Massachusetts housing is older than almost any state in the country and that changes every stairlift install. The Boston, Somerville, Cambridge, and Dorchester triple-decker built between 1880 and 1920 has a wooden stair with 8.25-inch risers and 9-inch treads — steeper than modern code, narrower than the national-chain rail is designed for. Standard 36-inch rails foul the newel post at the bottom and the header at the top. Our fleet ships narrow-gauge rails for anything built before 1930 in Greater Boston, and we confirm the stair geometry on the intake call.
The Cape Cod cape — Barnstable, Falmouth, Yarmouth, Dennis — has the opposite geometry: a tight, almost-ladder staircase to a half-story second floor with a hinge at the top landing that stops a standard rail cold. Cape staircases frequently need a custom-cut upper rail to clear the collar-tie framing. We measure collar-tie height before we quote, and we have a local fabricator on the Cape who turns custom cuts around in 72 hours.
Inland Massachusetts — Worcester, Springfield, the Berkshires — runs the New England farmhouse and bungalow pattern with straight stairs but brutal winter battery loads. January lows hit -10°F in Pittsfield and Greenfield and kill standard batteries inside one season. Anything west of Interstate 495 gets a cold-pack battery as a baseline spec, not an upgrade.
Built for the Massachusetts climate
Coastal Massachusetts — Cape Cod, the South Shore, the North Shore — sits in salt air that pits standard zinc rails within two winters. Inland Massachusetts sees January lows in the single digits with -10°F stretches in the Berkshires and Pioneer Valley. Our Massachusetts fleet ships marine-grade rail coating standard on every install east of Route 3 and south of Route 6, cold-pack batteries standard west of Interstate 495, and sealed motor housings on every install regardless of location because triple-decker basements average 65% humidity year-round.