Adding an Elevator to Your Home Can Increase Its Value

In the recent past, residential home elevators have been a luxury most often reserved for the wealthy. With the advent of new types of home elevators such as vacuum or pneumatic elevators, now they are more affordable. This trend has enabled families with children and those with temporary or permanent disabilities to determine that an elevator is a sensible solution for their home. Also, more and more urban homes are being built with 3 and 4 stories making them a necessity.

Installed properly, residential elevators can add an aesthetic to the design of your home as well as provide safe transportation to and from the upper floors of your home.

Three Types of Residential Elevators

There are 3 main types of home elevators:

• Hydraulic elevators take up a lot of room and are better suited to be installed during the construction of a new home rather than as a retrofit. Recently built homes may have designs that accommodate them like aligning closets on each floor. And modern homes are generally more spacious than older homes. While putting a traditional elevator with shaft and machine room is not impossible in older homes, the extra space they take up can take a bite out of the limited space. If you have a lot of living and storage space and especially if you have large closets on the floors that align, a retrofit for a hydraulic elevator is possible and affordable.
• Traction elevators take up less room than hydraulic elevators, but require a counterweight to move the cab along a track which can be challenging to design the appropriate space for. And they do require a hoistway shaft and pit excavation in the foundation.
• Pneumatic vacuum elevators (PVE) use air pressure to move the lift. They require no shaft or pit construction, are compact, and removable making them very flexible for a retrofit in existing homes, especially older homes with less space. The use of vacuum elevators is gaining due to their lower cost, modern design, and installation flexibility.

Elevators offer a safe way to travel between floors. Historically, elevators have been a necessity for the elderly and those with disabilities who wish to remain in their home. But with lower-cost vacuum elevators, more and more families are considering elevators as a safer method than stairs for small children and when carrying stuff between floors. Plus, many more homes today are built with 3 floors so elevators are increasingly important.

As the nation’s population ages, more and more home buyers are looking for wider doors for wheelchair access and home elevators for increased mobility. Having an elevator in your home, properly installed and maintained, will add value to senior home buyers, disabled persons, as well as those with young children as a safety feature.

If you are in the market for a residential home elevator, contact the elevator professionals at Home Elevator of Houston.  One of our representatives will discuss with you the best options that fit your budget and lifestyle.  You can be assured that we will properly design and install a home elevator that will add value to your home while at the same time providing safe, convenient method of going between floors. We are certified aging-in-place specialists with our own team of licensed and bonded installers.