Temporary wheelchair path

[mrcharly-YHT]

A friend is coming to stay who is in a wheelchair (hand-propelled). She's a paraplegic, not sure official designation, but I think just below sternum.

We have a ramp to the back door, but the ground at the side of the house is a bit soft in places.

So I'm going to put some paving slabs down. I have enough 44x44cm slabs to do two rows.

The question is; what width? Obviously we don't want a risk of wheels rolling off the edge, as it would be a fall risk and difficult to get wheels back on (I won't be insetting the slabs, this is a temp path).

I've read everything from 0.8m to 1.2m as recommended path widths.

[L CC]

For a temp path I wouldn't lay paving, can you get something like this:

https://www.thegardenrange.co.uk/p/ground-protection-mats/rubber-grass-mats-23mm-thick-1-5x1m/

[Jurek]

^ That would've been my suggestion.

[Kim]

When I molished a ramp to get barakta in and out of out front door, a wheelchair-user friend recommended the addition of some L-shaped aluminium profile to prevent the castor wheels dropping off the edge of the sloping portion.  Having since wrangled a wheelchair full of delicate barakta over it dozens of times, I concur that this is very much a Good Thing.

On that basis, I'd suggest that the key thing is being wide enough for the chair, plus reasonable wiggle room, and then either enough extra width that the edge is trivially easy to avoid, or some sort of raised edge to catch errant castor wheels.

The chair is probably no more than 0.7m wide, in order to fit through a standard doorway.  Track width a bit less than that, on account of the pushrims.  A 0.88m path would seem quite tight unless there's an edge to bounce off.

OTOH, if you leave a central channel, that's something else for wheels to end up in...

[barakta]

I'd also ask your friend what she thinks, propose some options and see what her reply is.

If she's sternum level then she may have difficulties balancing her core even if she's a reasonably fit manual chair user.

It may be that she's happier having some assistance to go that route or that she'd prefer to do it herself. Mileage varies on this hugely, I have some friends who don't mind an extra push and others who will almost-never accept a push for a range of reasons.

Basically to some extent mileage varies and I think starting with offer A B or 'other' is a really good and kind friendly thing to do and I think most disabled folk would value you offering and work in good faith for the best temporary system for the purpose.

[mrcharly-YHT]

The rubber matt would be a waste of money, since we will be laying paving at some point in the future.

Edging, that is a good idea, I might be able to put some wood, 2x4, alongside the paving.

No time to ask friend, they are a long way away and coming in 2 weeks. She used to be very strong and wheeled herself for miles, but I think age will have reduced that. In the past she'd accept a push from a very small number of people (hmm, me and MrsC basically).

If I make a 1m wide track, and edge it, then it wouldn't be possible for the wheels to drop in a gap in the middle.

[hellymedic]

Whatever the width of the chair, consider the front castor wheels can flip outwards a long way if the chair direction gets reversed.

My open wheelchair is 650mm wide, if pushed forwards, but MUCH more if travel is not made with a 'clean sweep'.