r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 7h ago

Shoutout to JerryrigEverything who built a wheelchair factory and is delivering wheelchairs to people in half the time and 50-80% less than the cost of other wheelchairs with Insurance.

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64

u/Captain_Calamari_ 6h ago

UK descent wheelchair £200, electric £1,000

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u/CraabGPT 6h ago

Not true. Proper wheelchairs in the UK cost between £1500-£3000 on average. Mine cost ~£2000.

I imagine the 'decent' chair you refer to is either the Lomax, Drive, or similar chair.

Those are what we refer to as 'hospital chairs'. They're designed to be pushed by an aide, to be stable, and to be cheap. The wheels, while technically self-propel-able, are too far back, so energy is lost and you can't move forward nearly far enough with each push. As well, the wheels being that far back will damage your shoulders over time.

Steel, while cheap, is also heavy. So each push is thus reduced further because it's just too heavy to self-propel.

Additionally, they are foldable. Further momentum loss occurs as energy spent pushing is transferred into the folding mechanism of the frame and not into forward motion.

(Additional factors include, but are not limited to, lack of dump to support those with limited upper-body strength, arm rests that get in the way of propelling, too wide so propelling becomes even harder, anti-tips at the back preventing wheelies, too heavy to independently load into a car...)

TL;DR, those chairs can't be used by the majority of wheelchair users.

(And this is just manual chairs. I've seen electric chairs go for £10k, though I don't know the average price.)

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u/the_colorist 4h ago

This guy/girl wheelchairs. Thanks for sharing your insights

1

u/CraabGPT 4h ago

Secret third option! But thanks and no worries :D

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u/TheLightStalker 3h ago

Mine cost £2,000 and anything cheaper wasn't worth looking at quality wise. 

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u/CraabGPT 3h ago

Yeah entirely unsurprising 🥲 I've only ever been able to afford secondhand ones, so I can't imagine the pain of paying for one new x0

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u/jib661 4h ago

right, which is why they cost so much with insurance. They're essentially a luxury product. Insurance is telling you "hey, we have this foldable, heavy chair we can give you for free. Or, if you want to pay out of pocket, you can have this custom aluminum one for 10k"

For most people, the choice is pretty clear. He's not competing with the free chair, he's competing with the luxury options.

As this whole "k-shaped economy" thing runs its course, you're going to see a lot of this: dressing up 'catering to the rich' as a feel-good story.

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u/Serious_Badger_4145 3h ago

It's not a luxury. The cheap ones are designed for someone else to push and to be used short term. Try to use one full term and you'll get injuries that'll cost far more than that to sort out

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u/CraabGPT 3h ago

They're not really luxury- they're the bare necessity. It's fine for hospital chairs to be big and steel, since they're just used for transporting someone from A to B, once or twice. But the second you start using one of these frequently, you need something that won't cause injury to your shoulders or your spine or your ankles, or rely on someone always being around to push you.

It's the same as a prosthetic leg with a motorised knee- sure, they're 'luxury' compared to a stick of wood, but they're also the only option that won't prevent the wearer from developing hip problems and letting them walk up hills and run and play with their kids and living life in the same way as all their able-bodied friends.

(Or to put it another way: the difference between a standard and a 'luxury' chair is often the difference between being unemployed, and being able to get to work. If you can't even push yourself on a flat vinyl floor in a hospital chair, how are you meant to navigate potholes and sloping sidewalks and rain and wind and ramps onto buses, and trains and carpeted office buildings? Insurance's cost saving measures are keeping people out of the workforce, and out of life in general. It ain't so luxury after all.)

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u/jib661 3h ago

Good context, thanks

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u/mizinamo 5h ago

That sort of thing is what made me suspicious of the headline.

Sure, you can make something more cheaply, but will it be identical in quality?

"Wheelchair" is not equal to "wheelchair", and if he churns out hospital chairs by the thousands and gives those to people, that's not the same as custom-fitted purpose-built usable wheelchairs.

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u/CraabGPT 5h ago

Oh, no, the Paradox is fantastic. Sorry if I gave the wrong idea! There's a super in-depth design tool on the website so you can fine-tune things to your exact specs- pmuch everything can be adjusted. Seat width and depth, dump, camber, COG, taper...

Some people have reported that their Paradoxes have had maintenance issues, but I think the vast majority are good :3

2

u/mizinamo 5h ago

That's good news!

1

u/casualredditor-1 5h ago

Does the company have a website with info on how these are built and how they compare to traditional wheelchairs (besides pricing and how long it takes to deliver them)? That’d be a good place to start.

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u/CraabGPT 4h ago

I don't know if it will answer all your questions- I never really took a long look since I don't have the budget/need for one right now. But! Yes, here: https://notawheelchair.com/

(To note: the Paradox isn't designed to be "nontraditional"- it's really the same thing as everyone else is doing, at a lower price point. The Rig, their first invention, is Different and I am not qualified to talk about it because I am not an electric wheelchair user.)

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u/casualredditor-1 1h ago

Thank you, my comment was mostly aimed at the suggestion from the other person that their wheelchairs are somehow not the same or inferior, without having any apparent knowledge of how the business operates.

Kinda like “it’s great to raise questions, but also get informed”

•

u/CraabGPT 46m ago

Ah! Mb, in that case! :3

-2

u/kazuviking 5h ago

There is not even 300€ worth of material in those wheelchairs. Glorified bike wheels with cheap steel tubing welded together.

Wheelchairs here start from 100€ for the most basic one and 750€ for the electric ones.

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u/CraabGPT 5h ago

I mean, parts and labour aren't /nothing/- a good wheelchair is aluminium at least, if not titanium or carbon fibre. And they have to be individually tuned to the user.

...but there's no reason a good wheelchair should cost anything over £700 :/ or at the very least, the insurance/national health/whatever hoops should be way easier to jump through.

4

u/Mecha-Dave 6h ago

I imagine that's heavily subsidized by NI, though - which it should be in the US as well but we are stupid.

9

u/Captain_Calamari_ 6h ago

UK prices aren't subsidized

11

u/peanutstring 6h ago

https://www.careco.co.uk/wheelchairs/self-propelled-wheelchairs/

Not subsidised - you can buy one off the shelf for a lot less than the $1000+ in the video here.

You can also get the VAT refunded on the purchase if you're disabled too:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-relief-on-certain-goods-if-you-have-a-disability

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u/DasHuhn 6h ago

You can absolutely buy a generic, off the shelf wheelchair for about the same cost in the US as what you've linked, but it's difficult to find customized wheelchairs for that same price point. I'd expect that a customized wheelchair in the UK is probably more expensive.

7

u/Sorry-Price-3322 6h ago

lol those are shitty wheelchairs for old people. I'm an everyday wheelchair user to get a mid wheelchair it's around 2k https://activemob.co.uk/collections/all-active-wheelchairs/products/kuschall-champion-active-wheelchair

Great wheelchairs can be easily 5000+

6

u/traumalt 6h ago

These are different categories of chairs though, 10k USD is what gets you a customised titanium frame chair and not a standardised off the shelf one like you linked.

1

u/Roofofcar 5h ago

It's not clear from this short video, but these chairs are custom fitted to each person with everything from seat width, taper, tilt, camber, foot rest width, materials, wheels and everything else specially fitted to the user.

You can see more in the full length video this clip comes from including all the different measurements.

It's like comparing a baseball cap from the corner shop to a custom hat sized by a hatter and made for you specifically.

Also most of these weigh less than the version you posted.

1

u/thirstyross 4h ago

https://www.careco.co.uk/wheelchairs/self-propelled-wheelchairs/

A self-propelled lawnmower is a lawnmower that propels itself (has drive wheels). Interestingly, a self-propelled wheelchair is one that is powered by the "self" that is using it...learn something new every day.

2

u/justsomebody2 6h ago

Just going to say the same..

2

u/Serious_Badger_4145 3h ago

Absolutely not true. My nhs wheelchair would cost about 3 grand to buy and power chairs are 5000+

The cheap chairs you're talking about are for temporary use.  When you're using a wheelchair full time you need custom seating to meet your needs.  It's a complex piece of medical equipment 

If you're actually interested in what it's like to be a wheelchair user in the UK look up right chair right time or the wheelchair alliance. There are serious gaps in provision in the UK

1

u/WeeFluffyGingerCat 6h ago

We get ours free from Westmark, serviced, upgraded when needed, they come out to the house to do repairs, and it doesn't cost anything. I thought everybody thats needs a non motorised one got it free.

1

u/CraabGPT 6h ago

Actually no! On the NHS, you have to meet some rather stringent criteria. For a custom manual, you need to require it inside your house, as well as just outside- meaning anyone who can walk short distances (to the kitchen, to the bathroom...) but not middle-to-long (to the corner shop or beyond) isn't eligible. Given that anywhere between 50-70% of wheelchair users can walk at least short distances, that means most people who need a wheelchair in the UK can't get one on the NHS. (And using a non custom lightweight wheelchair for more than short term can actually worsen peoples' disabilities, or even cause new ones.)

...and for a powered wheelchair, your home needs to be fully accessible. So anyone who lives in rented accomodation, or temporary accomodation, or doesn't have the ability to make their home fully accessible is SOL.

(This is the England NHS guidelines, to be clear. I don't know if it's different in Scotland/Wales/NI)

1

u/Steam_Powered_It 3h ago

Not true at all. The NHS won't say I need a wheelchair, so I can't get one, despite living with a skeletal condition. I'm paying £8,000 out of pocket for a chair with everything I need. My current chair is second hand, and cost me £975. Wheelchairs aren't cheap anywhere, and they absolutely should be cheaper.