Home Elevator Cost in Montana

Nothing moves the price more than the kind of lift you go with. The table shows typical installed costs, drawn from the midpoint of published price ranges.

The shaft is the enclosed column the elevator car rides in. Shaftless and through-floor lifts work differently: they travel through a hole cut in the floor. Because every style demands its own kind of house work, the price tags spread wide.

Most figures assume a lift that connects two floors. Each extra story beyond that pair runs $9,000 to $15,000. If there is no shaft in your house today, putting one into an existing home adds $5,000 to $25,000.

Labor runs cheaper in Montana than in the country as a whole. The median pay for an elevator installer in Montana is $43.45 an hour, while the US figure is $52.84 an hour. Carpenters, who do the framing for the shaft or the floor opening, make a median $28.28 an hour in Montana.

Two houses with the very same lift can end up with quotes far apart, so the only number worth planning on is a written price taken from a real measurement. Call now and a local dealer will visit, measure, and price it out.

Montana levies no general sales tax. Buy a lift and have it installed in the state, and no state sales tax applies. On any lift, that tax money stays with you.

No. Montana runs its elevator program through the Department of Labor and Industry. But the elevator law leaves out private homes along with farm and ranch operations, so your home lift sits outside it.

A local permit could still apply. Under the state building code, houses with fewer than five dwelling units are not covered unless a city or county chooses to adopt it. So whether a building permit is required comes down to where you live. Where local building officials do enforce the code, what they inspect is the structure around the shaft. No residential permit fee is listed anywhere we looked.

Montana's elevator code is built on the ASME national standards covering elevators and platform lifts in the buildings the state regulates. Installers working on homes generally follow the residential sections of those same standards anyway. Those standards are the countrywide guide for how home elevators and platform lifts get built and installed.

Montana issues licenses for elevator contractors, elevator mechanics, and elevator inspectors. There is also a limited mechanic's license limited to platform lifts, stairway chairlifts, and dumbwaiters inside private homes. People who hold it are tested on the codes that govern that equipment. One call puts you in touch with a nearby dealer who will size up your home and put a written price in your hands.

Two state programs can ease the cost:

• Montana Assistive Technology Loan: borrowing at low rates for people with disabilities or their caregivers, home modifications included. Loans of $1,500 or less come with 0% interest, and anything above that carries a fixed 3.5% rate. A loan review committee looks at each application.
• Big Sky Medicaid Waiver: covers home adaptations that are medically necessary, paid for as a one-time purchase. Any adaptation above $5,000 needs prior approval from the Regional Program Officer plus at least two bids. No dollar limit appears in the manual.

A solid plan begins with a real price for your own home. Call now to reach a nearby home elevator dealer, who will come out, take measurements and hand you a quote in writing. That same quote can count toward the pair of bids the Big Sky Waiver requires.