Posted on 08/04/2015 10:15:48 AM PDT by BenLurkin
For people living in a house with more than one storey, stairlifts or home elevators are often a necessity of life as they get older and find it harder to get up and down the stairs. Normal stairlifts have the disadvantage of being a permanent and visible addition to a staircase, while traditional home elevators are bulky and often impractical for most homes.
A company in England is hoping their novel design will fill the gap in the market for a new kind of home elevator. Terry Lifts, based in Cheshire, have built a futuristic-looking elevator that can fit into the corner of a room and ascends through a hole in the ceiling with no lift shaft required.
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The Lifestyle Lift has a battery backup that will steadily return the user to the ground floor if there is a power cut. It also has an EU standard 30-minute fire protection feature between the floors, whether the elevator is parked upstairs or downstairs.
Its pressure sensitive bottom panel and safety edges gently stop the lift if an obstruction is detected either above or below.
"If a pet or child was playing underneath the lift, you've got a safety bottom with micro-switches all over that safety bottom. So as soon as it comes in contact with any obstruction, it will immediately stop...."
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"A lot of people that have come round to various exhibitions that we've been at in the UK, quite often they would say it looks more like a shower cubicle. That is the first reaction. The second reaction is the pod's design does look like the, you know, "Beam me up, Scotty" - Star Trek - you know you go in, there's two people at a time maximum, usually one, and then off it disappears," McSweeney said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
somebody moves a chair into the corner of the room, then suddenly the floor lifts up and topples the chair.
This may work in Europe, but in litigation-happy America, there are too many pinch points and potential pitfalls.
Just what every senior citizen needs in their home: their own agony booth!
“Will it make that pssshhhh sounds like the doors in the series/movies? Because thats what I really want to hear.”
If they dont, you can hire me to stand there beside it and make that sound everytime you enter and exit it.
I expect 15 dollars an hour for that.
lol
One of the simplest ideas for this was for the opposite reason: small children going upstairs and downstairs all day.
So the father put an electric motor in the basement, to run a vertical conveyor belt with horizontal steps at intervals. So the kids could ride up on one side, and down on the other.
Not much in the way of safety features, but the kids liked it a lot.
I know a number of folks who need to have one from the Eminiar corporation.
No, no, have the beer beamed to you, or better yet replicate it.
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