How does the drain work on the Ella LayDown walk-in tub?

The Ella LayDown walk-in tub drains through a single threaded brass floor drain with an oversized 2 inch opening, and it empties by gravity alone, so there is no drain pump to run or maintain. The drain is opened and closed by a cable-operated drain opener control on the tub, it ships with its own supplied elbow, and each LayDown size can be ordered with a left or right drain to suit your bathroom layout. That single drain makes the LayDown the exception among Ella families, which is also why it uses its own PVC elbow, as explained in Is the Flexible Drain Hose Still Available? The PVC Elbow That Replaced It.

What the LayDown Is

The Ella LayDown is a walk-in tub you bathe in lying down at full length rather than seated upright. It comes in two sizes, 30 inches wide by 60 inches long and 32 inches wide by 72 inches long, and each can be ordered with a left or right drain. The current LayDown60 spec sheet lists an actual size of 60 inches long by 30 inches wide by 21 inches high with an interior floor of 46 inches by 20 inches, so the bathing area is long and flat rather than deep and seated. The shell is gloss white acrylic reinforced with fiberglass gelcoat, and it sits on a stainless steel frame with adjustable leveling legs.

Entry is through a tempered glass inward swing door in a brushed-finish aluminum frame, and the straight side walls make stepping in and out safer than a conventional tub. The LayDown is available as a plain soaking tub or with Air Massage, Hydro Massage or Microbubble Therapy. The Air Massage package has 20 jets with a 3-speed pump and an auto purge that activates 20 minutes after the pump shuts down to clear the air lines.

One detail matters for planning the plumbing as a whole. No LayDown includes a faucet by default. The LayDown60 is never sold with a factory faucet and has no faucet option, so it relies on a pre-existing or new customer-supplied faucet, typically wall-mounted. The LayDown72 is faucet-ready and offers optional Ella deck-mount faucets. Because of this, the fill side of a LayDown60 depends on the faucet your plumber installs, a point covered in How long does it take to fill a walk-in tub?.

How the Single Gravity Drain Works

Most Ella walk-in tubs use Dual Drain Technology, two 2 inch gravity drains that empty the tub together. The LayDown instead uses one 2 inch threaded brass floor drain with an overflow. The principle is the same: water falls straight down through the oversized opening and out of the tub under its own weight, and nothing mechanical has to switch on for the tub to empty. There is no drain pump anywhere in the system, so there is nothing to lose power or wear out.

You open and close the drain with the cable-operated drain opener control on the tub. The control moves a cable that opens the floor drain to release the water and closes it again to hold a full bath. The overflow built into the drain assembly takes water that rises above the bathing level. The elbow supplied with the drain turns the flow from the brass drain body toward the house drain line.

Keep the published drain times in context. The two minutes or less figure and the 52 second field test described in How fast does a walk-in tub drain after a bath? describe the two-drain system on other Ella models. No separate drain time is published for the LayDown's single drain, and in any home the speed is set largely by the house piping the tub empties into rather than by the tub itself.

Connecting the LayDown Drain to Your Plumbing

Your plumber connects the LayDown drain with ordinary methods and, past the elbow, ordinary parts.

1. Fit the supplied elbow to the brass drain. The elbow seats on the drain with a gasket. Tighten it snugly without forcing it, because excess force can crack a PVC fitting.
2. Continue the run in standard PVC from the elbow to the house drain. There is nothing proprietary past the elbow, so a plumber can finish the line with parts from any plumbing supplier.
3. Step down to the house line where needed. Most homes have 1.5 inch bathroom drain plumbing, and a common 2 inch to 1.5 inch reducing fitting ahead of the P-trap joins the tub's 2 inch drain to it.
4. Support the run. An elbow that cracks or drips is usually carrying strain from a drain line that pulls or pushes against it, so keep the pipe supported and let the fittings sit without tension.
5. Fill the tub, drain it and watch every joint while the water runs out.

If your rough-in calls for a straight-down exit rather than the supplied elbow, ask the team at (800) 480-6850 about that setup before the tub is set in place. The drain position itself is chosen when you order, left or right, so settle which side suits your room before you confirm the order.

Which Parts Come from Ella and Which from a Hardware Store

Owners often ask whether an equivalent part from a hardware store will do. For the LayDown, draw the line at the elbow. The brass drain body, its cable-operated opener and the LayDown-specific PVC elbow are Ella parts. Most Ella walk-in tubs share one PVC drain elbow with gasket, but the LayDown uses an elbow made for that model, so mention the model when you order a replacement. Have your model and serial number ready, say how many elbows you need and that the tub is a LayDown, and if the drain opener or pop-up mechanism also needs attention, say so at the same time so everything ships together. Replacement elbows are available through the support team at ellasbubbles.com/support or (800) 480-6850.

Everything downstream of the elbow is standard. PVC pipe, couplings, the reducing fitting and the P-trap are ordinary plumbing items your plumber already stocks or can buy locally.

If Your LayDown Drains Slowly

A LayDown that takes much longer than you expect is rarely a drain problem and usually a house-side one. Work through the same checks that apply to every Ella tub, laid out in Tub Drains Slowly, Will Not Drain, or Loses Water: What to Check.

• Make sure the drain opener control is fully open. A stopper that is only partly lifted is the most common cause of a slow drain.
• Look at the house drain. A gravity drain can only move water as fast as the house line carries it away, and the size of the line, the run to the main stack, the trap and any partial blockage all set the pace.
• Confirm the house drain sits below the tub outlet. Draining into a washing machine box or any drain higher than the tub calls for a pump arrangement instead, which is a plumbing decision for your installer.
• Check the connections for strain. A drain line pulling on the elbow can open a drip that shows up as water under the tub.
• If the tub loses water while you bathe, the stopper may not be sealing. Never use your foot to push, nudge or hold a stopper.

If those checks do not resolve it, open a ticket at ellasbubbles.com/support or call (800) 480-6850 with your model and serial number, and a local licensed plumber handles any work under the tub.

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