Sunday, May 11, 2008

Extreme Makeover Ramp Edition

Antioch, CA
Taken with John's Fuji Finepix F480

I have a neighbor who is dying of bone cancer. She is now confined to a wheelchair. A niece's boyfriend's brother installed this ramp while drinking a case of beer. And it shows. John suggested to the neighbor, that I could build a better one. My help was enlisted and I designed and built this ramp. At the top there is a platform for the older lady to just sit and enjoy the weather. I then increased the ramp size by 4 feet giving them 12 feet to go up the 14 inch rise. The way the previous ramp worked actually gave a 16 inch rise in 8 feet, so by moving it to flat land I increased the run while decreasing the rise. On Monday I will bolt down the front using concrete bolts. Another neighbor has agreed to paint it...so I'm pretty much done.

6 comments:

  1. That was so nice of you guys to fix that up for her...its very well done ^_^

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  2. Thanks for letting us use your porch as the test porch.

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  3. That was really nice of you to fix it up for her. It looks SO much sturdier than the previous ramp from the pics. I can't tell from the photos- are there now guards to keep the wheelchair from accidentally going off the sides, or is that still to come?

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  4. Yes Bonnie, the 2X2s on the edge will keep the wheelchair from going off the sides. Because there is a big building on the otherside of the ramp, I wasn't concerned about installing bumpers over there.

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  5. er... Yeah, now that I look again, I do see that those things on the edge aren't actually even with the ramp... Not quite sure how I missed that the first time...

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