Aging in place in Flowing Wells

We match across Tucson and the surrounding Pima County communities, so the contractor you are introduced to is one whose crews actually work your part of the county.

Permits, utilities and local rules for Aging in Place work in Flowing Wells

Flowing Wells is unincorporated, so the permit for a bathroom conversion or a ramp is a Pima County Development Services file - but the water here comes from one of the oldest local providers in the metro. Flowing Wells Irrigation District has served the area since 1922, and its service area is roughly bounded by I-10 to the southwest, Miracle Mile to the south, Fairview Avenue to the east and the Rillito River to the north; it draws from the Tucson Basin aquifer and serves a mix of platted house lots, manufactured-housing parks, apartment and townhouse complexes and schools. That mix is what makes the work here specific. The single-family stock is small: post-war houses from the 1940s through the 1960s, single storey, block or frame on a slab, with one bathroom in most of them, a tub-and-shower combination in a footprint barely five feet wide and a bathroom door of about 28 inches. In the manufactured-housing parks the floor sits above grade on a chassis, so the entry step is higher and any ramp has to run longer. In both cases the door width and the entry height are the two numbers that decide the job.

Municipal reference: Flowing Wells Irrigation District

Getting an accessibility contractor out to Flowing Wells

Flowing Wells is minutes from downtown Tucson and sits against the I-10 corridor, which forms its southwest boundary; Miracle Mile, Flowing Wells Road, Prince Road, Wetmore Road and Fairview Avenue carry the traffic inside it, and Oracle Road (AZ-77) runs down the eastern side. That position is the scheduling advantage: a crew working anywhere in central Tucson can fold a Flowing Wells address into the same day, and the drive is a matter of minutes rather than a trip. What the area does not have is room. The streets are old, the lots are small, and a delivery, a dumpster and a work truck at the same address is sometimes one vehicle too many, which is worth mentioning when a contractor asks about staging. The other local constraint is the heat: this is low, unshaded ground close to the interstate, and from May through September a concrete walk or an exterior step in full sun is a genuine hazard to anyone using a walker, which is the season when shade or siting decides how a ramp is built.

What Flowing Wells's housing stock means for aging in place

Flowing Wells is small, older stock, and that makes it predictable to price once the house has been seen. Most of the single-family houses are single storey on a slab, modest in floor area, with one bathroom - and in the original plans that bathroom is a tub and shower combination in a five-by-eight layout behind a door that measures around 28 inches. Floors are tile, hard and slick when wet, and workable for a non-slip treatment. There is a step at the front door above grade, a step down to a covered patio or carport, and in the manufactured-housing parks a floor raised on a chassis above grade with a taller entry step again. Because the plans are compact, widening the bathroom door usually means reworking the wall into the adjacent space rather than trimming it, and the decision is made on the actual measurement rather than from the year the house was built. The walls are block or frame in the houses and panel in the manufactured homes, so where a grab bar can be fixed has to be confirmed rather than assumed, and the ground under all of it is the same caliche and expansive clay as the rest of the valley.

What accessibility work does a Flowing Wells home need most?

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Sources

Aging in Place tools & calculators

Aging in Place resources