How Big Is an HDB Lift, and Will Your Sofa Fit?

If you search for HDB lift dimensions you will find furniture shops quoting one neat number: 0.8m door, 1.1m by 1.4m cabin, 124cm wide. They don't agree with each other, and none of them cites HDB. That's because HDB does not publish a single lift size. Lifts differ by block, by age and by whether they were added later under the Lift Upgrading Programme.

What size is an HDB lift?

Here is what is actually on record:

• The minimum. Building Control Regulations require at least one lift in a building to fit a wheelchair, with an internal car size of at least 1.2m by 1.4m. Most HDB lifts meet this, according to the Ministry of National Development.
• Older blocks can be smaller. In 2015, MND said about 15% of lifts in HDB blocks could take a wheelchair but not an ambulance stretcher tilted upright. Some lifts added to low-rise blocks under the Lift Upgrading Programme are smaller again, because they had to fit the space available.
• No HDB lift has to fit a stretcher lying flat. That tells you a lot about furniture: anything longer than the floor of the lift has to go in standing up or tilted.

Lift door width and cabin height are not published anywhere official that we could find. Measure them.

How to measure your lift in five minutes

You need a measuring tape and your phone. Take four numbers:

Then put them in here. It works out, for each of our 3-seater sofas, whether it goes in tilted upright or lying flat, allowing for how thick the sofa is.

For a rough check by hand, the longest thing that fits standing up and tilted is the diagonal of depth and height, √(depth² + height²). A lift 1.4m deep and 2.2m high gives about 2.6m, but that is for something very thin. A sofa 70 to 100cm thick uses far less of it, which is why the checker above allows for thickness. A lift at the 1.2m by 1.4m minimum has a floor diagonal of about 1.84m, so a 2m dining table top or a 3-seater sofa will not lie flat in it.

Will your sofa, table or bed fit?

The length of an item matters less than its two smaller measurements. A sofa goes into a lift and through doors on its end or on its back, so its thinnest side has to clear the door width. That makes height as important as length when you choose.

Easiest through a narrow door Comfy Sofa

A low, legless sofa only 38cm high, so on its back it is thinner than almost any lift door or gate. 3-seater 205cm, 2-seater 135cm, in velvet/fabric or leather fabric.

3-seater from S$859 View the Comfy

Our furniture is delivered unassembled, and we assemble most items for free in your home, so a table arrives as a top and a separate base. The top is what decides whether it fits.

The lift is often not the problem

Furniture that gets through the lift can still get stuck on the way in. Check the rest of the route:

• The corridor turn from the lift lobby to your unit, especially in older blocks with narrow common corridors.
• Your main gate and door, with the gate fully open. Measure the clear width, not the door leaf.
• Inside the flat: the turn into the living room, and the bedroom door if the item is going there.
• Maisonettes: the internal staircase is a second chokepoint after the lift.
• Lift stopping floors: in some older blocks the lift does not stop at every floor, so the last stretch is stairs anyway.

What if it doesn't fit?

• Stairs. Items that can't go in the lift can be carried up the stairs, at an extra charge and subject to scheduling. Tell us your floor when you order so we can plan for it.
• A smaller size. Most of our sofas come in 3-seater, 2-seater and 1-seater lengths, and our dining tables in steps of 10 to 20cm. Going down one size is often enough.
• A lower sofa. If the door is the problem rather than the cabin, a sofa with a lower height (like the Comfy or Barre) gets through where a taller one won't.
• Check before you order, not after. Customised pieces can't be cancelled once confirmed.

Shortest · 183cmBallota PrestigeS$1,499 · 72cm highView sofa →

203cmJunior3-seater S$839 · 85cm highView sofa →

Longest · 242cmBarre3-seater S$1,259 · 67cm highView sofa →