Remodel for Handicap

[teachable]

Hi, I am about build an addition to my home. My wife has MS, a condition that could cause her to be wheelchair bound in short notice. The addition I am adding is for my son and I will be adding a bathroom. My thought was to go ahead and make the bathroom accessable in the event my wife needs to be in a wheel chair. Attached is what I am considering. If anyone has experience in this area and is willing to suggest a different layout or adjustments to what I am planning, I would be most grateful. The dark black line represents the existing wall. My home is on a slab and the addition will be also. The current demensions take me all the way back to the requred setback so going bigger is not an option. Also, the left bedroom wall is based on extending an existing wall. The space to bottom of the bathroom extends our eating area - this is much needed space.

 

[Jimbo]

I think you should do the bathroom a lot different if wheelchair access is contemplated.

1) The lav sink should not be a cabinet. It should be a wheelchair accessible wall hung, not a cheapie,
2) Although you do not need to comply "officially" with ADA specs, that toilet is not wheelchair friendly. I think the wall-to-wall distance needs to be 42"
3) I don't think a corner diagonal shower is very wheelchair friendly. I would do a custom roll-in floor, with the entire bathroom floor tiled.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jadnashua]

When pouring the slab for the addition, you'll also probably want to recess the area where the shower will be. In that way, you could build a proper shower pan with no curb - maybe just a slight hump. This would be an ideal situation to use surface waterproofing membranes such as Kerdi and Ditra - essentially, making the entire bathroom floor and slightly up the wall, waterproof. For a wheelchair accessable shower, it needs to be considerably larger than you have indicated. Check out www.schluter.com on Kerdi stuff, and www.johnbridge.com for help with tiling and building the shower...they have numerous threads there in the history you can study to get some ideas and a lot of tiling professionals to answer your questions.

 

[hj]

bath

I would make the shower larger and the sink smaller. An ADA toilet needs 60", 18" from the nearest wall and 42" to any obstruction on the other side, so that is not possible in this situation. Be sure to allow wheel chair movement in the room. That inswinging door could be a problem for that.

 

[Jadnashua]

A handycapped bathroom is a prime candidate for a pocket door, too. Then, you don't lose any interior space for the swing.

 

[Frenchie]

A couple of good sources:

http://www.mobility-advisor.com/ada-bathroom.html

this link:
http://www.access-board.gov/ada-aba/final.htm#pgfId-1006287
should automatically scroll down to the section on plumbing fixtures; if it doesn't scroll down about 2/3rds of the page.