The cost of bathing while disabled

Weirdly, I couldn’t find a picture of the model we chose but this one is sort of similar

How much does it cost to swap one bathtub for another? Guess. Imagine that all the plumbing will stay in the same place, you have a perfectly-working, almost-new hot water tank, and all parts are standard-size. Not much—or so you’d think. Obviously, here in Seattle, parts and (especially) labour and sales tax, cost more than almost anywhere else in the US except parts of New York, but still, you’re doing a straight swap of one tub for another, using the same pipes, the same drains, the same walls in the same places, the same floor—so how bad could it be?

Very bad, it turns out. $41,000+ worth of bad. Why? Because I’m a crip, and that means every single goddamn thing I need costs three (or five or ten) times as much as it might for a nondisabled person.

Let me explain. I’m reaching the point where I can no longer reliably get in and out of a standard bathtub, so I’m transitioning to a walk-in tub—the sort that has a door that opens in the side so you don’t have to climb over it but can step through. And that’s where the problem starts. If you can’t step over the side of a tub, manufacturers assume (correctly) that standing up from a lying position in an ordinary soaking tub is also difficult. So walk-in tubs are, by default, also tubs you sit in: no stretching out and sliding down to your chin and blissfully floating on your back in a pool of warmth. No. You sit with a straight back. To stay warm, the water has to come up to your armpits. Which means the tub has to be very deep. Which requires double the amount of hot water using by an ordinary tub.

So now as well as a new tub (and more on that in a bit) you need a high-capacity hot water tank. These aren’t cheap—which is especially galling when just four years ago you bought a brand new one with a spiffy recirculating system and it’s in perfectly good order, just too small. But, well, okay, if it has to be done, it has to be done And it’s just a few thousand. Except, well, no. You see, as you’re a crip you’ve previously had to use half what was the garage space for a wheelchair lift (which of course also cost a shit ton of money, but we won’t go there today) which meant the only place to put the hot water tank was—and is—the attic. And a big tank won’t fit up there. So now you have to tear out not just the tank but that whole system and put in a tankless (or multipoint) gas water heater.

Well, okay. How bad could that be? For most people, not bad—and on the bright side there are energy-saving rebates, plus you don’t have to worry about rusting tanks failing in the middle of the night. So hey not so bad. But for me, for the tub I need? Very bad—very expensive.

Imagine running a bath; it takes maybe six or seven minutes, but then you take off your clothes and climb into a tub full of lovely hot water, sink down up to your chin, and think, Aaaaah… Now imagine stepping naked into a cold, empty tub and sitting there shivering while it slowly fills—taking twice as long as an ordinary tub. No fun. So what you need is something that will fill at 16-18 gallons a minute. But to heat that amount of water instantly as it runs through the pipes you need a gas output of 199,000 BTUs. And for that amount of gas—at least five times the rate an ordinary water tank needs—you need to run a secondary gas line from the meter. And of course pull a permit and then pay for an inspection.

Back to the tub itself. As well as the speed-of-filling problem, there’s the speed of emptying. Think about how long it takes for an ordinary bath to drain. Several minutes. Now double that. And remember you’re sitting there wet and naked for the whole time because you can’t open the door until every drop of water is gone. So you need the water out of that tub faster than gravity can do it. And for that you need electric vacuum pumps. And you also need some kind of build-in heating of the tub walls so you don’t just freeze in place. So then you need an electrician. And then the electrician takes one look at your existing panel and shakes his head because apparently 120 amps won’t do it. What you need, it turns out, is 200 amps Which means you need to replace the whole panel. Plus of course pull another permit and pay for another inspection.

The tub draws so much juice because it does a lot of things. As well as those vacuum pumps it has an ozone self-cleaning and air-drying system; it has air jets and water jets that are selectable and directable; it has nifty underwater ‘chromotherapy’ lights that can cycle in different colours and patterns (though sadly I can’t sync them to a playlist—no such thing as Apple TubPlay); an aromatherapy option that infuses the air jets with essential oils (if, y’know, you’re not allergic to everything, as I am); an inline tub-wall heating system so you can sit in that tub for six hours if you want and the water never goes cold; plus an unconditional lifetime guarantee on every bit of it. Also, given that MS is a relentlessly degenerative disease, I decided to future-proof this considerable investment by opting for the model that allows for a build-in Hoyer lift as/when transfer from a wheelchair gets too hard.

All this, of course, means the tub is big. So big we had to dismantle the bathroom door frame to get it in—and rebuild it afterwards. It all adds up. Specifically, the whole thing, parts and labour and permits, adds up to a smidge north of $41,000.

So, what’s the cost of bathing in Seattle when disabled? $41,000. $41,000. FOR A BATH. You can get a brand new Honda Odyssey minivan for that! Except, oh, right, I can’t, because I’m a crip: I have to spend $91,300 on a used, two year-old Odyssey instead. But I’ve talked about that before…