Aging in place in Vail

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 Vail

Vail is unincorporated, so a bathroom conversion, a widened doorway or a ramp is a Pima County Development Services permit. Water comes from Vail Water Company, a private utility that serves the community from wells drawing on the Upper Santa Cruz sub-basin and takes a consecutive connection from Tucson Water; its service boundary runs roughly from Rex Molly Road in the north to Sahuarita Road in the south, and from Houghton Road in the west to Lava Peak Road in the east, so an address inside that box is on Vail Water and an address outside it is on something else - which is the reason to confirm the provider by address rather than by the postcode. The housing is late and fairly consistent by decade. The old Vail townsite along the railroad has small single-storey houses from the middle of the twentieth century; the subdivisions around it, including Rancho del Lago and the newer neighbourhoods east and south of the village, were built from the 1990s onward in stucco, single storey, with 32 to 36 inch doors, a garden tub plus a separate shower and tile throughout. In that newer stock the doorway is usually already wide enough and the work is the shower, the grab-bar blocking and the floor.

Municipal reference: Vail Water Company

Getting an accessibility contractor out to Vail

Vail is reached on I-10 at the Vail and Colossal Cave Road exits, or from Tucson on Houghton Road and Sahuarita Road; Mary Ann Cleveland Way, Rita Road, Old Vail Road and Via Rancho del Lago carry the traffic inside the community. The drive from central Tucson is short and entirely on flat ground, and the internal roads are generous, so once a crew is inside the community the addresses are close together and staging is not usually the problem. The constraints are outside it rather than inside it. I-10 carries heavy commercial traffic and slows or closes for incidents with little notice, which is why a crew working this side of town usually builds a margin into the schedule; and the monsoon is a real factor, because this is the valley the Rincon Mountain runoff crosses, and a wash over a low crossing can shut a road in the middle of an afternoon between July and September.

What Vail's housing stock means for aging in place

Vail's housing is mostly late: single-storey stucco houses and villas built from the 1990s onward, with the older townsite houses near the railroad at the centre of it. That mix matters for accessibility because the two do not measure the same. The newer houses were built with 32 to 36 inch interior doors, tile throughout, a master bath with a garden tub and a separate shower, and an entry that is usually close to grade - so the doorway is often already wide enough and the project narrows to taking the tub out, forming a low-threshold or curbless entry, adding blocking for grab bars and treating the floor for slip resistance. The older townsite houses have narrower bathroom doors, a single tub combination and a shorter floor plan, and there the doorway becomes part of the job again. Construction is block or framed and finished with board in both cases, so grab-bar blocking is planned rather than found. Whether the shower floor can be recessed for a true curbless base depends on the slab and the structure, and on a slab-on-grade house that is a question for the contractor and the engineer.

What accessibility work does a Vail home need most?

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

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

Sources

Aging in Place tools & calculators

Aging in Place resources