Question: My wife recently took a serious fall at our home, she was hospitalized for a while at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital and, thankfully, is now back at home, but she needs to use a walker to get around.

The front porch of our house has only three steps and it is very difficult for her to get up the steps, even with me helping her.

Please tell us what kind of ramp we can build that is not awfully expensive and that will allow her to go to the front door with her walker.

Your Handyman: Since the 1990 enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) it is now commonplace to see sometimes very long, twisting ramps at public places like courthouses, schools and office buildings.

A safely designed ramp can be a life changer for a person like your wife who suddenly needs the assistance of a walker to move around her home after a lifetime of mobility and independence.

There are many important details that need to be considered in the design of a ramp so that it is safe, and possibly the most important detail is the slope.

A ramp that is even slightly too steep can prove to be a hazard for your wife to use with her walker and could cause her to tumble forward or to fall backward.

The correct maximum slope for an ADA-compliant ramp for your porch is 1:12, which means that for each vertical inch in elevation that the ramp goes up overall, it must extend 12 horizontal inches in distance.

This maximum slope limit is why ramps that we see in public places seem to be much longer than one would expect.

So, in the case of your front porch, which has three steps, each step is probably about 8 inches high, which when added together give a total height of 24 inches to reach the porch from the walkway.

Using the 1:12 formula, the length of your ramp will need to be 24 feet long, assuming that the front yard is level.

If the front yard slopes down away from the porch, the ramp will need to be even longer; if the yard slopes up, then the ramp can be a shorter length.

Building a 24-foot-long ramp that can safely support groups of people who may walk over it to enter your home, has a nonslip surface and safe handrails, and a minimum open width of 36 inches, may become a much bigger project than many homeowners are ready to take on, especially if the ramp is intended to be temporary.

However, building a steeper ramp to make the project more affordable might have terrible consequences if your wife were to lose her footing and take another fall.

Possibly there is a side or back entrance to your home that has fewer steps that would prove to be a better location for an affordable ramp, but it still would need to be constructed in a safe design.

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Question: We just had a new redwood fence built in our back yard to replace an older fence that was falling apart.

Do the redwood fence boards need to be painted or stained to protect them from the weather?

We are hoping that this fence will outlive us, and we want to know the best way to protect it.

Your Handyman: Redwood fencing is by far the most common type of residential fencing in Southern California due to its appearance, durability and affordability relative to other types of fencing.

You can drive down almost any street in Santa Barbara and see numerous homes with fencing made from redwood boards, often with the top corners lopped off in what is commonly called “dog eared.”

The main reason wood fences fail is that they are built with wood posts that can be quickly compromised by termites or dry rot.

Hopefully, your new fence is supported by steel posts that can safely be expected to outlive the fence owner.

Redwood fence boards and redwood in general contain a natural substance called tannin that gives the redwood the ability to resist weathering and insects. If the wood is left natural, it will soon take on an attractive grayish brown color.

Most redwood fences are left natural, but some are stained often with a red tinted penetrating stain or less commonly painted with a solid color paint.

Staining or painting probably does add some minor durability to the wood but I suspect it really is more an aesthetic decision about how the fence looks.

However, if you do decide to paint or stain the fence, it will need repainting or staining within the next 10 years of so, which becomes another maintenance chore.

So, if you think the appearance of the fence will be enhanced by staining, then you should do it.