What are the ballpark estimates for these wheelchair friendly home renovations?

Question

A co-worker is holding a workshop in which they are presenting many different things related to accessible housing for people with disabilities. As a last minute thought, they wanted to add some ballpark figures for what it might cost a person to add certain accessibility-related renovations/ modifications to their home.

I am looking for contractors (in Canadian $$$ - Manitoba especially) who might be able to offer *really* rough estimate to these renovations. These estimates are just to give workshop participants an idea of what they might be getting into financially:

- the upper and lower cost of a wheelchair accessible ramp built up to the front entrance of a home four standard steps up, labour and materials in.

- the lower to upper cost of widing a standard 32" to a wheelchair accessible 36" door in a home

- the cost of lowering counters in a standard (~200 sq f) kitchen, dropped counters, no cupboards

- anything else you might have worked on?

Answer 1

No offense a lot of detail to go through, and I assume the Canadian Dollar and costs are similar to the US. In the US, and perhaps Canada there are guidelines that dictate door openings, ramp grades, counter top levels, etc.

  Even a most simple ramp could cost $400, in a charitable sense. I built one for my Mother for just under that cost. That was to purchase material and pay my cousin something, as we built the ramp in the dark, using vehicle headlights.

  In a "Ballpark" sense, just to HANG a door should be fair at $75. To expand the structure surrounding an expanded door size, safely stabilizing it, and purchasing the proper door size, could cost $500 plus with finishing, each door. In some logic, one should assume that some DOORS might be eliminated. DOORS for the disabled, most especially in wheelchairs, are often as much a barrier and should open AWAY from them, unless the level they happen to on, in an some sense, allows room to back up, then move forward. Interior doors pose a problem in hanging, to allow access to a room, with a wheelchair perhaps, getting out of the chair, closing the door, and would more relate to bathrooms, in which case a door opening OUT would be more appropriate, certainly depending on the size and logistics of the room.

   Lowering counters might be the least of any labor or cost issues, other than the fact that cabinets and drawers might exist, and have to be removed. That would be a consideration in a labor fee, as well as manipulating plumbing and electrical outlets. To deny that cupboards, LOW/ELEVATED storage space should be considered, denies the disabled a more realistic method of conducting what they might want as a more normal life.

   The cost to do so, could be time and materials?

   I do have a suggestion that has nothing to do with a profit motive.

  I suggest you contact agencies that deal with issues related to Modifications for the disabled, and perhaps even more, you bring some disabled into your program, in their notions of NEED.

  I was married to a woman, who has disabilities and they evolve as she ages. I have worked with the disabled, privately and through agencies, having to use very specific guidelines as well as personal desires of those clients.

  I have seen, for example, TUB/Shower/Toilet BARS assumed to be viable, yet weren't. I installed Pull up bars for an elderly man, who found them useless, even in the directives suggested, as he lacked the strength to Pull himself out of his wheel chair.

  No offense, but I suspect no one can ballpark, or exactly define cost to a consumer, until they specifically know the needs, and lack of abilities of that consumer in a one by one basis.

Steven Wolf

Just my two "sense"