Does the quick drain put pressure on standard house drain piping?

No. What shoppers call the quick drain is Ella's Technologie double vidange, two oversized 2 inch gravity drains with no pump anywhere in the system, so nothing is ever pushing water into your house piping and the tub side can never exceed what the house side is able to carry. My House Drain Is 1.5 Inches. Will the 2 Inch Tub Drain Work? covers the reducing fitting itself, and this page explains why a gravity drain cannot pressurize a standard drain line, what actually sets the emptying speed, and how your plumber connects two drains to one house line.

Gravity, Not Pressure: What the Dual Drain Actually Does

There is no drain pump anywhere in an Ella walk-in tub. Every Ella tub drain is 2 inches and gravity driven, and on dual drain models the two 2 inch drains join under the tub into a single house connection. When you open the drains, the water simply falls through the tub's drain bodies and into your house line, and the house line accepts it at whatever rate its own size and condition allow. Nothing on the tub side adds force to that flow, so the tub side can never exceed what the house side is able to carry. A standard drain line that handles an ordinary bathtub handles an Ella tub.

That same fact answers the follow-up question most people have. A dual drain speeds up the tub side, because two 2 inch openings let the water leave the basin faster than one, but it will not fix a slow house line. If your house drain already empties slowly, the tub will drain only as fast as that line permits, however many ports your plumber connects. Confirm the house drain flows well before the installation rather than after.

Where the Pressure in a Walk-In Tub Actually Lives

The pressurized side of a walk-in tub installation is the fill side, not the drain side. The Ella fast-fill faucets ship with two 3/4 inch by 5 foot braided stainless steel supply lines, and the faucet and valve are piped for 3/4 inch all the way through, as Water Supply Lines, Shut-Off Valves, and Pipe Size for a Fast Fill describes. Those lines carry your home's water pressure to the spout, and the published faucet ratings depend on it: the 5-piece Ella Fast-Fill set is rated up to 18 GPM at 60 PSI and the 2-piece set up to 16 GPM at 60 PSI, each under ideal in-home plumbing conditions. Which Bathtub Faucets Offer Quick-Fill Flow Rates for Walk-In Tubs? explains what those figures mean in a real bathroom.

Shoppers sometimes carry that fast-fill idea over to the drain and imagine a matching pump forcing water out. There is none. The fill is pressurized because the house supply is pressurized; the drain is gravity because that is all a drain needs. The two sides are sized and connected separately, and the drain side has no PSI figure at all.

One House Connection, One P Trap

Because the two drains join under the tub, your plumber plans one house connection, not two drain pipes in the slab. The drain body is a T type with four ports. Connect two of the ports on the convenient side and cap the unused ports with the caps that ship with the tub; connecting all four gives the fastest drain, and even one port still works. One P trap serving both tub drains is typical.

Stepping down to a 1.5 inch house drain is ordinary plumbing practice. Fit a 2 inch to 1.5 inch reducing coupling on the tub side of the P trap riser, or run a 2 inch PVC 90 off the drain body and reduce ahead of the P trap. A 2 inch house main is recommended for the fastest emptying, but a standard T or Y fitting into a 1.5 inch house drain works. Prefer a Y over a T, because a Y with fewer elbows drains better since the water changes direction less. If the house drain stub is on the far side or in the center, the leveling legs set the frame with about 3 inches of clearance beneath it, enough for 2 inch PVC, so the plumber can run the drain to either side. Keep the run short, and consider a flexible P trap or a no hub coupling at the joint under the tub so the tub can be removed later without cutting pipe.

Air Vents in the Drain Handles and Why the Flow Is Smooth

The easy turn drain handles on an Ella tub double as air vents on the tub side. Venting the drain this way eliminates air pockets, so the water flows out smoothly rather than in surges. That steady, unpressurized flow is another reason a standard house line is not stressed: it receives a continuous gravity stream rather than slugs of water. The tub does not need a special vent of its own. Your house drain still needs to be trapped and vented to local code, which your plumber handles the same way as for any bathtub.

Drain Position and Height

The door and the drains are on opposite sides of every Ella walk-in tub as you face it: a right side door means left side drains, and a left side door means right side drains. On a slab the tub sits on top of the floor with its drain piping running under the frame, so the spot where the house drain comes up is more flexible than most people expect; Where Does the Drain Sit for a Slab Installation? covers the rough-in. The default install keeps all piping above the floor and needs no cutting. Lowering the tub means putting the drain below the floor and trimming the apron, which affects the warranty on the altered parts.

The drains themselves have adjustable height stems, which the video on this page shows. If a drain sits too high or too low, the stem can be adjusted by loosening or tightening it. It is critically important not to loosen the stem too much, or it can fall off and go down the drain. That adjustment sets how the drain seats, not how hard the water flows, and it adds no pressure to the line.

Watch: Ella's Bubbles: Adjustable Drain Height with chapters and a full transcript.

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