Well, it looks like you are south of Bonner County, so I'm guessing that you still have building code and enforcement (UI grad and former resident of Moscow and Deary). I think I picked apples in Athol once, but it may have been somewhere else nearby.

Wheelchair ramps can be tricky because there are a lot of rules which tend to be very ridgidly enforced and highly litigated as well. The most effective way to keep your costs down and aesthetics up, is to design a ramp of 5% or less (rise 1' per 20' horizontal). That will keep you from having to install hand rails which can be very costly andvery difficult to build as a DIY project because of their complexity.

Making a 5% ramp (well, technically it is not a ramp until it exceeds 5%) sounds easy, but it causes some potential problems. The first is that it is quite long if you have to go up two or three feet (as it looks like on your web site). You will have to grade the soil right up to the height of the walk on both sides if there is no railing. That can cause some drainage issues as the walk gets close to the building. Another problem is that it can get fill too close to the wood on the buildings which is a building code violation.

I assume that the ramp is to the main building shown on the web site. Is the building on a concrete or masonry foundation that can be filled against? Does the porch have a foundation wall along the front of it? If they do not, you will probably do best to have a typical 1:12 ramp with the railings built right onto the porch because it will be the most compact way to do it. The 5% masonry walk will do more aesthetic harm because of the grading issues.

You hinted at a tight budget, but I'll put this out there for what it is worth. The best situation would be if the bottom of your porch were made out of masonry (concrete or stone). Then you could raise the grade in front of it up to a foot below the porch at the middle of the porch. Then you could slope the soil down along the face of the masonry for positive drainage and so that it is 8" below the wood when it reaches the end of the porch. 10'out in front you could rais it up another 6" and build your patio and connect it with a 5% walk skirted with a planting bed and retained on each side. Then you would need to connect the patio to the parking with a walk of not more than 5%.

It would look similar to this ADA access which is exactly what i described:
{{gwi:27216}}

It is not a weird lens. It is, in fact, mounded in front of the building to avoid a big ramp with rails on this historic house.

Ah, an interesting idea and one that we hadn't really thought of. Yes, we have all the code requirements. Using railings might not be too spendy, if necessary, because of having a woods full of saplings to make them out of. But I'm delighted to think about a fill in idea! Thank you so much! Daryl

You really need to look at the code rquirements for those hand rails. It is not the raw materials that make them difficult. It is how they are hung, how wide the rail must be, the upper set and the lower set, ... it gets very precise and there are lots of people who make a living out of looking for noncompliance and descrimination lawsuits from that.

Here is a link. It is a Massachusetts link, but ADA standards are generally similar throughout the country as I understand it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ramps

Thanks so much. The link is great and you have helped us think. Just what I was hoping for. Blessings, Daryl