My sister lives in senior housing in N.Y. state and a fewyears ago they put one in for her.First they put handrails,then as she aged and her health was not so good they put the lift in.She loves it and says it saved her life as she couldn't go up and down anymore as she lives on the 2nd floor. Those are the dumbest senior apts i've ever seen,told her a man must have designed them(no offense to men ).The stairs are very steep and there is no landing to stop and rest at,and when you get to the top there is no door,gate or anything of that nature at the top. Among being older she is also an epileptic,and we always worry about getting too close to the stairs on the way to the kitchen,lose her balance or have a seizure and tumble down those stairs. When she first moved in many years ago they didn't even have the hand rails,she had to request them.She lives in a very small town so there aren't a lot of choices for seniors. Kathi

It depends a lot on your specific facts. A friend had one installed for her mother. Even with this installed there was still too much walking to get to it from the kitchen and then from it to her bed. They had no issues with how it worked or the installation (my friend would've looked into this very carefully before proceeding) but because of how her mother was injured getting her off the chair at the top of the stair was super difficult. They finally had to put a hospital bed in the downstairs den.

@cpartist, thank you for that encouragement. I hope ours is the same. In residential there is normally never any oil or fluid in the pit. The piston & cylinder are along the side (https://symmetryelevators.com/how-do-residential-elevators-work/). The ram (or piston) has a very thin coating of hydraulic oil and I believe this is the source of the smell as it is a lot of surface area. My thought is a powered vent (likely a small inline blower) in the top of the shaft and possibly an open vent for supply air in the bottom on the same side as the hydraulic system. My hope would be that this would pull air in, across the hydraulic components, and out.

I’m a Certified Aging in Place Specialist. If you’re in the initial planning stages of the build, I would suggest planning a single level. The site you choose greatly impacts the accessibility of the home design. Accessibility begins at the edge of the property, and how you arrive to it, park, and enter it, all protected from the weather. Getting into the first floor has to happen before thinking about a second floor. Ramps take up a lot more space than people think they do, so even a standard 2 step height entry needs roughly a 14’ long ramp to maintain a usable slope. That bulk has to be planned for from the beginning in the site plan and the hardscape. And garage size. Platform lifts, properly sited, can be very useful. I did a lake house on a stilt foundation, where all of the living space was upstairs. We did a platform lift in the spacious downstairs garage, which lifted up to the covered screen porch of the house above the garage. There was a bit of engineering needed for the flat roof design and supports, but it’s been amazingly useful for the fully able occupants as well. They used it for transporting the bulky furniture bits upstairs, and use it weekly for the grocery runs as well. Beats slogging up the stairs with a case of water!