Saturday, August 29, 2009

Ramp it up, or down, depends on which way you're headed . . .

Saturday. Coffee. Sofa

We built a wheelchair ramp this week. Actually it is not quite finished but maybe today is the day. The slope on a wheelchair ramp must be no more than one inch rise for every twelve inches of length. That means that if the edge of the porch is 30 inches above the point where the ramp ends, the ramp must be at least 30 feet long.

Fortunately we have several folks who are talented in construction and carpentry. We got together at the first of the week after work and pre-constructed sections of the ramp, loaded them on trailers and took them to the house. Rick had cut all the pieces himself which was pretty amazing.

Everything went well. We had only one little setback. In our planning for this ramp, we did not take fully into consideration the slope of the yard away from the porch. The ramp was planned as if the yard was flat. This meant that the place the ramp was supposed to end was not 30 inches lower than the porch. More like 42 inches. Doesn't sound like much, but that meant 12 more feet of ramp, which, under the present plan, would have taken our friend and his wheelchair directly into the middle of the street.

That's when the aiming and figuring started.

Sorry, I've got to finish this tonight. I'm going to hear Shane Claiborne (Irresistible Revolution) . He is at Trinity UMC in Huntsville all day today. Start at 9, but come when you can. Program ends at 4. Bring a canned food item for admission.

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