Browse Forums Renovation + Home Improvement 1 Feb 21, 2012 10:40 am Howdy folks, I have a puzzle for you... I'm looking at an apartment, but there's a few issues in terms of accessibility. I use a wheelchair so ease of access is not a convenience, it's a necessity. Straight up this means any apartment is going to require some modification (fun fact: BCA & Access to Premises standards to not cover accessibility for apartments, apart from some common areas), so I've set aside a healthy budget to allow for this. This one is a little trickier than I expected though, I'd love to hear some thoughts on it The bottom line I need access to the balcony, which currently transitions over a rather high step. I want to eliminate the step as much as possible, ideally a seamless transition with bifolds or stackers. A small bump (20mm max) is ok, but anything higher is annoying. Here is a plan of the area in question: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Red shows where I'd modify, not too worries about the other doors. The complication Both the inside & outside are concrete slab, but the outside slab sits ~60mm higher than the inside. Nope, not a typo, the balcony slab sits high Here's a sketch of the current setup; Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Grey is slab, brown is boarding, purple is door track. The Solutions The cheapest & obvious solution is ramps (either leaving the doors in place, or dropping them lower): Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ This approach takes care of drainage & is relatively cheap. On the other hand, it is not really comfortable as an accessible primary residence. Double sloped ramps (up & down in the one transition) are not fun, & this would eat up a chunk of internal floor space. If this were the only solution I'd have to look elsewhere. If everything else about the apartment was irresistible, I could be convinced to live with a ramped transition like this: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Where the highest rise is that of the external slab (i.e: not up & over, just up). Of course this has waterproofing & drainage implications though, hence the gutter installed. I'm not sure of the feasibility of this kind of thing though. The ideal scenario, & the one I'm really keen to look into, is something like this: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ No or minimal height gradient, just a lovely seamless transition with recessed drainage & suitable new bifold or stacker doors. The obvious caveat being that the internal living space would need to be raised ~60mm (around 50sqM of floor area in total). The ceiling height can handle the raise, & it has the added benefit of bringing one side of the kitchen bench to a more usable height for me. Where you come in So these are just some of my thoughts, but I'm certainly no guru. I'd love to hear your thought or suggestions, especially if you've had experience with something like this in the past. Apart from general thoughts, I'd be also interested to hear any specific opinions on raising floors (floating? Concrete fill?) or recessing doors with allowance for waterproofing. As for my constraints, I'm looking at a $25k budget, but an exceptionally lovely solution could twist my arm, along with any savings from haggling on purchase price. Thanks for taking the time to read this! Cheers, Kye Re: Bifolds & Stackers & Floors, oh my! 2Feb 21, 2012 11:03 am Kye, thanks for posting and it is interesting to see a "real" problem that needs fixing out of necessity. I am no expert as I am an accountant but have you considered combining the first option and the last option. You would get the raised floor height which makes benches more usable and solves (maybe) the drainage issue at the rear. How big a floor area are you looking at and how would the transitions to other areas be handled. If you are raising the floor 25K may not be enough. Watching this one to see what other solutions are offered. Cheers Mark Re: Bifolds & Stackers & Floors, oh my! 3Feb 21, 2012 11:29 am Thanks Mark! That is another option... Initially I wasn't too keen on raising up to the current height of the door rail (~150mm) as it is pretty high. It would mean the ramp up to the new level would be ~3 times longer :/ It's definitely something I'll keep in mind though, especially if drainage proves to be a big problem! The total area to raise is 50sqm (±5%). As for the transitions internally, I'd have a small ramp up to the living area from two sides: from the apartment entry & from the bedrooms. This means about 1.5sqm worth of ramp instead of the ~5sqm required to ramp directly to the doors around that whole corner. Hmm, I think a pic might help explain better: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Blue is the proposed raise, Red are the ramps. Re: Bifolds & Stackers & Floors, oh my! 4Feb 21, 2012 1:00 pm Hi The external height issue is all about drainage, all doors need the height to allow water to flow out away from the door. For new buildings there are some solutions out there right now... in Qld it is popular to have something called easyroll which is an aluminium ramp into and out of the door (I think Bradnams have these nationwide for their doors). Then there are some 3rd party options like http://www.stormtech.com.au/ and http://www.creativedrainsolutions.com.au/ . We have just completed the design of a drainage system which allows the door sill to be at floor level inside and outside. If it's an existing building, I think I would consider a new door given your internal issues, so your choice is to install a new door with the 3rd party drainage system or something like our new one (still to be released, so not yet available). Or you must put up with a ramp... I think 1:8 is the magic ratio for the fall, but I may be wrong. Thanks Ed "ECOECO" At 'EcoEco', we design windows, we design the best windows, we do it for you, so that when you’re happy we are happy. Tel. 1800 326 326 Re: Bifolds & Stackers & Floors, oh my! 5Feb 21, 2012 1:25 pm Thanks Ed, good links! This is the style I was thinking of: Link to example I think this is similar (aesthetically) to the system you've designed? I'd love to know more about your design. Am I right in assuming these systems don't require any height rise, so that the transition is flush? And you're right, new doors would be the way to go. Yup 1:8 or 1:10 is the ramp gradient for short ramps (<1m). Re: Bifolds & Stackers & Floors, oh my! 6Feb 21, 2012 1:36 pm Hi, I think the ideal solution would be raise the living area floot by 60mm. However, you do not have to do this using concrete and tiles. You could leave your living area flooring as-is and instead build a proper wooden T/G floor over that. To make up the 60mm hieght, you would use a based of 32mm waterproof plywood. This would be nailed to the existing tiled floor. Then nail 12mm wooden battens to the plywood underneath. These battens would form the latticework onto which your 19mm T/G flooring would be installed. If you add them up , it comes to 32+12+19 = 63mm - this should work fine. As far as the balcony goes, I would suggest a ramp down towards the balcony (after the door tracks) . hope this makes sense. Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. Re: Bifolds & Stackers & Floors, oh my! 7Feb 21, 2012 5:10 pm kyebosh Thanks Ed, good links! This is the style I was thinking of: Link to example I think this is similar (aesthetically) to the system you've designed? I'd love to know more about your design. Am I right in assuming these systems don't require any height rise, so that the transition is flush? And you're right, new doors would be the way to go. Yup 1:8 or 1:10 is the ramp gradient for short ramps (<1m). Welcome... You are right...the transition is virtually flush with just the tracks protruding a little. Ed "ECOECO" At 'EcoEco', we design windows, we design the best windows, we do it for you, so that when you’re happy we are happy. Tel. 1800 326 326 Re: Bifolds & Stackers & Floors, oh my! 9Aug 10, 2012 8:30 pm Have you checked out the bi fold doors? We just put some in and the part that the doors sit up against (bottom seal) is a couple cm high to create a seal. Not sure if this amount would be okay with you? Ie: the inside floor sits flush with inside of doors and the deck sits flush with the outside of the doors hover there is a slight drop to make the seal. Hope that makes sense! 2 4688 3 5598 Old Home Restoration / Renovation To reduce noise transfer without compromising the aesthetic of your exposed I beams, consider filling the 100mm gap between the I beams and the floor above with dense,… 6 9157 |