This trade sells expensive equipment to older people, often in a hurry, often after something has gone wrong. That combination attracts some operators worth avoiding.
Here is how to check, including on us.
Ten minutes before they visit
How long have they existed? A company incorporated eighteen months ago describing forty years of experience is describing somebody else’s. Registration dates are public.
Do they have a real address? A physical location you could drive to, rather than a mailbox.
Are they an authorized dealer? Bruno and Harmar both sell through authorized dealers and both publish dealer locators. It affects your warranty and whether parts can be obtained.
What does their licensing look like where you live? Requirements vary sharply by state. Some regulate stairlifts, platform lifts and elevators; others exclude private residences entirely. Ask what they hold and who pulls the permit.
Reviews, read properly
Look at the pattern rather than the score. A hundred five-star reviews posted in the same fortnight is a purchase, not a reputation. So is a review profile with no detail, no names and no photographs.
Read the three-star reviews. They are the honest ones, and how a company replies to criticism tells you more than the praise does.
On the visit
Notice what they ask you. A supplier specifying properly will ask what has become difficult rather than what product you want, how the person transfers, their weight, who else uses the stairs, and how long you expect to need it.
A company that asks none of that and quotes anyway is working from a price list. Our buying checklist has the full list of questions to put to them.
Pressure tactics that should end it
- A price good only today. Equipment pricing does not work that way.
- A large deposit before a written quote.
- Refusal to leave a written quote at all.
- Quoting a firm price without seeing the staircase.
- Promising a curved stairlift next week. A curved rail is manufactured to your staircase over three to five weeks. Anybody promising otherwise is describing a straight one.
- Claiming Medicare will cover it. Original Medicare generally treats a stairlift as a home modification. Anybody promising coverage is guessing with your money.
What a good quote contains
Model number, rated capacity, rail type and length, lead time, what installation includes, warranty terms and who honors them, permit position, service cost, and removal. A single number on a page cannot be compared to anything.
The question that reveals most
Ask what they would not sell you. A supplier worth buying from will sometimes tell you the thing you asked about is not what you need.
We have told people to buy a two hundred dollar grab bar instead of a twelve thousand dollar lift and left. Sometimes the honest answer is that you do not need us, and our consultation page is where that conversation starts.
And plenty of what helps can simply be bought without anybody visiting at all. It ships free from our online shop.
Who actually turns up
Ask whether the installers are employees or subcontractors, and ask who comes back if something goes wrong. This matters most on the second visit, when somebody who saw the job the first time recognizes what has changed.
It also matters for accountability. A subcontracted crew working across three companies has no particular stake in your staircase.
Insurance and background checks
These people will be in the house, frequently with somebody vulnerable. Ask whether technicians are background checked and ask to see a certificate of insurance. Both are reasonable questions and any established company answers them without hesitation.
After the sale
Who services it, how quickly do they respond, and do they service equipment they did not sell? That last one is revealing: a company that only touches its own installations is a company you cannot use if you inherit a lift with a house.
Our service page covers what we pick up, including where the original installer has gone out of business.
Trust your own reading of the visit
If somebody is talking past the person who will use the equipment and only to the adult child paying, that tells you something. If they will not leave without a signature, that tells you more.
A free visit where the company might conclude you do not need anything is a low-stakes thing to agree to, and our consultation page is where that starts.
Take your time
The pressure in this situation is usually real: a discharge date, a fall, a spouse struggling. That pressure is exactly what a poor operator relies on.
Getting two quotes costs a few days and routinely saves thousands. If somebody tells you there is no time for that, they are telling you what kind of company they are.
Our twelve questions is the list to take to every visit.