Stannah Stairlifts Reviews

The other day the extension was partially up. The chair was in the wrong place on the rail. I exercise it until it worked properly. I realized that when the extension is down, there's no electrical connection to it. It relies on the battery. Stannah should look at how to best treat that or tell their customers that they have a battery. They should have a meter on there that tells something about the battery state and ensure that it can stay down for eight hours, or go to sleep and know what it needs to do. A meter that would tell the owner, “You have to get this thing parked.” Otherwise, you have a service call. Other than that, we’re satisfied with how it works.

We have two installations. We have one from the second floor to the first floor and one from the first floor to the basement. The traffic is primarily for the disabled person, my wife. She travels from the living quarters upstairs to the first floor. When she gets down, she has no interest in wanting to try to park the chair part way up the steps. When she does that, the chair is fully deployed. She would have the foot rest down and the arms will be down. That means no one can get past it. The stairs are not especially narrow. They're standard for our class of home. So, there's a little danger in having to fold the chair up if it was parked in the right position.

We have a bunch of automatic features. There’s additional cost if it's controlled by a controller. So, when the seat is at the bottom of the steps, if you had a single button that was a speed dial that says “Park and fold”, you're done with it and it's safe. I find myself taking chances when it's at the top of the steps, because when she gets out of the chair, and let's say that my wife is going into the bedroom and I'm downstairs, the chair is rotated at the top, completely blocking my passage past it to get on to the second-floor landing. I need to lean up and straighten the chair out, lean over to press the button so that the foot rest goes up. And I fold the arms up and stand up. The same thing is true when I'm on the second floor and I need to fold it up.

I called a month ago because I had questions about oil that dripped on the steps. I was explained that it was lubrication from the track that was on the steps. It's urethane on the steps so I was able to wipe the oil off. But that's something that shouldn't happen. I don't know whether the technician used more than necessary, or if it was the lubrication formulation itself. If we had a rug on there, it would not come out. That would be the end of it. The other was that some of the labels were peeling. Like the technician had greasy fingers when he applied the labels. I was told, “You can call us and we can come out and replace them.” It's not necessary to do that yet. I cut off the pieces that were peeling off the stairs itself. In the meantime, all is good.

As for the installation, James did a fantastic job. I intended to leave a review for him but hadn't managed to do so until now. The stairlift itself has been a lifesaver. It's retractable at the bottom and well-built with safety in mind, but there are a few issues. The constant beeping when it's in motion, especially when my dad uses it late at night, is quite loud and disruptive. It would be great if there were an option to adjust the volume.

Another issue is the bright light on the left-hand armrest, where the emergency switch is. It's quite glaring at night and shines into our rooms; offering a way to turn it off when not in use would help. Additionally, we started hearing an occasional tapping sound that resembles someone tapping on a window when the lift is about a third of the way up. I haven't reported it because Stannah charges $200 for a service call, and since it doesn't affect the functionality, I decided against it for now.

The overall quality of the stairlift, I would say, deserves a 4 out of 5. The seat is a bit wobbly when my parents sit in it, which worries me as they have difficulty getting in gracefully. I constantly remind them to be cautious when sitting down.

As for pricing, I find it quite expensive, and I would rate it a 2, as the cost seems high compared to the product. I viewed the product online before contacting Stannah, and the site was quite clear and user-friendly, warranting a 5-star rating there. Overall, the stairlift's a crucial addition to our home, despite its minor flaws.

I probably make about a dozen trips a day up and down and the Stannah stairlift has worked flawlessly for me so far. It’s a straight stairlift and fits in very nicely. At the bottom, it goes ahead and past the stairs so it's easy to walk around if you wanna use the stairs without the stairlift. And at the top, you can fold the arms, the seat and the footrest up. In which case, you can walk right past it using the stairs also. The stairlift is steel and painted well. It's got a good white vinyl over the gears that lift the chair. So it looks good and it works fine. One guy installed everything from scratch all by himself in about three hours and that included signing in the paperwork. I didn't have any trouble afterwards so he did a great job.

Stannah tends to be higher in price than many. But they have some quality features too that the other ones don't advertise. For example, installation is included in the price. Another is they've got half a dozen safety mechanisms. By accident, I've tried to use it with all the safety mechanisms in place. We went with Stannah anyway even though I've done the research and found other ones that were less expensive. They're certainly not the cheapest. But they're close to the best. If you're paying for a service or product and it's the right thing to do, then do it. My wife even uses the stairlift. Neither one of us is a kid anymore. Especially if she's carrying something downstairs, she'll just sit down and carry it down.

The sales rep who came out was excellent. He explained everything and made suggestions that were an improvement on what the other stairlift people made. And he's still with us because we still got to remove the door before we can get the stairlift all the way in. They came out to install it on Friday, but the door is still there. I completely forgot about that. So now, we're checking into door removal companies to remove the door. It would be like a door that you would see at a business to block off the wind in the walkway. It's never shut and it's been permanently open as long as I've been going there.

Once we get it removed, we can get the stairlift installed. The sales rep is making sure he follows up with us on what needs to be done. In fact, I talked to him by text this morning. So, as soon as I send him a picture showing that I got the door removed, they'll come on out again. The people that came out on Friday were so sorry and they were trying to see if we could just change it. But they were not able to do that. They were really nice and everybody from Stannah has been excellent.

The other company was somewhere around $20,000 because they couldn’t just put a railing on the main flight of stairs. The guy who came out said his manager wouldn't let him do it. To do what they wanted, I would have had to get a loan somewhere. They were willing to rent to me a chairlift for $1,000 that was what we wanted but they were gonna pull that out and do what they wanted. I called Stannah and they did the chairlift for the probable price of $5,000. They put it in instantly and we love it. They did it in a matter of days and stuck with their price. They didn't throw anything extra in. We got the slightly bigger chair but it wasn't an unreasonable amount.

The chairlift works beautifully and it’s quiet. The installers demonstrated how to do it. My husband couldn't get down the stairs easily and was stuck upstairs. He could walk down but he couldn't go back up and bring up a bag of groceries. Now, he can get out of the house and go places. He is going up and down the stairs almost every day. I come home and see that he hasn't turned the chairlift and has flattened it up against the wall. So, he's using it. I came home last night and the garbage cans were out in front because it's garbage night. He could do it because he could go down the stairs. I don't wanna ride in the chairlift because I wanna get my exercise going up and down my stairs. So, I'm putting grocery bags on it and sending them up. But my husband can hold them and he can go up. So, Stannah did a good job. I am very happy with them.