Aging in place in Halls

We match across Knoxville and the surrounding East Tennessee 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 Halls

Halls is unincorporated Knox County, so there is no city hall here: the building permit for a bathroom rebuild or a ramp comes from the county's Codes Administration and Enforcement office, and the water and wastewater account comes from the Hallsdale-Powell Utility District, whose service area covers north Knox County and reaches into Union County and parts of Anderson County. The district has run water and wastewater here for seventy years, so a homeowner deals with one district and one county office rather than a city utility. The housing is older and more mixed than the road frontage suggests. Around Halls Crossroads the streets carry 1940s to 1960s single-storey houses, some of them built for the mill and rail work that gave the crossroads its shape, with one bathroom, a tub combination and a narrow door; the newer subdivision streets on either side add 1970s to 1990s ranches with wider doors and larger baths. Out toward the county line the lots are rural and the houses sit further from the road, so a ramp or a walk can be long even when the ground in front of it looks flat.

Municipal reference: Hallsdale-Powell Utility District

Getting an accessibility contractor out to Halls

Halls is reached on Maynardville Pike, US-33, which runs north from Knoxville through the crossroads and on toward Maynardville, and on the Norris Freeway, US-441, which runs north-east from the Halls area toward Norris. Emory Road, TN-131, crosses east to west a short distance south of the crossroads and is the link to Powell and to the I-75 interchange; Andersonville Pike and Salem Church Road serve the newer subdivisions, and I-75 crosses the western edge of the community so a crew can come in from the interstate rather than only from the city. The setting is the ridge-and-valley country that surrounds Knoxville on the north: the streets climb and fall, creek bottoms cut through the subdivision streets, and a lot can be flat at the road and sloped at the house. Out toward the county line the lots are large and partly wooded, which makes the approach to the door the thing that decides a ramp's length. Traffic through Halls is mostly local, so scheduling here is easier than in town, but the older streets at the crossroads are narrow and the driveways short.

What Halls's housing stock means for aging in place

Halls is the kind of community where the age of the house does most of the talking. The 1940s to 1960s single-storey houses near the crossroads are compact: one bathroom in most, a tub-and-shower combination in a five-by-eight layout, a bathroom door of 28 to 30 inches, and a low carport or porch step at the entry. Some are pier-and-beam with a floor well above the ground and a real run of steps at the front; some have been updated over the years, so a house that looks old from the street may already have a newer bath behind it, which is why the measurement matters more than the year. The 1970s to 1990s ranches and the newer subdivision houses run larger, with 30 to 32 inch doors, a hall bath and a master bath, and a garage at grade; there the work usually narrows to the tub-out shower conversion, the grab-bar blocking and the floor. On the rural lots out toward the county line the floor height above grade is the first fact to establish, because it decides whether the door gets a ramp, a landing or a raised walk.

What accessibility work does a Halls home need most?

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Sources

Aging in Place tools & calculators

Aging in Place resources