[Erin524]

Anyone ever have their stair glide (stair lift) break and have the company that installed it refuse to come out on a friday night to fix it?

I'm scared to use ours now...and scared to walk downstairs with my knee all screwed up still. I still just walked down the stairs, but I cant see doing that several times a day because my other knee is slightly messed up too. Plus my back is killing me from having a bad knee and walking funny from that.

It's either walk down keeping one leg straight and bending the less screwed up knee. But the less screwed up knee is going to end up more screwed up if I have to walk down steps with it too often.

Why is it that whenever something important like a stair glide breaks, it's always at the beginning of a weekend, or late at night?

I guess I wont be using that particular pharmacy for any more handicap accessories since they wouldnt send someone out tonight. I called before 2pm. You'd think they'd ask someone to work late or have someone on-call to come fix it. They're pretty much the only company in town that installs these things. I bet they get called for out-of-order stair lifts all the time. What do they do? Tell people they're trapped in their house till someone comes out to fix it?

Before it broke, my dad had just used it to go downstairs and put something away. It was after he came back upstairs that it apparently broke. I went to get on it to come downstairs, and that's when I found out the hard way that it was now broken.

My dad just rode the stair glide down to see for himself what was wrong with the thing. He said that he thought it was safe. But then he always gets onto the chair the wrong way at the top of the stairs. (supposed to turn the seat to the side. Sit down, turn the seat back to the working position and then go down the steps) My parents never get onto the thing the correct way. I've seen how the lift bends forward on the track when they it that way too.


When I discovered it was broken, I was going to go downstairs, and when I got on it, the correct way, the arm rest went out from underneath me. The arm rest that just happens to be on the side of the chair that I'd have a long drop if I slipped out the chair. I almost fell and was really glad that the handrail for our stairs was there for me to grab. When we first got the stair lift, they took our handrail off our stairs and said we couldnt have one. (guy who originally installed the stair lift 5yrs ago was fired from the pharmacy for shoddy work and not doing things to code. We had our stair lift re-installed last year when we got new carpeting, so it should all be to code now)


I just checked, the whole right sided arm rest on the chair is loose, and the seat is bent in a weird way and wobbly. Last night when my dad was using the stair lift, he was putting the seat in an Up position so it was out of the way of anyone walking down the stairs. The seat made a weird noise when he lifted it up into the "out of the way" position.

Just not happy that the thing breaks on a weekend, and that the pharmacy doesnt have anyone on-call that can come out to fix the thing. I'm not really thrilled about the possibility of hurting my knee just so I can go downstairs and sleep in my own bed every night. (there's only one bed upstairs, and I outgrew sleeping with my parents when I was 5)

Plus, if it's broken, I no longer trust it. My dad said we'd get a new one next week, but that's going to be a huge expense. Think this thing cost $3k when we bought it 5yrs ago. Wonder what inflation has done to the price of these things.

I also wonder how many times you can drill the screws for these stair lifts into our steps before you compromise the structure of the stairs. (I've seen the underside of our steps with the bolts going thru them, and it looks pretty chewed up now)