What is the loose green wire on the back of my walk-in tub frame?

That is almost certainly the frame ground. Ella walk-in tubs leave the factory with a loose green wire near the pump, and it is the tub's frame ground, fitted to every component and to the frame. It is left as a free end on purpose so that your licensed electrician can bond it to the house ground when the tub is wired. It is a different thing from the plugged-in leads that run to the control boxes under the tub, such as the heated seat wiring described in Heated Seat and Back Not Warming Up: Checking the Control Box LED and the Button Prongs.

What the Green Wire Is and Why It Is Loose

Every powered part of an Ella walk-in tub, the pumps, the heater and the control boxes, sits under the acrylic shell on a frame. The green wire ties the frame and those components together into one ground path. At the factory it is fitted to every component and to the frame, but it cannot be connected to your house, because the house side of the circuit does not exist until the tub is standing in your bathroom. So it is left as a free end near the pump, ready for the electrician. A loose green wire there is not a wire that fell off in transit and not a sign of damage. It is the one connection the installation instructions ask your electrician to make, which is why those instructions call for the frame to be grounded.

How It Gets Connected

1. A licensed electrician bonds the green wire to the house ground on the outlet circuit that feeds the tub. Ella does not send technicians, so this is part of the local electrical work on every installation.
2. The circuit itself must be GFCI protected. That GFCI outlet is also the first thing to reset if the tub ever loses power, which is why the heated seat guide starts there before looking at any wiring.
3. Any additional bonding, such as to a water pipe, is done to local code. Your electrician knows what your jurisdiction requires and whether that extra bond applies.

Ella installs a separate pump and motor for each therapy system on the tub, so the home and the tub are wired to run every system at the same time. The frame ground is part of making that arrangement safe, and it is the reason the wire is factory-fitted to each component rather than to just one of them.

Why the Ground Shows Up on Your Warranty Paperwork

Proper grounding is an initialed item on the warranty activation form. Warranty activation is required to put the warranty in force. The two-page form must be completed and signed by both the customer and the installer and returned to Ella's Bubbles, online at ellasbubbles.com/warranty-activation/. When your electrician initials the grounding line, that is the record that the green wire was bonded. It is worth confirming the line is initialed before the installer leaves, because the team may ask you to complete the form as part of a replacement part request later if it was never submitted.

Is It the Ground, or a Different Wire?

The ground is not the only wire under the tub, and the access panels come off easily enough to look. They are held on with magnets, so slide a butter knife behind the edge and pop one off. Here is how to tell the wires apart.

• A green wire with a free end near the pump is the frame ground described above.
• A wire that runs from the heated seat and back leads to a blue control box with a green power LED on its face. It should be plugged in at the box and at the back of the heat button, and the small black wire with the red DISPLAY sticker belongs on one set of three prongs on that button.
• A wire that has pulled out of a connector plug is a fault, not a ground, and the symptom is usually a feature that stopped working, such as a seat that no longer warms.

If the wire you are looking at is not green, does not come from the pump area, or has clearly come out of a plug, do not connect it to anything. Send a photo of it, together with your serial number, through ellasbubbles.com/support, or call (800) 480-6850, and the team will identify it before anything is connected. The serial number is on the label behind the magnetic access panel next to the door.

What This Means on Installation Day and Afterward

On a new installation, make sure the electrician knows the green wire is waiting near the pump. The four things to see completed are a dedicated circuit for the tub, GFCI protection on that circuit, the green wire bonded to the house ground, and the grounding line initialed on the warranty activation form. If any extra bonding to a water pipe is required where you live, that is done at the same time.

On a tub that has already been in service, finding the green wire still hanging as a free end is a reason to have a licensed electrician look at the installation, because the installation instructions ask for that bond to be made. Ella's technical support can answer the electrician's questions about the tub's wiring by phone at (800) 480-6850, with manuals and live video help, but the connection itself is done on site by your electrician.

Related Guides

• Electrical requirements by model: dedicated GFCI circuits for your walk-in tub
• Which Cord Plugs Where: Identifying Control Boxes, Cords, and Air Tubes After Installation
• What Is a Dedicated Circuit for a Walk-In Tub?

Common Questions