Wheelchair accessible bathroom portable#
Wheelchair accessible bathroom code#

Wheelchair accessible bathroom portable#

This transfer shower at the Hyatt Regency Orlando Airport doesn’t have a built in shower seat, so you get one of the cheap portable benches that are prone to collapsing. Transfer showers are the simplest and least expensive accessible bath units, but hotels still find a way to mess them up… Very good! ADA Violations in Transfer Showers The shower is 36 inches square, has grab bars on the correct walls and water controls within reach. The transfer shower pictured above, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago O’Hare, is a great example of what it means to be up to code. Here’s what an ADA compliant transfer shower looks like: Hyatt has a greater propensity for these than other chains, but they mistakenly market them as roll-in showers, which they are not. The transfer shower is the rarest form of accessible bathing unit, but they do exist. This is described in section 610.3.2 of the 2010 ADA standards. In this particular shower, the extended portion of the seat is at the shower compartment’s entryway. When an L-shaped shower seat is used, the side of the seat with the greatest depth must be placed against the back wall.

This roll-in shower at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay has what I consider to be a minor problem, but it is nonetheless a violation of the ADA design standards and could cause issues for some. I have seen a similar design in hotels abroad, including at the Madrid Marriott Auditorium Hotel. The overall design of this shower is permitted, but very few hotels use it. This roll-in shower at the Las Vegas Marriott almost makes the grade, but there is no grab bar on the wall adjacent to the shower seat. Built-in shower seats must be placed on the side wall of a rectangular roll-in shower. The roll-in shower at the Omni Dallas Hotel fails the ADA compliance test, because the shower seat is placed on the back wall. Looks like management needs to read my Guide to ADA Accessible Design Standards for Hotels. A grab bar on the side wall where the shower seat should be. So many things wrong with this shower at the Hyatt Regency Chicago/Schaumburg. Let me say it again… water controls and the handheld shower spray unit must be next to the built-in shower seat! Beyond a bruised buttocks, I was not hurt. Fortunately, I did not take a photo of my naked triple amputee self sprawled out on the roll-in shower floor at Delta Hotels Orlando Lake Buena Vista. Yes, I was sitting on the bench when one of the legs collapsed. Speaking of a liability… this is what can happen when a hotel provides a cheap portable shower bench to overcome an ADA violation. Ironically, the General Manager of this hotel refused to provide one saying, “It’s a liability.” Needless to say, I moved to another hotel with an ADA-compliant roll-in shower. I requested a portable shower chair to overcome this particular ADA violation, as I normally do.

The law requires these features to be placed on the back wall next to the shower seat. Can you spot it? The water controls and handheld showerhead are placed on the wall opposite the shower seat, putting them out of reach and making the shower unusable to the majority of wheelchair users. The roll-in shower pictured above, at the Hampton Inn Cleveland Downtown, is guilty of one of the most common ADA design violations.

The following images depict roll-in showers that do not meet the ADA requirements for accessibility. It has all of the required fixtures – shower seat, water controls within reach and grab bars to hold onto. This roll-in shower at the SpringHill Suites Milwaukee Downtown is a mirror image of the Westin’s ADA shower. A handheld shower spray unit and water controls are adjacent to the seat on the back wall and the grab bars are placed in the appropriate positions. The shower has a seat attached to and which folds down from the side wall. The roll-in shower pictured above, at The Westin Cleveland Downtown, is ADA compliant. If you request an ADA accessible room with a roll-in shower, here are a few examples of the types and set-up of compliant showers. So, let’s get started! ADA Compliant Roll-in Showers I’ll show examples of ADA compliance first, then take a look at some of the ways hotels have messed up (or cut corners, if you’re a pessimist). In this article, I will focus on only a few accessible design features in hotel bathrooms.

Wheelchair accessible bathroom code#

Accessible hotel bathrooms are basically the same, right? No, they aren’t! While individual hotel brands may implement a standardized design across multiple (sometimes hundreds) of properties, each hotel is built by a different contractor and inspected by a different code enforcement team.