Which Ella walk-in tubs stand under 36 inches tall?

Four seated Ella walk-in tubs stand under 36 inches tall on the outside, the Petite, the Elite and the Royal at 35 inches and the Ultimate 30x60 at 35 3/4 inches, and the two lie-down LayDown models sit far lower still, with the LayDown 30x60 only 21 inches high at the deck edge. Every other seated model is taller, from the Deluxe at 39 inches up to the HomeCare at 41 3/8 inches. How tall are walk-in tubs and how high is the step-in? explains why the outside wall and the door threshold are two different numbers; this page sorts the lineup by overall height and exterior width so you can see at a glance which models clear a 36 inch limit and how wide each one is.

What the Height Figure on a Spec Sheet Measures

Height on an Ella spec sheet is the outside wall of the tub, measured from the floor to the top of the deck. It is the figure to hold against a window sill, a vanity top or the line where wall tile stops. It is not the step you lift your foot over. A walk-in tub is entered through a sealed door, and the threshold in that door opening is a matter of a few inches, roughly 3 1/2 to 4 inches on the Capri and 6 inches on the Elite, however tall the shell is.

The shell is tall because a seated walk-in tub has a molded seat at chair height, about 17 inches on most models, with a footwell in front of it, and the water has to come up around a seated bather. That is why Ella's dimensions guide describes a typical walk-in tub height of 38 to 43 inches, and why Ella's own seated models run from 35 inches up to 41 3/8 inches. A seated tub cannot be built shorter than 35 inches, so 35 inches is the floor of the seated range, not a rounding of something lower. The leveling legs do not change this either. They are there to plant every foot evenly and keep the door aligned and sealed, and they cannot be turned down to lower a tub.

The one way to get a much lower tub is to give up the seat. The LayDown models are soaking tubs you recline in, so the deck edge sits at about the height of a conventional bathtub wall while the tub still offers a 15 inch soaking depth, compared with about 11 inches in a standard tub.

Heights and Widths by Model

The table uses only figures printed on current spec sheets or in Ella's published articles. The size in a model's name is a rounded nominal figure, so plan against the actual inch value, and where a figure is not published the cell says so rather than estimating.

Here is what the differences mean for you. Among seated tubs, the under-36 group is really the 35 inch group: the Petite, Elite and Royal share the same 52 inch length and the same height, and differ only in width, from 27.5 inches to 32 inches. The Ultimate stretches that height to a 60 inch alcove with only three quarters of an inch added. Going to the Deluxe or the ShaK adds about 4 inches of wall, which buys deeper water around the seat, not a harder entry, since the threshold stays low on every model. If your limit is lower than 35 inches, for example a window sill that sits right above the tub deck, the choice is a LayDown, and that is a different way of bathing, reclined rather than seated.

Models Wider Than 27 Inches, and Their Widths

Most of the lineup is wider than 27 inches. The published actual widths group as follows:

• Just over 27 inches: the Petite at 27 1/2 inches.
• 28 to 30 inches: the Flow at 28 by 48 inches, the Standard at 29 5/8 inches wide, and the 30 inch group of the Elite and Capri at 30 by 52 inches, the Deluxe at 30 by 55 inches, the Ultimate at 30 by 60 inches and the LayDown60 at 30 inches wide.
• 32 inches: the Monaco, the Royal and the Transfer32, all 32 by 52 inches, the Front Entry at 32 by 40 inches and the LayDown72 at 32 by 72 inches.
• 33 inches and up: the Big4One at 33 by 66 inches, the TransferXXL at 36 by 55 inches and the ShaK at 36 by 72 inches.

None of those published widths is 34 inches, a point covered in How wide are walk-in tubs, and do bathtubs come 34 inches wide?. On a walk-in tub the width is the short side that runs from the front of the tub to the back wall, and it is the figure that has to clear every doorway on the path into the bathroom. How Wide Is a Walk-In Tub, and Will It Fit Your Home? shows how to read the spec drawing and compare the actual width with your narrowest opening. Half-inch differences between the model name and the drawing are normal rounding, so a tub sold as 28 inches measures 27.5 inches, and when a metric figure printed beside an inch figure disagrees with it, the inch figure is the correct one.

Planning Around a 36 Inch Limit

Start by deciding what the limit really is. If it is a sill, a shelf or a tile line, measure from the finished floor to that point and compare it with the overall height in the table. If the concern is how far you have to lift your foot, the overall height does not matter; look at the step-in threshold for the model instead. If the concern is how the tub will look beside a conventional tub, Ella's own step-over alcove tubs, the Solo 32x60 and the Fiji 36x66, stand 24 inches tall, so any seated walk-in tub will stand well above a standard tub while a LayDown will sit close to it. What are the standard dimensions of a walk-in tub? sets every verified size side by side if you also need to check length against a 60 inch alcove.

The video on this page introduces the two LayDown tubs and shows why they sit so low: straight, narrow sidewalls instead of a curved shell, an interior soaking length of 61 inches by 28 inches on the 3272 and 53 inches by 25 1/2 inches on the 3060, and a 15 inch soaking depth. It also shows the low threshold tempered glass door and the center door position that leaves extra deck space. Before you decide, ask your Ella dealer or the team at (800) 480-6850 for the current spec sheet of the model you have in mind and check the height and width lines against your own measurements.

Watch: Introducing 3272 & 3060 Hydro Massage Lay Down Walk-In Tub | Ella's Bubbles with chapters and a full transcript.

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