Stair Lift Cost: Straight Stairs, Curved Stairs, Inside and Outside your Home

The most common phone call question we receive is :

“How much does a Stair Lift Cost?”

There’s not an easy answer as there is a variety of stair lift manufacturers and options. Each manufacturer supplies different models of stair lifts, too. ACME supplies Stannah Stairlifts and we are a Double Diamond Dealer.  The right stair lift for you depends on many factors: 

• Your Stair Case: is it straight or does it make a turn? How narrow is it? What materials were used to build the steps?
• Are the stair Inside or Outside your home?
• Room at the landings: does the stair case begin at a small hallway or near a door? How much room is at the top of the stair case? 
• User requirements: What is the need of the person using the lift? Are some movements harder than others?

 

Stair Lift Pricing

 

 

In California, you should budget between 2995 and 9900 for stairlift prices on a straight set of stairs inside the home.

A Curved Stair Lift cost starts at 7500 for a reconditioned stair lift and 9900 for brand new. More, I know, but ours can be put on just about any staircase while straight rails only can go on straight stairs with NO curves or long steps.

Outdoor stair lift pricing will start at 5750 for the shortest rail section.

We also offer refurbished stair lifts or stairlift rental options.  

These prices are “out-the-door.” You won’t pay more for installation or shipping. Some building departments and associations will require a permit and charge a fee.

Commercial Stair Lifts will cost more and that will vary on the type of lift you choose. 

 

Stair Lift Cost is a combination of a few things:

1. Stair case type
2. Inside the home or Outside the home
3. New, Reconditioned or Rental
4. Stair Chair lift model, from entry level to premium. 
5. Commercial or Residential

Let’s go over these options. 

Staircase types 

Straight stair 

In our experience, about 70% of staircases are straight. In this industry, a straight staircase doesn’t make any turns and has steps that are all the same size.

Pricing for straight stairlift pricing start at 2950. To put a straight stairlift on your stairs, you need to make sure you have 2 feet of room at the bottom for the rail and chair and no platforms of any type. Most staircase widths can accomodate our lifts. Local code can dictate the widths as well. Just ask us and we’ll let you know if your city calls for a minimum lift and/or permit.

The length of the staircase matters as well because the longer staircases need longer rails. Average is about 14 feet but we’ve put them on much longer. Beyond length, the lift might need a retractable rail. This option allows the lift to rail or lower in case the landing area around the bottom of the stairs is next to a door or in a narrow hallway.                                            

 Retractable Rail Down

          

  Retractable Rail Up     

         

 

Curved Staircases

Curved staircases are ANY staircase that makes a turn or has a long platform.  

A curved stair lift does just that: it gets you around corners. Ours are made specifically for your stair case. We take a survey and send it off to engineering who create a design of what you need. By doing this, we are able to make sure that your stairlift fits your stair case exactly.

Curved Stairlift pricing starts at 7500 for a reconditioned chair. Stair Lift Cost of a new Curved starts at 10000. The rule of thumb is that the more turns and the longer the staircase runs, the more rail we have to provide and the price will increase. The most basic staircase is called a 90 degree flat. Here’s a diagram:

  Pricing for a curved stair lift is made up of three things: Staircase type, step type, and rail location.  We’ve already explained the staircase type here. To expain stair type, look at this diagram of what we call a 90 with winders: See the difference? This one has winders or pie shaped stairs. It’s take longer to make this rail because the rails need to bend UP as the rail travels up the staircase. The other factors to consider are the location of the rail. An INSIDE turn is one where the rail is closest to the inside of the turn. A staircase that turns right and has the stairlift on the righthand side is an INSIDE rail. If the stair lift rail was on the left side of this stair case, then it would be an OUTSIDE rail. 

We’ve installed some impressive curved stair lifts throughout the years, I have to say. I really liked this one that we complete a few years ago.  There isn’t a stair case we can’t overcome. 

 

Inside or Outside the Home

Inside the house or outside the house? No explanation needed here. We’ll get to the different models later. 

 

New, Reconditioned or Rentals

 

New

New stair lifts are brand new, no one has ever had them before except you.  

 

Reconditioned

Reconditioned stair lifts are ones where the owner doesn’t need them anymore. We’ve taken them out and returned them to our shop. Our team of technicians then go through the chair from top to bottom, inside and out. We make sure that all the safety features, motor, charging, and switches work. We supply new batteries and then clean it as much as we can.

Reconditioned straight lifts also come with the original rail. The reconditioned curved lifts come with new rails. See, we can’t reuse the rails as each time they are made specifically for the set of stairs that they are ordered for. Many times, our reconditioned lifts run better than new as they’ve undergone an intense rebuild.  A reconditioned stair lift cost is typically 20 to 30 percent lower than new. 

Rental

Rental options are only available for straight units. You can rent new or used with new rental pricing for less than 200 a month.   

 

 

Stair Lift Models