Do Walk-In Tubs Come With a Shower or a Handheld Shower Wand?

Yes. Every Ella fast-fill faucet set, both the 2-piece and the 5-piece, includes an extendable multi-function hand shower with five spray settings on a 5 foot retractable hose, so a walk-in tub ordered with an Ella faucet comes with a handheld shower wand from the day it is installed. An overhead shower head is not part of the tub itself; it comes from the Shower Column Kit, an add-on that connects to the diverter on an Ella 2-piece or 5-piece deck-mounted faucet. Which handset belongs on your tub, and why a generic one will not do, is covered in Which Handheld Shower Head Is Best for an Ella Walk-In Tub?.

The Hand Shower Comes with the Faucet Set, Not with the Tub Size

The question often arrives as whether a sprayer is available on the smaller tub or only on the larger one, and the answer is that the hand shower belongs to the faucet set rather than to the model or its length. Both Ella fast-fill sets come with the same style of pull-out hand shower, two 3/4 inch braided supply lines and the diverter. The Ella Standard, for example, ships with the 5-piece Ella Fast-Fill faucet with pull-out hand shower, and the Capri ships with the five-piece faucet installed on the deck along with the handheld shower. A compact tub with an Ella faucet set gets the same wand as a large one.

A few details are worth knowing before the first shower. Flow through the hand shower is limited to 1.9 GPM by plumbing code, so a gentler spray is normal rather than a sign of low pressure. The handheld carries a backflow prevention valve to help protect your home's water supply, and a small blue check valve sits inside the head where it threads onto the hose. On a new installation the faucet is assembled on the deck but is not hooked up to the supply lines when the tub leaves the factory, so your installer connects them on site and the hand shower will not run until that is done.

There is one exception in the lineup. The LayDown60 is never sold with a factory faucet and has no faucet option at all; it requires a pre-existing or customer-supplied, typically wall-mounted, faucet, so it does not come with the Ella hand shower. The LayDown72 is faucet-ready and offers optional Ella deck-mount faucets.

Using the Handheld from the Seat

Switching from the spout to the wand is one move. On the 2-piece faucet set you push the diverter button; on the 5-piece set you turn the diverter handle. The spout stops, the wand takes over, and you pull as much of the 5 foot hose as you need, which is enough to reach comfortably while seated and to wash your hair without standing. When you are done, switch the diverter back, turn the water off, and let the hose retract into the deck mount. The same wand rinses the tub, the jet covers and the chrome trim after a bath, which the retractable hose was designed for. The full sequence is in How Do I Use the Hand Shower in My Ella Walk-In Tub?.

Handheld Only, or an Overhead Shower Too?

The overhead option is the Shower Column Kit, and the first video on this page shows how it goes on. The existing hand shower comes off the deck, the shower column base attachment goes into the vacant receptacle, the water supply line is replaced, and a new one-half inch supply line attaches to the diverter on the 2-piece or 5-piece fast-fill faucet set. Because the column feeds from the deck faucet, no new plumbing has to come through the wall. The hand shower then rides on the column in a height-adjustable holder that tilts and swivels, and the diverter selects either the large overhead rain shower or the hand shower.

The column is height adjustable. The video gives a maximum height of approximately 90 inches, a little over seven feet, with 14 inches of adjustment to bring the head down to approximately 76 inches, about 6 feet, and the rain shower head pivots and swivels so it can be aimed for a standing or a seated shower. The rain head itself is 10 inches across. Two things to confirm before ordering: the kit's two-way diverter means the rain head and the hand shower do not spray at the same time, and the kit does not include the hose or hand shower, since your existing handset is the one that moves onto the column. The column is offered only for certain models, and the pipe connector length depends on whether your tub has an extension panel in the alcove, so give the team your model name and they can confirm what fits.

The waterfall fast-fill faucet is a separate package that ships with its own extendable multi-function hand shower with four settings, resting on a shower column, as described in Do all shower heads fit any hand shower hose on a walk-in tub?. Many owners also like to lift the hand shower to a wall bracket for a more traditional shower feel, and Capri owners can upgrade to a wall-mounted or overhead shower; the team asks that you check with them before attaching the hand shower to the wall.

What the differences mean: if your tub has an Ella fast-fill faucet, seated showering is already built in and nothing needs to be added. The column kit is the step up when someone in the household wants to stand under a rain head or prefers an overhead shower aimed at the seat, and it still uses the deck faucet rather than the wall. The screen is the piece that keeps either kind of shower from wetting the floor.

Can I Use a Hardware Store Hose or Head?

The team asks that you not put a generic hardware store head or hose on an Ella fast-fill faucet, because hoses and handsets are matched to your faucet set. The 5-piece hose does not fit the 2-piece faucet because the ends differ, and some single-lever fast-fill faucets use a quick-connect fitting at the faucet end rather than a threaded one. The head threads onto the end of the hose by hand, with the conical connector on the handset and the hex nut end at the deck mount, so a cracked or side-spraying wand can be replaced on its own while the hose, deck mount and faucet stay in place. Before ordering anything, unscrew the head and look for the washer and the blue check valve, as explained in Why Does My Hand Shower Head Spray Out the Side and Can I Replace Just the Head?. Where a hardware store does help, and where it does not, is sorted out in Will a Hardware Store Hand Shower Hose or Head Fit an Ella Faucet?. If you bought the tub years ago, the team can look up your original order to match the right handheld.

Keeping the Spray in the Tub

Showering while seated sends water sideways, and Ella's accessories video, the second on this page, covers the answer. The four-fold glass screen is an alternative to a shower curtain: it folds away when not needed, extends when showering, fits a wide variety of tubs and can be reduced to a three-panel screen with an easy adjustment, and a three-fold and a four-fold screen can be used together. Always attach the screen to the wall side of the tub, away from extension panels, for the most stable installation and the maximum splash coverage. Any Ella tub less than 60 inches long comes with an extension panel so it fits a standard 60 inch alcove, which is also why the column kit's connector length depends on your layout.

Related Guides

• Can you add a shower head to an Ella walk-in tub?
• Installing the Shower Column Kit on Your Walk-in Tub
• What Is the Shower Column Kit on a Walk-In Tub?

Related Videos

Common Questions