People plan for stairs and bathrooms. Most falls happen on level floors, on surfaces that look perfectly fine.
The half inch rule
The Access Board treats changes in level up to a quarter inch as acceptable without treatment, and up to half an inch if beveled at no steeper than 1:2. Anything above half an inch has to be treated as a ramp.
A private home is not required to meet that standard, and it is a useful measure. Go round your house with a ruler. The strip between the kitchen tile and the hall carpet, the door threshold to the patio, the raised sill at the front door. Anything over half an inch is a trip hazard, and most houses have three or four.
Thresholds
The commonest and the cheapest to fix. A threshold ramp, rubber or aluminum, sits over the lip and bevels it. They cost very little, need no installation, and ship free from our online shop.
For a doorway that is used with a wheelchair, this is frequently the difference between a room being usable and not.
Rugs
Remove them or tape them down. There is no third option, and the rug between the bed and the bathroom door is the most tripped-over object in any house.
Rubber-backed bath mats rather than loose ones. A mat that slides is its own hazard.
Surfaces
The standard calls for surfaces that are stable, firm and slip resistant. In practice, for a house:
- Polished tile and vinyl are dangerous wet. Matte finishes are safer.
- Deep pile carpet is hard work for a walker or a wheelchair and catches feet that do not lift far.
- Low pile carpet is usually the best compromise in a house.
- Loose gravel paths outside are effectively impassable with a rollator.
Transitions between rooms
Where two floor types meet there is usually a strip. Flat transitions exist and are cheap; the raised ones are what catch a toe or a caster. Replacing three or four of those is an afternoon and it is the sort of change that prevents a fall without anybody noticing it happened.
Lighting, again
It belongs on every list. You cannot avoid a hazard you cannot see, and a night light on the route to the bathroom addresses the trip most people make in the dark, half awake, several times a week.
Outside
The path that has heaved. The step down to the drive that is slightly taller than the others. Moss on a shaded path. All of these are fixable and none of them are equipment.
The CDC reports falls as the leading cause of injury death among adults 65 and older, and a meaningful share happen getting in and out of the house rather than inside it.
Where equipment comes in
After the floors. Our aging in place guide puts this work ahead of anything we sell, and our home access page covers the entrance.
Threshold ramps, non-slip matting and night lighting ship free from our online shop.
Doormats, which deserve their own paragraph
The mat inside the front door is one of the most tripped-over objects in any house, and it is usually there to catch wet feet, which is exactly when a trip is most likely.
A recessed mat well is the proper fix. A rubber-backed mat that lies genuinely flat is the cheap one. A bunched mat on a slippery floor is the worst combination in the house.
Stairs and edges
Contrast on the top and bottom step matters more as vision changes, and a strip of contrasting nosing costs very little. Worn carpet on a tread is a hazard rather than a decorating issue.
The last step down is where balance is worst, which is why a handrail should extend past the bottom step rather than stopping at it. Our handrails guide covers the difference between a handrail, a banister and a grab bar.
Doing it in one afternoon
Walk the house with a ruler and a roll of double-sided tape. Measure every transition, tape down or remove every rug, and note anything over half an inch. That list is your work order, and most of it costs under a hundred dollars.
Threshold ramps, non-slip matting and night lighting ship free from our online shop.
Pets, briefly
A dog underfoot is a genuine fall risk and nobody wants to hear it. A bell on the collar, feeding in a room rather than a hallway, and keeping the route to the bathroom clear at night are all reasonable compromises that do not involve rehoming anybody.
Our room-by-room guide covers the wider walk-through, and threshold ramps ship free from our online shop.
Lighting the floor rather than the room
A ceiling light shows you a room. It does not always show you a step edge, a threshold or the lip where two floors meet, because the light comes from above and the hazard casts no shadow.
Low-level lighting along a hallway, or strip lighting under a kickboard, puts light where the hazards are. It costs very little and it is what hotels do for exactly this reason.
Combine it with motion sensors on the route to the bathroom and you have addressed the trip most people make in the dark, several times a week, without anybody having to remember a switch.