Your average family home doesn't make it very easy for a disabled person to get around. With this in mind, Wilmington, Vermont-based Wheel Pad has designed an eponymous tiny house that provides a wheelchair-friendly bedroom and bathroom on wheels suitable for use as an annex or accessory dwelling unit.
While the Wheel Pad looks like a typical tiny house, it isn't designed for disabled people to to live in unaided. Instead, the idea is that you place it next to an existing house, so it can offer a safe place to stay – either full-time or just temporarily while the main residence is being renovated to be more accessible, perhaps.
A ramp can be added for access and the firm also says that its contractors can join the Wheel Pad directly to the main residence via a spare door or window, to make moving between the two easier.
Based on a 24 ft (7.3 m)-long trailer, the Wheel Pad comprises a total floorspace of 200 sq ft (18.5 sq m) laid-out on a single floor. The interior contains a main living area with a bed and desk, and a bathroom with a composting toilet, sink and shower.
It was designed with input from healthcare professionals and features disabled-friendly furniture and equipment, such as a Hoyer Lift track on the ceiling, handrails, and electrical plugs installed at accessible heights, for example.
There's no kitchen inside and the Wheel Pad's Julie Lineberger (also of Line Sync Architecture Studio) told us that the idea is that the meals would be prepared in the main residence, though a kitchen option may be offered in the future.
Solar panels are an optional extra, otherwise the Wheel Pad gets both water and electricity from the main residence, while waste water goes to a septic tank.
The Wheel Pad is available to rent for US$1,500 per month or purchase for $50,000.
Source: Wheel Pad
