Aging in place in Sahuarita

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 Sahuarita

Sahuarita is an incorporated town, so the permit for a shower conversion or a ramp comes from the Town of Sahuarita's Community Development department rather than from Pima County - but the town does not supply water. Water here comes from one of several providers, and which one applies is decided by the address: Sahuarita Water Company serves Rancho Sahuarita and Rancho Resort, Community Water Company of Green Valley serves other parts of the town, and Quail Creek Water Company, Global Water, Las Quintas Serenas and the Valle Verde Del Norte water cooperative fill in the rest. The town publishes a provider map and a contact list for exactly this question, and the account is arranged with the provider, not with the town. For accessibility work the relevant fact is the housing, and Sahuarita splits in two. Rancho Sahuarita and the newer neighbourhoods are 1990s to 2010s single-storey stucco houses with 30 to 36 inch doors and a garden tub plus a separate shower, where the work is usually the shower. The older townsite streets are compact 1960s to 1980s block houses on small lots with one hall bath behind a 28 to 30 inch door, where the doorway is part of the job.

Municipal reference: Sahuarita Water Company - the Town of Sahuarita does not supply water

Getting an accessibility contractor out to Sahuarita

Sahuarita sits on I-19, which runs south from Tucson with interchanges at Sahuarita Road and Duval Mine Road; Sahuarita Road, Rancho Sahuarita Boulevard, La Canada Drive, Nogales Highway and Pima Mine Road carry the traffic inside the town, and the copper mine west of the highway fixes the west edge of the community. That position makes the town one of the easiest on this list to schedule: a crew working anywhere in Tucson, Green Valley or the south side can usually fold a Sahuarita address into the same run rather than treating it as a separate trip. What slows a job down here is not distance but the lot. The older townsite streets were platted tight, driveways meet the street at a short radius, and there is often no room for a dumpster and a delivery at once; on the newer side the driveways are long and the question becomes how far a walkway or a ramp has to run to meet the grade at the front door. Summer matters more here than in town, because the newer neighbourhoods have little mature shade over the front walks.

What Sahuarita's housing stock means for aging in place

Sahuarita is the clearest example of the mid-century Arizona accessibility problem sitting beside a brand-new one. The older townsite houses are single storey on a slab, compact, with one bathroom in most of them and two in the larger plans, and the main bath is a tub-and-shower combination in a five-by-eight space behind a door of 28 to 30 inches. Floors are tile, hard and slick when wet, and they take a non-slip treatment well once the tub is out. There is almost always a step somewhere - down from the carport or the garage, down to a covered patio, or up to the front door from a raised walk. Because the walls are concrete block, widening a bathroom door is a matter of cutting, framing and re-finishing, and grab-bar blocking has to be added because there is none in the original wall. Rancho Sahuarita and the newer neighbourhoods are different again: 30 to 36 inch doors, a garden tub plus a separate shower, tile throughout, and an entry usually close to grade, so the work narrows to the tub-out shower, the blocking and the floor. Under all of it is the same soil - caliche and expansive clay that swell with the monsoon and settle again in the dry months, which is why a door that has started to stick or a floor that has gone out of level is worth mentioning before anything is priced.

What accessibility work does a Sahuarita home need most?

Which Aging in Place services can we match in Sahuarita, AZ?

How much does aging in place work cost in Sahuarita, AZ?

Sources

Aging in Place tools & calculators

Aging in Place resources