Louisiana is the only state in the country where almost every stairlift install question starts with 'which flood zone are you in?' Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Terrebonne, and Lafourche parishes sit partly below sea level, and post-Katrina rebuilding pushed tens of thousands of homes up onto 8-to-12-foot elevated slabs or pier foundations. An elevated home with a 10-foot entrance staircase is the most common Louisiana coastal install — not an indoor stairlift, but an outdoor exterior-rail lift rated for 150+ mph hurricane wind loads and installed by a contractor licensed under the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors.
Inside older New Orleans neighborhoods — Marigny, Bywater, Treme, Uptown, the Garden District — the dominant housing is the shotgun, the Creole cottage, and the camelback. These have narrow interior staircases (where they exist at all) with 8-inch risers and tight landings. Many Uptown and Garden District homes sit in the Historic District Landmarks Commission (HDLC) jurisdiction, where any visible alteration requires a Certificate of Appropriateness. Our New Orleans crew handles the HDLC application as part of the standard install workflow.
The third factor — the one that kills off-the-shelf installs fastest — is humidity plus salt air. New Orleans runs 75-80% relative humidity year round, and the Gulf Coast parishes (Cameron, Vermilion, Iberia, St. Mary, Terrebonne, Lafourche, Plaquemines, St. Bernard) see salt fog driven inland by every south wind. Standard mainland hardware corrodes within 2-3 years. Our Louisiana fleet ships every coastal install with 316-grade stainless fasteners, a sealed IP55 motor housing, and a marine-grade rail coating as baseline.
Built for the Louisiana climate
Louisiana's climate trifecta — humidity, salt air, and hurricane power outages — is the most punishing in the country for mainland stairlift hardware. Standard zinc-plated rails corrode in 2-3 years on the Gulf Coast, and post-hurricane grid failures routinely last a week or longer (Ida in 2021 produced 2+ week outages across Lafourche, Terrebonne, and Jefferson parishes). Our Louisiana fleet ships three standing upgrades: 316-grade stainless on every coastal install, sealed IP55 motor housings baseline, and 96-hour extended-backup battery capacity — the longest of any state we serve — because Louisiana hurricane outages measured in hours are the exception, not the rule.