When buying a home stair lift, or electric stair chair lift, choosing the right end-rail system for the stairlifts is important factor not to be overlooked.
What often happens though is that the electric stair lift rail extend out quite a way into the hallway downstairs, blocking the foot traffic. Other times, a door will be positioned right below the stairs. In such way, the protruding rail would either obstruct the traffic or prevent someone to enter through the door.
The home stair chair lift companies have long been able to cope with the problem by using three types of end-rail solutions. These are: curved rail, manual hinged end rail, power hinged end rail, and the slide rail extension. Let's look at all four solutions.
Curved rail solution
Curved rail solution
When your stairs are curved, you will want to install a curved stair lift anyways. Then, it is only natural to bend the bottom part of the rail sideways at the bottom of the stairs. That way, the bottom station will be out of the way, and the parked stairlift will not obstruct traffic.
Manual hinged rail solution
Stairlift manual hinged rair solution
When your stair chair lift is straight, fitting straight stairs, you can select to have a hinge installed so that the bottom part of the rail can be manually lifted up and turned back onto the rest of the stair lift rail when not in use. That way, the obstructing bottom part of the rail will be out of the way.
Powered hinged rail solution
This is the same idea as the manual hinged rail, except it uses an electric motor to flip the bottom part of the rail up onto the rest of the home stair lift rail. It can be controlled through the remote control.
Slide rail extension
Slide rail solution
Minivator stair lifts has recently come up with a really neat idea that does not require a hinge. The bottom part of the stair lift rail is extended out, or slides out of the top part, as needed, or as the stair chair lift is approaching. The advantage of such hinge-free system is that it takes less space.
Which system electric stair chair lift end-rail solution will work best for you?
Perhaps you won't even need one! So go check out the bottom of your stairs to see if the protruding rail would obstruct traffic.