What Is a Shower Stall, and How Is It Different From a Tub Shower?

In the Ella line, a shower stall is a stand-alone showering enclosure. It is a molded unit with its own floor, walls and drain, and you step in and shower with no bathtub involved. A tub shower is a bathtub that also has a shower fitting, which for Ella means a walk-in tub equipped with a hand shower or the add-on shower column kit. What ships with a stall is listed in What Comes in the Box With an Ella Shower Kit, and What You Still Need to Buy. This page explains how the two ways of showering differ so you can plan the right one for your bathroom.

What an Ella Shower Stall Is

An Ella shower kit ships with the shower stall itself, the grab bar set listed for that kit, and the drain. The stall comes in two builds. A one-piece stall arrives as a single molded piece that cannot be broken down. A three-piece stall ships as separate sections that your installer puts together in the bathroom. Either way, the stall is the whole showering space. The floor you stand on, the walls around you and the drain all arrive in the same order, and your plumber connects that drain to the house waste line.

Ella showers are built as accessible residential showers with a low step-in, and some configurations include a seat. The grab bars ship loose rather than factory installed, so your installer mounts them as part of the job. On a one-piece order, the seat side, the drain side and the number of grab bars are all confirmed before the order is released to production. That way the unit you receive matches your bathroom. It is worth having those three answers ready early, because a one-piece unit cannot be broken down or rearranged once it arrives.

Shower Stall and Tub Shower Side by Side

The difference that matters most day to day is what you are standing or sitting in. A stall is a dedicated shower with a low step-in, so getting in is a short step rather than a step over a tub wall. A tub shower keeps the bath. You enter the walk-in tub through its door and shower inside the tub, with the water leaving through the tub drain. The difference that matters most on delivery day is size. A one-piece stall needs 33 inches of clear opening all the way to the bathroom. The three-piece stall was designed for homes where that is not available.

What a Tub Shower Looks Like on an Ella Walk-In Tub

Walk-in tubs are often ordered with an Ella faucet package that includes a hand shower, so a basic tub shower is already part of many tub orders. The shower column kit takes that a step further. The installation video shows the kit being added to the walk-in tub deck in four steps.

1. The existing hand shower is removed.
2. The shower column base attachment is installed into the vacant receptacle.
3. The water supply line is replaced.
4. The new one-half inch supply line is attached to the diverter on the two or five piece fast fill faucet set.

The second video shows the Ella waterfall fast fill faucet with the extendable multi-function hand shower. That hand shower has four settings and rests on a shower column. It adjusts up and down and side to side, and the attachment is reversible so the hand shower can sit wherever suits you. The video also shows the finishes, which are chrome, brushed nickel and matte black. A shower stall is the opposite on this point. No shower head or hand shower is included with the shower kit, so nothing in the box detaches for hand-held use. You choose the fittings yourself.

What the Stall Includes and What Your Plumber Supplies

The stall order covers the enclosure, the grab bars and the drain. The water side is chosen on site. No mixing valve, valve trim or supply plumbing is included, and the wall arrives solid, with no opening for a valve or shower head and no preset height or offset. The right location depends on the valve you choose, the rough-in behind the wall and the needs of the person using the shower. Your plumber marks and cuts the openings during installation. Before installation day, it helps to have the following settled.

• Choose the shower valve and trim with your plumber and have them on site before the stall is set.
• Buy the shower head, and the hand shower and slide bar if you want one, so the openings can be planned together.
• Confirm that the drain position on the stall matches the rough-in in your floor.
• Agree with your installer that the grab bars will be mounted as part of the job, and check the grab bar count against your order when you unpack.

Delivery Path, Accessibility Status and Care

Because a one-piece stall cannot be broken down, one tight doorway, hallway or stairway is enough to stop it. It does not fit through an average finished doorway or hallway, which is why it is intended mostly for new construction. Measure the narrowest point of every opening between the delivery point and the bathroom, following How Do I Measure Doorways and Hallways for a One-Piece Ella Shower?. The full rule is in Will a One-Piece Ella Shower Fit Through My Doorways?. If any opening is narrower than 33 inches, compare the three-piece stall.

On accessibility, the low step-in, the grab bars and the seat on some configurations make an Ella stall easier and safer to use at home, but the stall as a complete unit is not ADA compliant. For a private residence, ADA certification is generally not a building code requirement. For a commercial building, or any project that will be inspected against the standard, confirm the requirement with your local code official before you order. Are Ella Shower Stalls ADA Compliant? explains what that answer means for each kind of project.

Care is simple. The walls of the stall clean well with Soft Scrub on a cloth, and the floor calls for Soft Scrub worked in with a brush, because a cloth alone does not lift the buildup that settles there. For hard water staining, the team recommends Goo Gone or rubbing alcohol. Avoid any cleaner that contains ammonia, bleach or Clorox, because those products make the gloss dull. If the floor still looks wrong after a proper cleaning, open a ticket at ellasbubbles.com/support. Include photos of the entire floor, your model and serial number, and a list of the cleaners that have been used on the stall.

Watch: The Luxurious Walk-In Tub Upgrade You Need - Waterfall Faucet |Ella's Bubbles with chapters and a full transcript.

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