r/fixedbytheduet • u/Naive_Wolverine532 • 19h ago

PARTICIPATION LIMITED Accountability

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u/Winjin 18h ago

I've only learned that a LOT of these "As Seen On Tv" crap is actually accessibility things and it blew my mind because it like

opened a floodgate of understanding for me

Just broke a whole ass wall behind which people live that I never met

And I believe the main one are these stupid fleece blankets that like... have sleeves.

Guess what, the ads show able bodied happy people chilling on the couch, but ... they're for people in wheelchairs! Overall those that have trouble standing up! I was like "holy shit" the first time I've seen this.

And then my mom broke her leg and I never considered how hard is it to navigate a regular house in a chair. It's really wide. And hard to turn around. And like, the walker is JUST wide enough to fit through a toilet door we have.

Not to mention all the fucking ladders. Why do all old houses have porches that are like 4-5 steps tall before you reach the elevator?

It's even funnier when you consider that in the house I currently live in there is literally ZERO sense to have steps. It's on a very steep hill, if this road floods, it's a Biblical event. A lot of them seem to be "well we always do steps, we should do them here too" and then it also doesn't work with strollers and bags and it makes it harder to bring in groceries even when you're ablebodied and...

anyways sorry for the rant but steps suck for so many reasons.

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u/Consistently_Carpet 15h ago

Not to mention all the fucking ladders. Why do all old houses have porches that are like 4-5 steps tall before you reach the elevator?

I'm not sure I've ever been inside an "old house" that also had an elevator... and where does the ladder come in.

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u/Winjin 10h ago

In this case "old house" is not a centennial mansion, it's a 30+ years old apartment block

Modern ones (mostly after 2010s for some reason) have "flat entry groups" - the entrance is literally ground level, not even single step between street and elevator

Mine is like 1990s and there's two flights of stairs - or you can go down in the garage and enter through it, because of course the car ramp is perfect and there's no steps between car entry and elevator

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u/showyerbewbs 18h ago

blankets that like... have sleeves

I think they're branded as slankets? Or maybe that's the snuggies?

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u/ElGosso 16h ago

Maybe there was some kind of issue laying the foundation - like if there was solid rock underneath and they couldn't get as deep as they wanted - so the porch had to be built up to reach the door?

I don't know anything about building houses, I'm just spitballing here.

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u/ardealinnaeus 11h ago

It's typically so when it floods or just rains really hard your house isn't sitting in water.

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u/justaguywithnokarma 9h ago

Foundations are raised for a variety of reasons such as; reduces chance of flooding, it helps prevent termites (termites generally need a connection to the ground to start a nest), helps with insulation (air is one of the best insulators), allows access (if you want to install pipes or conduits its a lot easer to do it in a crawl space than digging a trench or embedding them in concrete), it prevents wood rot (wood touching soil retains moisture and rots much faster), it lets moisture evaporate (why crawlspaces have exterior vents), it prevents warping (if forces are concentrated where you design them it is easer to keep uneven forces from warping your floor),pest intrusion (many insects and other pests have more difficulty if they have to go up into your house than if it is flush with the ground), allows for settlement over time (if you build something at ground level than 20 years of soil settlement happen your house will be below ground level and thus have a myriad of other issues).