Aging in place in Oak Ridge

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 Oak Ridge

Oak Ridge is unusual on this list in a useful way: it is its own city, and the utility department is part of the same city government that issues the building permit. That means the water and sewer account and the permit for a curbless shower or a ramp come from one authority rather than two, and the city's utility business office and Public Works department are where the records live. The housing is what makes Oak Ridge different from every other community here. Much of the town was built in 1943 as prefabricated government housing for the Manhattan Project, in the lettered types residents still call the alphabet houses - cemesto panel houses on concrete slabs and piers, small two- and three-bedroom plans with one bathroom, a tub in a tight layout and a narrow door, some of them arranged in rows that step down a slope. Those houses are still lived in, and they are small, elderly and often original. The neighbourhoods built after the war, and the later streets on the west and north sides, bring 1950s to 1970s ranches and split-levels with wider doors and larger baths. In the original stock the doorway and the bath measured together are the whole project.

Municipal reference: City of Oak Ridge Utility Business Office

Getting an accessibility contractor out to Oak Ridge

Oak Ridge is reached from Knoxville on Oak Ridge Highway, TN-62, from the west side of the county, or on Pellissippi Parkway, TN-162, which leaves the I-40 and I-75 split and runs north-west to end at the city. Inside Oak Ridge, the Oak Ridge Turnpike, TN-95, is the east-west spine, Illinois Avenue, TN-62, crosses it, and Edgemoor Road, TN-58, runs south-east toward the river and Solway; Bethel Valley Road leads to the national laboratory. The city sits on the ridge country between the Clinch River and the valleys to the north, so the streets climb and fall more than the map suggests, and the alphabet-house rows on the east end were laid out on the slope rather than flattened onto it. That means a walk to the door carries a real rise in places, and a ramp has to meet that rise at both ends. Traffic inside the city is light, so a job here is usually easy to schedule, and the drive from Knoxville is short enough that an Oak Ridge address is often paired with a Powell or Karns one on the same day.

What Oak Ridge's housing stock means for aging in place

Oak Ridge's accessibility picture starts with the alphabet houses. Built in 1943 as temporary government housing, they are small single-storey homes of cemesto panels on concrete slabs or piers: two or three bedrooms, one bathroom, a tub and shower combination in a tight plan behind a door that commonly measures around 28 inches, and hardwood or linoleum underfoot. Because they were built fast to a standard plan, they measure the same house after house - which is useful, because it means the answer for one is usually the answer for the next. Many have been renovated over eighty years, so the actual door and tub have to be measured rather than assumed from the type letter. The post-war and 1960s to 1970s houses further west are larger ranches and split-levels with 30 to 32 inch doors, a hall bath and a master bath; in the split-levels the interior half-flight between the entry level and the bedrooms is a barrier in its own right. On the sloping rows the entry steps up or down from the street, and the rise there decides whether a ramp is short or needs a landing.

What accessibility work does a Oak Ridge home need most?

Which Aging in Place services can we match in Oak Ridge, TN?

How much does aging in place work cost in Oak Ridge, TN?

Sources

Aging in Place tools & calculators

Aging in Place resources