As @Trish said, comfortable door handles. I got this one and it’s very comfy. No sharp edges to hurt hands or hips. https://www.m-marcus.com/product-details/COL1762-SB.aspx
 
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You'd need a really experienced architect as the first step. Make a 'wants' list, then go through it in detail with them. They may be able to suggest things you haven't thought of, and different options for the ones you have. (There'll inevitably be a lot of things you hadn't thought of.)

It would be extremely tough, and you might have move out if the work is likely to make you deteriorate. Building is noisy, disruptive, creates a lot of mess, and takes a long time. Just as a comparator, I'm moderately ill and only had a wetroom conversion and a stairlift installation (which also included a partial rewire of the house). I didn't even need to redecorate afterwards, but it was still six weeks with the house full of blokes with power tools. It was 18 months before I recovered to where I'd been before I started.

@Trish's idea about moving to a different property instead would be an easier option—if that is an option for you.
 
I keep thinking of more things.

Consider getting the contractor to build a niche/recess in the shower for shampoo, creams etc. So much easier and less fiddly than trays hanging off the wall. When I search for "shower recess"/"shower niche", it shows a kind of box that gets inserted into the wall. But mine is just built with the tile [edit: with a rectangular wooden frame behind it/on the inside of the wall, which he made by altering the wooden frame of the wall, cutting some bits and adding some bits].

Our bathroom guy built one the whole length of the shower. It's brilliant. Allows you to use pumps one-handed on a nice solid surface. And easy to clean.

Now that I have seen how they do it, I wish I had asked for recessed shelves everywhere!

One easy way of getting a ledge in the bedroom (or indeed bathroom) would be a false half wall on one or more wall(s).

I had to move out when the terraced neighbour was having an extension done. I experienced 20 mins of the noise and it was horrific. I felt like I was in a warzone. My husband had to get the builder to stop and I had to move that afternoon. It took me a very long time to recover from that (to be honest, I was worse for years after it). The two neighbours further down described the noise as unbearable. For context, I was able to manage jackhammering outside the front door fine with earplugs and headphones. This was on another level.

So I move to family when we need work done. Still sets me back, but not as much as staying would.
 
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Having both moved house and had work done in old and current homes fairly recently i can say that the process and cost of organising a house move is just as difficult as refurbishing. I looked for a bungalow but those I saw were all expensive and small compared to houses and weren’t in move in ready condition. The cost of legal fees, estate agent fees, furniture removal, stamp duty (uk property tax) adds up to a chunk. Selling your existing home is also a hassle with tidying up and people coming for viewings.

some great advice already on the work
 
I know it’s not what you asked for, but for others that are considering their housing options:

An apartment on ground floor or with an elevator that fits an ambulance bed might be an option.

My grandparents live in an apartment complex designed for the elderly. They won’t have to move until they need to be in a care home. They needed help from their children to move, though, but wish they did it sooner.
 
Straying further from the subject, I looked into the possibilty of moving us into an apartment complex for the elderly and/or disabled. There is nothing in my area that takes anyone under 55, mostly higher than that, so although I'm older, my daughter is younger than any of their lower limits.

I agree moving house is just as much or more hassle than staying put and having building work done. For some it's the right solution, for others not.
 
We hope eventually to live on the ground floor ( @Utsikt ) of our house ( there are two sitting rooms so one can become a bedroom), and for upstairs to make an apartment for a carer. There is an en-suite already fitted to one of the rooms that would be part of the carer's flat, and a fitted wardrobe that we hope could be adapted to. make a small area with kitchen facilities for them. There would also be a boxroom for storage upstairs plus a small spare room for our children to stay.

That's as far as we have got with the thinking. Most rooms downstairs overlook the rear of the house and the garden which we enjoy. The big issue is whether to install a bathroom downstairs. We have the space because part of the garage could be adapted but we have already converted the upstairs bathroom with a walk in bath, and it would be very expensive to have the room built and equipments fitted downstairs. We have a stairlift so could get upstairs and wouldn't need to share the bathroom with a carer. We have a loo downstairs. Still thinking about that one.

I have organised a visit from a recommended but I think expensive care agency next week to discuss a bit. It seems very strange to have actually organised something concrete. We will be 80 soon and I can do nothing but personal care so I think we need to start a plan. We do have a cleaner.

We too have looked at one or two apartment complexes but not felt they were right for us. We like our house and garden but will need more help as we get older. We also have friends here whom I can't see but provide some company for Mr B. They were extremely helpful in offering advice when the planning issue came up next door. It must be difficult to plan for covering 2 generations @Trish.

Can anyone on the forum offer experience with a live in carer?

I think I may have taken this too far off topic @obeat unless you may be interested in a live in carer at some point.
 
obeat said:
I live with my very elderly parents, and one of my sisters acts as a carer. We are considering building a ground floor extension that would be wheelchair accessible and have a wet room and a downstairs bedroom. We would be self funding.



Any many tips and advice on what to include and what to leave out would be welcome.
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I am getting an unattached room built now that is only 10m2. It is a fair bit of effort to get it built but is sort of fun. I don’t need it to be wheel chair accessible but would be anyway as it is all flat. It will be a nice quiet room in the garden with bulletproof a/c and heating. Someone said to get automatic blinds fitted which I think is a good idea. The wet room will add significant cost unfortunately but is almost a must for heavily restricted people. Best of luck.
 
Binkie4 said:
I would like to reinforce the issue of considering noise when building your extension. The house next door but one to us was completely refurbed a couple of years ago and despite the distance, I found the noise levels almost unbearable. I was mostly bedbound at the time and wore earphones on top of wax ear plugs.
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Yep. It's noisy and stressful, and stress somehow makes noise worse.

I can't recall whether you're in the UK, @obeat, but if you are it's worth having a look at the Disabled Facilities Grant scheme, a government-funded programme for disabled adaptations. It's means tested to some extent, so there might not be much money available if you're able to self fund. However, that's not the most important consideration: if you're awarded assistance, your local authority will project-manage the whole thing.

That would make a huge difference to someone with ME/CFS. They find and employ all the tradespeople for you, do all the scheduling of the work, inspect the final results for quality, and oversee any snagging.

If there's any chance of engaging with that scheme—or looking out for similar ones if you're not in the UK—it's well worth doing. It would massively reduce the workload and stress.

Good luck with whatever you decide.
 
Holinger said:
The wet room will add significant cost unfortunately but is almost a must for heavily restricted people.
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Yeah, it's tricky and depends on needs and space.

I went for a walk-in shower with an almost level shower tray - less than 3cm lip - instead of a wetroom. The ensuite and bedroom are too small for a wheelchair anyway, so there would have been no benefit to a wetroom. I find the basically-level walk-in shower brilliant. The ease of getting in and out, even mid-shower when I forget something, is incredible.

When I used a wetroom in hospital, I really didn't like it. I felt at high risk of falling, as everything got wet. I needed my husband to come in and dry the floor. I'm not at risk of falls in my own bathroom at all, and can shower independently. So for me, a wetroom was not the answer. But if I were not able to lift my feet at all, and needed a carer to shower me, then a wetroom would be necessary.
 
Holinger said:
I am getting an unattached room built now that is only 10m2. It is a fair bit of effort to get it built but is sort of fun. I don’t need it to be wheel chair accessible but would be anyway as it is all flat. It will be a nice quiet room in the garden with bulletproof a/c and heating.
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Meant to say, that sounds wonderful! Hope it will work out really well for you.
 
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