How Does the Ella LayDown Walk-In Tub Let You Recline?

The Ella LayDown lets you recline because it has no molded seat at all. Instead of a chair-height seat and a footwell, it has a long flat textured floor with straight sidewalls behind a centered inward-swing tempered glass door, so you lie back the way you would in a conventional bathtub while stepping in over a low threshold rather than climbing over a tub wall. It comes in two sizes, the LayDown60 at 30 by 60 inches and the LayDown72 at 32 by 72 inches, and it is the only Ella layout built for a full recline, as Can you lie down in a walk-in tub? explains. This page covers how the LayDown is laid out, how it compares with the seated and lounging models, and what to plan for.

No Seat, by Design

Every other 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, with a footwell in front of the seat, and the owner's manuals ask the bather to sit fully in the seat with the back against the backrest. Lying down in a seated walk-in tub is not recommended and could be hazardous, because a bather who slides out of the seat ends up in the deepest part of the tub with no backrest.

The LayDown removes the seat and the footwell entirely. What you get instead is a floor long enough to stretch out on and a depth chosen for lying down. Both sizes have a 15 inch soaking depth, and both have vertical bath walls that give more interior floor space than the curved walls of a conventional bathtub. On the LayDown60 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. The LayDown72 is the size for bathers over six feet tall.

Reclining in a LayDown is therefore not a matter of a backrest angle or a lever. The seated Ella models do not mechanically recline either, since each seat is molded at a fixed angle, which Does Ella make a single-person walk-in tub with a reclining lounge seat? explains. On the LayDown you simply lie down.

The LayDown Beside Ella's Seated and Lounging Layouts

The table uses only figures printed in Ella's current documents and guides. Where a figure is not printed, the cell says not listed.

What the differences mean: the LayDown is the only layout where you lie flat, and it gives up the chair-height seat that makes sitting down and standing up feel like using a chair. The Lounger and the Longer keep a seat and lean you back further than an upright model, and the Longer does that in the same 60 inch length as the LayDown60 but at 27 inches wide. If your priority is stretching out at full length, the LayDown is the answer. If your priority is a seat you can lower yourself onto, pick from the seated models, and Do Ella 32x60 walk-in tubs recline, or do you sit upright? walks through the 60 inch seated options.

Getting in: The Centered Glass Door

You enter a LayDown through a tempered glass door set in a brushed-finish aluminum frame in the middle of the long side. The door swings inward, and the LayDown60 drawing prints a door opening 19 5/8 inches wide with a 115 degree swing arc. The threshold is low, so you step in rather than swing a leg over a tub wall, then lie down on the textured floor. The video on this page shows the 30 by 60 LayDown with its chrome locking handle, tempered glass door and low threshold, with a bather stretched out at full length for a whole-body air massage. It also shows the optional glass shower screen, a folding glass door with chrome hinges and a gasket along the bottom edge that lets you shower in the tub.

Like every Ella tub, the LayDown is built with its door, and a doorless soaking version is not offered, as Can I Order an Ella Walk-In Tub Without a Door? explains. Because the door is centered rather than at one end, you give the team a drain side rather than a door side when you order, and your plumber confirms it from the location of your house drain.

If You Sometimes Want to Sit

The LayDown has no built-in seat, but the LayDown product pages list two accessories for bathers who want somewhere to sit: a folding bathtub seat and a removable bathtub seat. Neither is molded into the shell, so the tub returns to a full-length floor whenever the seat is out of the way. If sitting upright matters most, every other Ella walk-in tub is a seated model with a built-in seat, and those are the ones to compare.

Planning the LayDown into Your Bathroom

• Faucet. No LayDown includes a faucet by default. The LayDown60 has no faucet option at all and needs a pre-existing or customer-supplied faucet, typically wall mounted. The LayDown72 is faucet ready and offers optional Ella deck-mount fast-fill faucet sets.
• Therapy. A LayDown comes with one therapy at a time: air massage, hydro massage, microbubble therapy or soaking only. On the LayDown60 the air massage package has 20 jets on a 3-speed pump, and the soaking version has no therapy controls at all.
• Drain and frame. The LayDown60 has a 2 inch brass drain with overflow and sits on a stainless steel frame with adjustable leveling legs.
• Shower screen. With the optional glass shower screen installed, the LayDown60 drawing shows a screen span of 38 1/4 inches and heights of 57 and 57 1/2 inches, so check your ceiling and any window above the tub.
• Delivery path. The LayDown60 ships in a crate 63 by 33 by 29 inches with a shipping weight of 220 pounds and a net weight of 160 pounds. Measure doorways and halls against the crate.

The low threshold, textured floor and sealed door are the same safety features Ella builds into its seated tubs, and What Are the Most Important Walk-In Tub Features for Seniors? explains how to weigh them. The difference with a LayDown is that you are choosing a full recline over a seat, so think about whether getting up from floor level is comfortable for the person who will use it, and keep the folding or removable seat in mind if that answer may change over time.

Watch: The 3060 Walk-In Laydown Tub: A Solution for Cool & Stylish Accessibility | Ella's Bubbles with chapters and a full transcript.

Related Guides

• The LayDown Walk-In Tubs: 30x60 vs 32x72 Sizes, Faucet Options, and Features
• Your LayDown Owner's Manual, Section by Section (30x60 and 32x72)
• LayDown Tubs on Video: 30x60 and 32x72 Walkthroughs, the Glass Door, the Drain and Where the Controls Are

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