The term home adaptations covers a broad range of changes made to a property to make it suitable for those living within it.

Often, several adaptations are required in one home to ensure every aspect of it is safe, comfortable and functional for whoever is living there. This makes understanding timescales all the more essential, as, like with any home improvements, it can be disruptive, which can be unsettling for some.

In this blog, we look at the anticipated timeframes you can expect from some of the most common home adaptations we do.

What’s Included In Home Adaptations?

Home adaptations differ from home improvements. Home adaptations are changes made due to necessity and range from the simple addition of grab rails to building a whole new extension. 

The scope and scale of advised home adaptations are outlined by an Occupational Therapist’s assessment. At JFG, we work closely with OTs to ensure needs are met, but we also factor in the wants and needs of everyone living within a home.

The adaptations we make for our clients are made to seamlessly fit into a home environment. We strive to ensure your home remains homely, avoiding a clinical look that can feel uncomfortable. 

So, to understand how long a specific home adaptation might take, we need to look at what that adaptation involves. 

Minor Adaptations

Minor adaptations are smaller changes that don’t require any structural modifications to the property. Here are some examples…

• Grab rails. These come in a variety of materials and finishes and are very simple to install.
• Ramps. Often necessary to access a home or travel freely within it, accessibility ramps vary. Temporary ramps can be folded up or moved if necessary, and modular ramps can be erected and taken down very quickly. Concrete ramps require more work, and the ramps must be completely set before use. 
• Taps and sinks. Replacing a standard sink with a shallower version makes it easier for people with reduced mobility to reach down to items at the bottom of it, and installing lever or motion sensor taps requires less manual dexterity. 
• Kitchen storage solutions. Whether it’s adding pull-down baskets to high kitchen cupboards or putting together a wheel-out larder, improving kitchen storage for accessibility can be a simple task.
• Stairlifts. Installing a stair lift should take around 4 hours for a professional fitter and is a minimally invasive job.

Major Adaptations

Major adaptations are bigger projects that tend to take longer and change the structure of a house. These are adaptations such as…

• Doorway widening. Standard UK doorways aren’t wide enough for a wheelchair to fit through. 
• Extensions. Not every home has enough existing space to cope with important accessibility changes, and sometimes that means building an extension. This is a huge job requiring meticulous project management and many different trade skills and knowledge.
• Hydrotherapy pools. Hydrotherapy provides tons of benefits for people living with reduced mobility, but access to public pools is limited. So we build them into people’s homes instead! Installing a hydro pool at home might include digging out the ground if the pool will be inlaid or a huge amount of tiling if that’s the style you’ve chosen.
• Bathrooms. For some individuals, adapting one or two elements of the bathroom, like a toilet or a shower, is sufficient to improve independence and comfort levels. For other people, it can be necessary to transform the whole space into a wetroom, and that involves many more stages.

Project Planning: Understanding Timescales

As you can see, adaptations projects can range from swapping in some lever taps to the addition of a new room to your house.

Often, multiple changes will be made at once, and that will impact the completion timeframes for your home. Here are some general timescales to keep in mind based on a straightforward project with no complications or additional requirements.

Doorway Widening

To widen a doorway, part of the wall must be removed and a new, wider frame fitted. The project will take longer and be more complex if the wall being modified is a load-bearing wall because the lintel above the doorframe will also need to be widened. 

Widening a single doorway takes around a day, plus time to cosmetically put right the surrounding walls.

Stairlift Installation

Stairlifts generally only take a couple of hours to get up and running, ready for use. Curved staircases, longer staircases and having to move radiators and other features to accommodate a new stairlift can lengthen the project to a day or two.

To install a stairlift, the fitter must first lay the rail along the wall or stair tread. Because the long-lasting battery of the stairlift is sited within the chair, there isn’t usually a need for a separate power source and thus no need for an electrician. 

Fitting the chair unit onto the rail is simple, and the stairlift will be tested to ensure it’s working safely and correctly before use.

Whole Bathroom Renovation

Adapting a bathroom involves a few different aspects, and the time spent fitting these ranges from a couple of hours to a week.

Removing the bath or shower to replace it with accessible alternatives can be a relatively quick job, often taking a few hours plus sufficient time for the sealant to dry. Replacing a toilet with an adapted WC should take half a day to ensure plumbing elements are completed correctly and operational.

Adding minor adaptations such as grab rails and a shower seat need only take an hour because they require less work.

Completely remodelling a bathroom into a wetroom, however, requires waterproofing (or tanking) and tiling, as well as all of the changes we’ve mentioned above, and so can take up to a week, depending on the size of the space. 

Ramp Installation

Fitting a ramp to a property is vital for improving accessibility, and plenty of options exist. Temporary ramps can simply be lifted into position or folded out when required. For more permanent solutions, you might opt for a modular ramp or a concrete ramp:

• Modular ramps. These tend to be constructed from aluminium and can be erected in a couple of hours. The pieces of ramp come in various sizes, lengths and widths and can be straight or include corners. The ramp is fitted together using bolts and can be used immediately. 
• Concrete ramps require the whole area to be prepped and levelled before the ramp can be created. The next step of the process involves the formwork, or the mould for the concrete, being installed. Once the concrete has been poured into the formwork, it is time to wait for the substance to completely cure; depending on the size of the ramp, this can take up to a couple of weeks.

Working With Professionals To Reduce Timescales

Specialist adaptations contractors have tons of experience working on accessibility improvement projects and understand what’s needed to meet tight timescales.

Choosing an adaptations contractor to execute your home project brings many benefits:

Experience

Specialist adaptations contractors have years of experience under their belt. They will have been a part of a multitude of projects of all different kinds and have finetuned their ability to optimise time management and get stuff done speedily. 

Insight 

With all this experience comes an unbeatable, innate insight into home adaptations. Specialist contractors take pride in helping their clients to come up with the best ways to achieve their accessible-living goals. 

Access 

Home adaptations contractors hold gold-standard knowledge about goods and great relationships with suppliers of all kinds, meaning access to products and equipment is simple and fast. 

People Power

A proficient home adaptations contractor will boast a team of skilled contractors specialising in particular trades, such as electricians, plumbers, carpenters and builders. Everyone involved in the projects will employ a fantastic understanding of home adaptations to ensure excellence is delivered. 

What Adaptation Project Do You Have Planned?

Knowing how long your specific home adaptations will take to complete means understanding the scope of the job.

This blog should indicate some of the standard aspects of common adaptations, but get in touch if you want to talk about your project in detail. We’d be happy to help.

Searching for a reputable home adaptations company who have personal experience in the field? Look no further. See our website to get in touch.