Ramp is one word covering four quite different products. Buying the wrong one wastes money in one direction or produces something unsafe in the other.
Threshold ramps
Small wedges, rubber or aluminum, for a single step or a raised door threshold. They sit at the door, need no installation, and cost very little.
If your problem is a two-inch lip at a patio door or a single step at the back, this is the answer and nothing larger is needed. They ship free from our online shop.
This is the most commonly over-solved problem we see. People get quoted construction for something a threshold ramp fixes in a minute.
Portable and suitcase ramps
Folding aluminum ramps, typically two to eight feet, that travel in a car. For getting a wheelchair or scooter over a curb, into a van, or up a few steps at somebody else’s house.
The limit is length and therefore slope. A short portable ramp over a tall step produces a steep slope, and steep is dangerous going down. If you need more than about six feet, you are into the next category.
Modular aluminum
The workhorse for most homes. Prefabricated sections bolted together into a run with landings, installed in a day, removable, reconfigurable, and rentable.
It looks like what it is, which some people mind and most do not. For a need with an end date, or for a rented property, it is almost always the right answer.
Permanent construction
Concrete or timber, built to the property and finished to match it. Slower, more expensive, and the only option that genuinely adds to a house rather than sitting on it.
Worth it where the need is permanent, the house is staying in the family, or the appearance matters at the front of the property.
The slope arithmetic that governs all of them
The ADA Accessibility Guidelines set a maximum running slope of 1:12. Twelve inches of run for every inch of rise, level landings top and bottom, and a landing required before the rise exceeds 30 inches.
So a 24-inch rise wants 24 feet of ramp before landings. A 48-inch rise wants closer to 60 feet of usable length once landings and a turn are included. Measure your rise and multiply by twelve before you picture anything.
When no ramp fits
Past about two feet of rise, a great many properties simply cannot take a compliant ramp. That is when a vertical platform lift becomes the sensible answer, needing a level pad rather than fifty feet of run. Our platform lift page covers it.
What a private home has to comply with
Legally, a private residence is not a place of public accommodation, so the ADA standard is not binding on your own ramp. We build to it anyway unless asked otherwise, because a steeper ramp is harder to push up and genuinely dangerous coming down, and the person using it pays for the shortcut.
Commercial and public buildings are different, and there the standard is the requirement rather than a benchmark.
Details that decide whether it works
- Clear width of at least 36 inches between handrails.
- Handrails both sides where the rise is over six inches.
- Edge protection, a curb of at least two inches or a surface extending past the handrail, so a caster cannot drop off.
- A non-slip surface, which matters most on timber in the wet.
Edge protection is the item most often missing from a home-built ramp, and it is the one that causes the accident.
Permits
Permanent construction usually needs one; modular frequently does not; commercial work almost always does. The rules are local rather than national, and a supplier should tell you which applies at the quote rather than discovering it halfway through.
What a quote should state
- The rise it is designed for, and the resulting slope.
- Total run, including landings.
- Clear width between handrails.
- Surface and its wet performance.
- Whether handrails and edge protection are included.
- Who pulls any permit.
The Access Board guidance is the reference for all of those numbers, and a supplier who cannot discuss slope in those terms is guessing.
Where people most often get it wrong
Two mistakes account for most of them. Buying a short portable ramp for a tall step, which produces a slope that is frightening to descend. And building something permanent for a need that turns out to last four months.
Both are avoidable by measuring the rise first and asking honestly how long this is for. Threshold ramps for a single step ship free from our online shop, and our home access page covers the built options.