For occupational therapists · Durham Region
You write the recommendation. Someone else installs it, and if they install it wrong, it is your professional judgment that looks wrong. This page exists so you can check my work before you put your name near it.
Call me directly, (647) 800-1302Email a floor plan
Quacy Barry. Twenty years building in Ontario. You get me, not an office.
Before anything else
There is no referral fee, and there never will be.
Nothing of value changes hands. Ever.
No commission, no finder’s fee, no gift, no dinner, no sponsorship of your clinic. I understand that accepting anything of value in exchange for a referral would put your registration with the College of Occupational Therapists of Ontario at risk, and I am not willing to be the reason that happens.
If I ever offer you anything, report me.
What I am asking for is narrower than a referral. I am asking to be one of the two or three names you are comfortable giving a family when they ask who could actually build it, because you have seen the specification and you know the work holds up.
The build standard
What goes in every conversion, whether or not it is specified.
If your recommendation calls for something different, write it and I will build to yours. Where a recommendation is silent, this is the default.
| Item | Standard | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Grab bar blocking | 2x solid blocking, 33 to 36 in AFF, all three wet walls | Installed whether or not bars go in now. Retrofitting is expensive; blocking at framing is not. |
| Grab bars | 1-1/4 in dia., concealed screw, stainless, 500 lb rated | Position set by the client’s reach and stronger side, not by stud location. |
| Mixing valve | Thermostatic, max temp stop at 49°C | Positioned to be operated from outside the enclosure so water runs before entry. |
| Shower controls | Lever handles, reachable seated | |
| Hand shower | Handheld on adjustable rail, 24 to 30 in travel, 69 in hose | The rail is not weight bearing and is never presented to a client as a grab bar. |
| Seating | Wall-mounted fold-down bench, 400 lb rated, into blocking | Fold-down rather than built-in, so the enclosure stays usable by other household members. |
| Low-step entry | Sealed one-piece base, certified slip rating, no grout in the wet zone | Four working days. Keeps the existing drain position. |
| Zero-threshold entry | Tiled floor sloped to linear drain, membrane, flood tested | Seven working days. Drain relocation and floor structure work required. |
| Floor finish | DCOF 0.42 or higher wet; small format inside the enclosure | |
| Toilet | Comfort height, 17 to 19 in to seat | Elongated where clearance allows. |
| Lighting and switching | Rocker switches; occupancy sensor on the main fixture | The sensor matters more than the switch. Night transfers are when falls happen. |
| Ventilation | Humidity-sensing fan, 80 CFM, ducted to exterior | Replaced on every conversion. Removing a tub adds considerable moisture load. |
Monday, walls open
Blocking goes in whether or not a bar is specified there.
Two-by-six, continuous across three stud bays, roughly thirty-four inches from the subfloor.
If a client’s needs change in two years, a bar can go anywhere on that wall without opening tile. That is the difference between a build that ages with them and one that has to be redone.
The honest part
What I will not promise you.
You need to know where the constraints are, because a recommendation that cannot be built puts you in a difficult conversation with a family.
Zero-threshold is not always possible
If the joists run parallel to the plumbing wall there is nowhere to route the drain without cutting one, which means an engineer and a permit. On a slab there is no cavity at all. I check this from the basement in four minutes and will tell you before the family gets attached to the idea.
Blocking cannot be installed through closed walls
On a one-day safety package the tile stays on. Bars go into studs where the ergonomics allow, and into engineered hollow-wall fasteners rated to 800 lb where they do not. That is the accepted alternative to structural blocking, but it is an alternative, and I will say so rather than imply the wall was opened.
A 60 in turning circle rarely fits a 5×8
If your client is a wheelchair user rather than ambulatory, the standard bathroom footprint usually will not deliver the clearances you need. Borrowing space from a closet or hallway is a different project with a different price, and I would rather scope that with you before a family is quoted.
Door width is frequently the real blocker
32 in clear is the practical minimum for a walker. A lot of older bathrooms have a 24 in door, and widening it is a framing change, sometimes structural. It is priced separately from every package. A perfect enclosure behind a narrow door is not accessible and I will not pretend otherwise.
What to tell a family about timing
How long the client is without that bathroom.
This is the number that decides whether a family acts, and it is worth knowing before you write the recommendation. If the home has one bathroom, seven days is usually not survivable and four usually is. That constraint often matters more than the ideal entry height.
Send me the report and I will build to it
If you have already assessed the client, email the recommendation before I attend. I would rather build to your clearances than measure and guess. If something in it cannot be built in that house, you will hear it from me first, not from the family after a quote arrives. hello@bcrbasements.com
Take these with you
Three things worth having in the bag.
No form, no email required.
For you
The six-minute home visit checklist
Six things visible in minutes that decide what a contractor can actually build. Joist direction, bathroom count, cast iron, wall beside the toilet, door width, pre-1990 construction.
For the family
What an accessible bathroom costs
Published fixed prices, the four options, timelines and what is in every build. Written for a family to read at the kitchen table without a contractor present.
For both
Ontario funding summary
What exists, who each program is actually for, and the distinction between grant-eligible and finance-eligible families. Plus the mistake that costs families the most money.
If it is useful to your team
What’s behind the wall.
A forty-minute session for a clinic or a hospital discharge team on what is structurally possible in Ontario housing stock, what makes a recommendation buildable or not, and the five things that decide the price before anyone opens a wall.
It is not a sales presentation and there is nothing to sign. I bring lunch because it is at lunchtime, and that is the only thing of value that changes hands.
For the record
Who you would be sending someone to.
Quacy Barry. Twenty years building in Ontario, over seven hundred completed projects, WSIB insured and fully licensed. Accessible bathroom conversions run as a service line of BCR, which has a 4.7 rating on Google and a seven-year warranty on materials and workmanship.
Every project carries a fixed price agreed in writing before work starts and a completion date with money behind it. If we run past the date in the contract, we pay for the family’s hotel and meals until the bathroom is finished.
Families are told plainly when the honest answer is a one-day safety package rather than a conversion, and when the answer is that the bathroom cannot take what they want. I would rather lose the job than have you hear from a client that I oversold them.
The most useful thing you can do is call me from the house. No charge, no obligation, and no expectation that the family ever hires me. I will tell you what is structurally possible in that bathroom while you are still standing in it.
