Manufactured Homes for The Handicapped
Today’s manufactured home offers quality housing with a wide variety of top-of-the-line amenities and are often times built with standards exceeding those of site built homes. Manufactured housing is the only form of housing subject to national construction health and safety requirements (HUD CODE).
Most manufactured housing producers have the necessary capabilities for building residential homes with features and requirements unique to a disabled person, which are in compliance with the American Disability Act. This can be accomplished at a cost to the home purchaser far less than the cost of new site built construction.
To ensure that the quality of lifestyle envisioned by the purchaser is maintained, you’re going to want to visit your local dealer, review the manufacturer’s floor plans and determine what adjustments are available for addressing the needs of the handicapped.
Suggestions and possibilities include:
- An open and accessible floor plan layout with wheelchair access throughout the home.
- For example, bedrooms should be separated and not confined to one area of the floor plan, thus eliminating or minimizing hallways.
- Bathroom areas should be large and open, providing wheelchair radius access to toilet, bath/shower, sink, and linen. These should all be handicap accessible.
- Exit and passage doors should be unobstructed with a width of at least 36 inches.
- Countertop height can be conveniently adjusted according to the handicap needs of the homeowner.
- Kneehole access to counters should also be anticipated.
The typical manufactured housing dealer has many floor plan layouts available which can easily be adjusted by the purchaser to accommodate disabled persons. The great thing about manufactured housing is that these layouts have already been approved by design agencies! This eliminates the ‘engineering’ and ‘design approval’ expenses that can become a hassle when building a custom site built home.
The manufactured home is truly the answer to the American dream of affordable, quality home ownership.
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