Hi All!
Hoping that a few folks in the BBQ community will have experience in the this area. To give a little background, I've been working as a designer in the grill & outdoor living space for over a decade, but in that time I've come across very few grills that are appropriate for wheel chair users (or ADA compliant) The only options seem to be $3000-9000usd?!?! Why is that???
I'm curious to hear if this is really the case, or if folks are using other products or custom setups I haven't come across. Feel free to comment below or direct message, I'd love to hear your stories and see what's out there that's working, or if the options are really quite limited!
The images attached are a few of the (quite expensive) ADA compliant grills currently available.
by Thrill_Of_The_Grill
5 Comments
the disabled population is a fraction of the total population. Something that works for a wheelchair user is going to be not a great fit for anyone else so they’re usually going to be made in very small quantities that brings up the cost. It really depends on the exact format that you’re looking for. Have you thought about looking for a drop-in grill that are usually designed for outdoor kitchens? You can usually drop that into any sort of frame or table at a low height, and it would be perfectly serviceable for someone in a wheelchair. There are also stuff like charcoal grills that are meant for tailgating. That would most likely work the same way that you’d be able to set it on a table or a slightly modify table and have it be at a good height.
Have you seen a chargriller Akorn jr? Are you specifically looking for something that’s gas or is charcoal an option? It’s really meant to sit on a table and the portable but I have a cousin in a wheelchair who has it on a very basic table that they made out of 4 x 4’s that basically puts it at about chest height, and it’s very comfortable to use because it’s big enough for their needs and it’s somewhat insulated so it’s still comfortable to get up close to it.
Yo, that’s wild that accessible grills are so pricey. TBH, I haven’t seen many affordable options either, maybe look into modifying a standard grill with adjustable legs or a side table extension?
I think the best solution is a tabletop grill placed on a low table. Most grills are pretty modular, so even if they’re not specifically “accessible” you could simply not build the legs and build a custom stand around them — this is how people do “built in” Kamados.
Even a standard gas grill could be fairly easily modified. I would look more into designing a wheelchair-compatible table that you could put any brand of grill on top of, than a whole grill specifically for disabled people. If you’re sticking a Weber on top of the table, you have access to all the Weber parts and maintenance knowledge out there, without it being a brand no one has ever seen before.
You should focus on making custom stands for commercially available ones you buy for super cheap on marketplace.
Clean those up and flip them to fund design and or manufacturing capabilities and connections to shippers with good rates.
Yea that’s crazy, and honestly I do not have an answer as to why ADA compliant grills are more expensive. I would guess maybe it has something to do possibly with having the ADA compliant process attached to it, I don’t know. I would think having to meet a specific criteria for that license may have something to do with it.
As others have said I would definitely build a stand alone island, table, mobile cart with a nice drop in table top grill insert for that, my guess would be that could be done for about 1/3rd up to half the price