Tenements with Lifts

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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby Bingo Bango » Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:37 pm

I was just about to respond about the window entry problem of blocking the other residents windows too!

Generally, adding a passenger lift, even a small one, to the outside of a traditional tenement building will be hugely problematic for many reasons:

1. Is your tenement a listed building?
2. Is it in a conservation area?
3. Is it joint ownership ie you own your flat, your neighbur owns theirs, some HA owns another etc and you all pay for common repairs and maintenance?
4. Is the existing close arrangement: front door, long corridor to rear, stair up to half landing, 180° turn, stair up to 1st floor, 2/3 flats off landing then up to next floor etc, with each flight right next to the other?

there will likely be no part of your flat that is not directly above the flats below ie you cant have an area on the ground floor, within the tenement, that is clear all the way up to your flat.

To take a lift from ground up to your flat only from the front would foul the pavement, which you do not own, or the garden, which is presumably common ownership or the ground floor flat ownership. It would also require planning permission, which would be a tough one even not counting point 1 and 2 above. Even without all that, as mentioned, the shaft would foul everyone elses windows all the way up.

Taking a shaft up the rear :D would lessen potential problems with planning, but again you run in to the window issue on floors g, 1 and 2 before getting to yours. You would also still have to get to this - are their stairs down from the close to the back court? And again, the back court will be common ownership and some have it written in their deeds that they are for clothes drying only and nothing to be built there...

So that doesnt leave much room for manoeuvre im afraid. Even if you were to solve all these problems, when you factor in the costs of ground works for the lift pit, shaft wall construction, works to tie in with existing fabric at all levels (especially yours), purchase of lift, maintenance of lift, construction of new roof over lift (depending in where in loft it comes out), plust the professional fees required - architect, engineer, lawyer etc, and then the timescales on something so out of the ordinary as this, then it would seem to not fly, sadly.

I had considered how the accomodation of lifts could be made generally in Glasgow tenements when I was visiting a really poorly maintained close on the southside recently. The back of the tenement was coming away from the rest of it due to apparent water issues under the buiding. There was a gap between the half landings and the back walls you could fit a dead dog in. Anyway - remedial work would need to be carried out to brace the upper floors along with ground works etc. At this point, you could prop the existing stair well walls, take out the existing stair and put in an entirely new stair and lift 'pod' either partially within the space of the existing, or to the rear in the back court. Cost could be partially offset by using the space in the stair well to extend the size of the flats (which would require altering internally, again adding cost)

So no quick fixes at least from the glance I have had at the issue, which is a shame, as the problem will only get worse with an ageing population and a recession meaning people with no ability to move out of their own homes to easier accomodation. So it is one good thing about modern regulations that ask you to take in to account the whole life of a building and its owner so lifts in common areas, rooms that can be amended to include showers, space in stairs internally for a stair lift to be fitted etc.

Perhaps a stair lift int he close would be the most realistic option?
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby Bridie » Tue Jan 08, 2013 12:03 pm

Very interesting and the point I made earlier about the growing numbers of people getting on a bit and how the tenements will not be suitable accommodation is rather a sad one. I would even go further and say that my generation and the future ones will have more problems because i don't think, in general, we're as fit as the ones gone before us. :(

What about a rope and a hoist for shopping? I wish i could find the article i read where someone did this - I think it was in south of England. It would have to be ned proofed ... or not 8O
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby Bingo Bango » Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:01 pm

Bridie wrote:Very interesting and the point I made earlier about the growing numbers of people getting on a bit and how the tenements will not be suitable accommodation is rather a sad one. I would even go further and say that my generation and the future ones will have more problems because i don't think, in general, we're as fit as the ones gone before us. :(

What about a rope and a hoist for shopping? I wish i could find the article i read where someone did this - I think it was in south of England. It would have to be ned proofed ... or not 8O


You're spot on about growing numbers of older active, but less able people needing decent accessible accomodation. It is one of these things that while tenements are in general very versatile accomodation, if you have mobility problems then the building type and multiple ownerships can cause really severe problems.

Easier than rope and hoist for shopping would be to get people on the net ordering their food stuffs and anything else they need for home delivery. Doesnt help with the access to your house right enough...

I wonder if we will see a rerun of the mass tenement upgrades of the 80's (seem to remember these but was only a wee boy at the time so may be bollox) only this time to 'future-proof' with access and energy requirements.

Egg Man's situation may be tricky to solve, but if there was effort put in to developing a design solution and a large scale basis then tenements could well last the rest of this century providing great housing. Here's hoping.

In the meantime, I like the rope and pulley suggestion, but lets not ned-proof it - there is always the chance some might get tangled up by the neck..... :o
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby Bridie » Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:07 pm

Bingo Bango wrote:In the meantime, I like the rope and pulley suggestion, but lets not ned-proof it - there is always the chance some might get tangled up by the neck..... :o


:D
....there you are sitting comfortably watching Corrie ...three flights up...Summer evening.. curtains open.. up pops two wee neds faces at the window "Dae ye want yer windaes cleaned Mrs?"

You : open window ...whoops 8O ::):

They have the hoist pulley thing in Amsterdam in the canal houses. Don't know the technics involved and indeed if the idea is transferrable to Maryhill.
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby Bingo Bango » Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:51 pm

Thats why all the houses in Amsterdam either slope forward from the base or are stepped at each floor - to ease the hoisting of things to top floor without bashing on the walls....

Great idea. One of the reasons I would love to live in a hay shed or barn is to have an excuse for that sort of feature. Especially after several moves of furniture and floor tiles etc etc up and down 3 tenement flights :evil:
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby kirstymaclaren » Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:39 am

A lift would be perfect in our close. The stairs from one floor to another go up 3 sides so there is a large square space in the middle. There is a woman on the third floor who has been housebound for several years now :(
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby Bingo Bango » Thu Jan 10, 2013 10:27 am

kirstymaclaren wrote:A lift would be perfect in our close. The stairs from one floor to another go up 3 sides so there is a large square space in the middle. There is a woman on the third floor who has been housebound for several years now :(


That's a shame. I have never really been in a close with the central gap, always tends to be the straight forward return stair with no room for manoeuvre!

If the will was there, a pneumatic lift could be slid in this space fairly easily. Depending on heights might get away with this with no lift over run at the top and minimal pit.

Would probably add value to the properties as well, if done well and with care and not just slapped in to place.
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby SomeRandomBint » Thu Jan 10, 2013 9:36 pm

Of course in days gone by, this issue would have been overcome by someone in another flat popping in and asking if you'd like anything from the shops while they were going. Or someone giving you a hand with the messages up the stairs.

When my friend lived with his parents in a close in Dennistoun, they had a wee old lady called Margaret who had lived on the top floor since she'd got married, about 60 years I think. All the kids in the close looked on her as a surrogate Granny and she had no end of people happy to help her out despite her own kids living abroad.
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby The Egg Man » Thu Jan 10, 2013 10:22 pm

SomeRandomBint wrote:Of course in days gone by, this issue would have been overcome by someone in another flat popping in and asking if you'd like anything from the shops while they were going. Or someone giving you a hand with the messages up the stairs.

...........................



None of the shops sell new here sell new hearts and lungs. Shopping isn't the issue. Pals and family + supermarket deliveries make that one easy to overcome.

It'd just be nice to be able to get out, walk to the library or the park without expiring in a heap by the time I get home.
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby SomeRandomBint » Sat Jan 12, 2013 6:09 pm

I don't know if this will be of any use to you. http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=6499&p=0

GCC does a grant scheme to make housing accessible. At the very least, if you contact the office on this pdf they might be able to tell you whether a stairlift or similar might be an option in your building. Given the amount of tenements in Glasgow, they must've come up against this issue with other people.
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby The Egg Man » Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:01 pm

Thanks for that. Interesting stuff on chairlifts.
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby SomeRandomBint » Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:09 pm

No problems. I thought I remember seeing something on the GGC internal website recently.

Even if you could get one fitted for just one or two of the upper flights of stairs, it would be something to make life a bit easier.
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby The Egg Man » Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:53 pm

SomeRandomBint wrote:No problems. I thought I remember seeing something on the GGC internal website recently.

Even if you could get one fitted for just one or two of the upper flights of stairs, it would be something to make life a bit easier.


That's true. It's the top flight which takes it out of me. I've planted a chair on the half-landing so I can take a breather.
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby RandomFactor » Thu Jan 17, 2013 9:48 am

Late to the party on this one, but my old flat above McSorleys on Midland Street had an old fashioned slidey cage door lift, serves every floor from 2nd upwards, (and the ground, obv)
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Re: Tenements with Lifts

Postby Bridie » Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:24 am

Were the flats in the city centre eg Midland St designed for sole residential use?
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