Do Ella walk-in tubs recline or let you stretch your legs out?

Most Ella walk-in tubs are seated soaking tubs, so you sit at chair height on a molded seat with your feet in the footwell, and the backrest leans back only slightly rather than reclining like a lounge chair. If you want to stretch out at full length, the two LayDown models have no seat at all, and if you would rather keep a seat and still lean back with your legs extended, the Longer and the ShaK are built with longer seats for exactly that. The published backrest angles for the seated models are explained in Do Ella 32x60 walk-in tubs recline, or do you sit upright?, and this page puts every way of leaning back in the Ella line side by side.

How a Seated Ella Walk-In Tub Positions Your Body

Nearly every Ella walk-in tub is built around a seat molded into the acrylic shell. Ella's guides list a 17 inch seat height on most seated models, so you sit down and stand up the way you would from a chair, with a footwell in front of the seat for your feet. The owner's manuals ask you to sit fully in the seat with your back against the backrest, not to slouch, not to lie down in the footwell, and not to put your feet up on the opposite side. The footwell is the deepest part of the tub, and Ella's published guidance compares a walk-in tub's water depth to a shallow swimming pool or a hot tub. A bather who slides out of the seat to stretch out is therefore in the deepest water with nothing behind them, which is why lying down in a seated walk-in tub is not recommended and could be hazardous, as Can you lie down in a walk-in tub? explains.

The backrest itself leans back only a little. Four spec drawings print a backrest angle: the Ultra at 88 degrees, the Flow at 96 degrees, and the Monaco and Mobile at 101 degrees. Picture the seat as the base of a protractor. A 90 degree backrest is straight up, so 96 degrees is a touch more relaxed than 88, and 101 degrees is the most reclined figure printed on a current drawing. None of these is anywhere near a lounge chair, and because each seat is molded at a fixed angle, no seated Ella tub reclines mechanically. Most other spec sheets leave the angle off the drawing, so if you want the number for a specific model, ask your Ella dealer or the team at (800) 480-6850 to read it from the CAD drawing rather than estimating from a photo. Two descriptions from support conversations help fill the gap, as long as you treat them as how the seat feels rather than as specifications: the TransferXXL backrest is only slightly reclined, roughly 10 to 15 degrees off vertical by the team's reading of the drawing, and the Big4One 33x66 is described by the team as the most comfortable seating position in the line. The Deluxe at 30 by 55 inches is the clearest example of the upright philosophy, built as a deeper soaking tub where you sit more upright and sink lower into the water.

Every Way to Lean Back or Stretch Out, Side by Side

The table uses only figures printed in Ella's current documents and guides. Where a figure is not printed, the cell says not listed, and your Ella dealer or the team at (800) 480-6850 can read it from the spec drawing for you.

The differences come down to what you want your body to do in the water. If your goal is a full-length recline the way you would lie in a conventional bathtub, only the two LayDown tubs do it, and the LayDown 32x72 is the size for bathers over six feet tall. If you want to keep the safety and ease of a chair-height seat but still scoot down and extend your legs, the Longer does it in a 60 inch footprint and the ShaK does it with the largest seat figures published. If you mainly want to sit comfortably and soak, any seated model works, and the printed angles tell you how upright the four measured backrests really are.

The LayDown: A Walk-In Tub You Lie Down in

The LayDown lets you recline because it has no seat and no footwell. In place of the chair-height seat you get a long flat textured floor with straight sidewalls behind a centered inward-swing tempered glass door in a brushed-finish aluminum frame, so you lie back as you would in a regular bathtub while stepping in over a low threshold instead of climbing over a tub wall. Both sizes have a 15 inch soaking depth, compared to about 11 inches in a standard bathtub, and the vertical bath walls give more interior floor space than the curved walls of a conventional tub. On the LayDown 30x60 the spec sheet prints an interior floor of 46 inches long by 20 inches wide inside an actual size of 60 inches long, 30 inches wide and 21 inches high, with the soaking space opening up to 53 inches by 25 1/2 inches above the floor. How Does the Ella LayDown Walk-In Tub Let You Recline? walks through the layout in detail.

Two planning points differ from the seated tubs. The LayDown 30x60 has no factory faucet option and needs a customer-supplied faucet, typically wall mounted, while the LayDown 32x72 is faucet ready and can be ordered with an optional Ella deck-mount fast-fill faucet. Both sizes can be ordered with an optional glass shower screen, and both have a single oversized 2 inch brass drain with overflow. One detail causes confusion: the LayDown spec sheet uses the same template as the seated tubs and prints a seat line even though the tub has no seat. Set that line aside and plan around the floor and depth figures, as Does the Ella LayDown Walk-In Tub Have a Seat or Is It Lie-Down Only? explains.

Keeping a Seat While Stretching Your Legs

If you would rather keep a seat and still lean back with your legs out, two seated models are built for it. The Longer measures 27 by 60 inches and has an extended seat area, so you can scoot down and stretch your legs out rather than sitting fully upright. It still has a seat, so you keep the chair-height entry and exit that makes a walk-in tub easy to use. The ShaK measures 36 by 72 inches and has a seat 29 inches wide by 27 inches long, and that long seat gives hamstring support when you recline and stretch your legs. For bathers who want roominess without a longer seat, the Elite pairs a spacious 22 inch seat with a removable backrest and a removable swivel tray. The seated models and their seat figures are compared in Which Bathtubs Come With a Built-In Seat for Comfortable Bathing?.

Before you choose an extended-seat model, take one measurement. Sit in a straight chair and measure in a straight line from the bottom of the backrest to the bottom of your knee. Compare that figure with the seat length printed on the drawing for the tub you are considering, since the seat length is what decides how far you can scoot down. Bring your measurement, your alcove size and your preferred door side to your Ella dealer or the team at (800) 480-6850, and they can confirm which model fits both you and the room.

Related Guides

• The LayDown Walk-In Tubs: 30x60 vs 32x72 Sizes, Faucet Options, and Features
• Does the LayDown Tub Have a Seat? Flat Bottom Design, Seat Figures on Listings, Faucets and Therapy Choices
• Which 60 inch Ella walk-in tubs come without jets, and how big are they?

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