Help getting in the door, up the steps and into the shower in Shoalhaven homes, from Berry and Nowra to Sussex Inlet. Tell us what's needed, NDIS and Support at Home jobs included.
Get a Quote →Home modifications are physical changes to a house that let someone move around safely and independently, whether ageing in place or living with disability. This ranges from a grab rail for a couple of hundred dollars (see NDIS – Guide to home modifications) to a full bathroom rebuild with level-entry access.
Across the Shoalhaven, common jobs include bathroom modifications for older homes in Nowra and Berry with dated, narrow layouts, and ramps for beachside homes around Huskisson, Vincentia and Culburra Beach where entries often sit above ground level. Funded modifications typically require an OT assessment before work starts, whether paid for through NDIS or Support at Home.
Walk-in showers, level-entry access, grab rails and non-slip flooring. Cost depends on scope: a partial job adding rails and a shower seat costs far less than a full rebuild with repositioned plumbing and a level-entry shower.
Compliant ramps replacing steps at the front or back of the house, sized for wheelchair or frame use. Cost depends mainly on the length and rise needed - a short ramp is a straightforward job, a longer one costs more.
Grab rails in bathrooms and hallways, plus handrails on external steps. A simple, effective way to reduce fall risk. See NDIS – Guide to home modifications.
Widened doorways for wheelchair clearance, lowered kitchen benches and accessible storage, and stair lifts for double-storey homes with unavoidable internal stairs.
Most NDIS and Support at Home funded modifications need an Occupational Therapist assessment and report before the work is approved and paid for. Booking trades before this step can mean the cost isn't reimbursed. Speak to My Aged Care or your NDIS support coordinator about arranging an OT assessment first.
In Shoalhaven houses the work is mostly the entry, the stairs and the bathroom. A ramp where steps have become the problem. Grab rails where a hand already reaches for the wall. A level-entry shower, hob out, floor re-laid to fall to the waste. A platform lift where the rise at the door is too much for a ramp, a stair lift for the stairs inside. Floor height, door widths and where the plumbing and power already run decide most of it.
In the ABS 2021 Census, 87.2% of the Shoalhaven's occupied private dwellings were separate houses, so the entry, steps and bathroom are the owner's to change. Residents aged 65–69 made up 8.0% of the population and those aged 70–74 another 7.7%, against 5.2% and 4.6% across NSW. And 13.5% of people aged 15 and over had given unpaid assistance to someone because of disability, a health condition or old age in the two weeks before Census night, against 11.5% for NSW. With a second person helping in the shower or on the steps, rails, floor and landings have to work for two.
Flood prone land changes the job, most of all a bathroom rebuild that moves walls. Building work there comes under Shoalhaven City Council's DCP 2014, Chapter G9. Work stays 'minor development' only inside limits: an alteration changing less than 40% of the internal and/or external walls, or 30 lineal metres if that is greater, with additions, alterations and change of use totalling no more than 50 m². Where the chapter's building-component controls apply, anything below the flood planning level is built from flood-compatible materials. Every electrical installation goes above it, which decides where a lift motor, a powered door or a heated rail can take its power.
Floor level changes the ramp. The chapter has site-specific controls for 12 areas. In Terara Village and the Riverview Road area it works from the 1-in-100-year pre-levee flood level. Add 0.5 m freeboard and that is the minimum floor level for habitable rooms in infill development and reconstruction. On some listed lots in Sanctuary Point, Erowal Bay and Sussex Inlet, under the St Georges Basin Floodplain Risk Management Plan, the chapter asks that raising the house by 3 m, a whole floor, be explored. More height at the door means more ramp and more landings, and past a point a platform lift is the better job.
We do ramps, rails, level-entry showers and stair lifts right across the Shoalhaven, including Berry, Nowra, Terara, Culburra Beach, Huskisson, Vincentia, Sanctuary Point, Erowal Bay and Sussex Inlet.
Somewhere else in the Shoalhaven? Tell us what suburb the house is in and we can see if we can service it.
Tell us what you need and where the property is.