What Is a Stall Shower and How Is It Different From Other Showers?

In the Ella's Bubbles line, a stall shower is a factory-made shower unit, a base with its surrounding walls, that arrives either as one molded piece or as sections your installer assembles in the bathroom. It is a dedicated place to shower rather than a bathtub with a faucet package, and the kit ships with the stall, its grab bar set and the drain, while the valve and shower head are chosen separately. The full packing list is in What Comes in the Box With an Ella Shower Kit, and What You Still Need to Buy.

What Makes a Shower a Stall

A stall is the whole shower enclosure delivered as a product: the floor you stand on and the walls around it are made to fit each other. On a one-piece Ella shower, the base and walls are a single molded unit that cannot be broken down. On a multi-piece stall, the same enclosure is divided into sections. The 5-piece stall, for example, is a base plus four wall sections that assemble on site.

Ella shower stalls are built as accessible residential showers. They have a low step-in and factory grab bars, and some configurations have a seat. The grab bars are packed loose in the carton, not pre-installed, so your installer mounts them during installation by fastening them into the reinforced backing built into the wall panels with the correct screws.

What a stall does not decide for you is the plumbing trim. The wall arrives solid, with no opening for a valve or shower head and no preset height or offset. Your plumber marks and cuts those openings on site, because the right location depends on the valve you choose, the rough-in behind the wall and the needs of the person using the shower.

How the Ella Stall Types Differ from One Another

The biggest difference between one stall and another is how many pieces it arrives in. That single detail decides whether it can reach your bathroom and which options you can specify.

What this means for your bathroom: start with the route, not the style. Most finished homes have at least one opening narrower than 33 inches, which is why the one-piece stall is aimed at new construction. If one tight doorway, hallway or stairway stands between the delivery point and the bathroom, a sectional stall is the practical choice. The steps for walking that route with a tape measure are in How Do I Measure Doorways and Hallways for a One-Piece Ella Shower?. If seating is the priority, note that the 5-piece stall offers a bench, not a seat formed into the base, and its foot ledge cannot be left off. The ordering choices are explained in Ordering the 5-Piece Shower Stall With Soap Ledges, a Bench, or Grab Bars.

How a Stall Differs from a Walk-In Tub

A walk-in tub is often ordered with an Ella faucet package that includes a hand shower, so the fixtures are part of the order. A shower kit is different. It is a stall, a grab bar set and a drain, and nothing in the box detaches for hand-held use. Before installation day, plan to have these on site:

• The shower valve and its trim, chosen with your plumber.
• The shower head, plus a hand shower and slide bar if you want one.
• The rough-in piping and fittings, which your installer supplies.

The drain that ships with the kit is connected to the house waste line by your plumber. Confirm that the drain position on the stall matches the rough-in in your floor, and on the 5-piece stall state whether you need a left-hand or right-hand drain when you order.

How a Stall Differs from an ADA Shower Compartment

A stall with grab bars and a low step-in is easy to mistake for a certified accessible shower, and the two are not the same thing. Ella shower stalls are not ADA compliant, and that answer applies to the stall as a complete unit. The ADA standards cover the compartment dimensions, the threshold height, the seat, the placement and strength of the grab bars, and the reach range for the controls. A shower is compliant only when the full configuration satisfies every applicable requirement.

For a private residence, ADA certification is generally not a building code requirement, and most homeowners choose an Ella shower for its practical accessibility features. For a commercial building, a rental unit that falls under accessibility rules, or any project inspected against the standard, confirm the requirement with your local code official before you order. The details are in Are Ella Shower Stalls ADA Compliant?.

What Owning a Stall Is Like

Because a one-piece stall cannot be broken down, the team contacts you before the order goes to production. They confirm that you understand the shower is one piece and needs the clearance, and they confirm the seat side, the drain side and the number of grab bars you selected. They also check that the phone number on the order will be answered, because freight deliveries are scheduled by phone.

Care is simple, and the walls and floor use different tools:

• Walls: Soft Scrub applied with a cloth.
• Floor: Soft Scrub worked in with a brush across the whole surface, then a thorough rinse.
• Hard water stains: Goo Gone or rubbing alcohol.
• Avoid anything containing ammonia, bleach or Clorox, because those products make the gloss dull.

If the floor still looks dull after a proper cleaning, follow the steps in The Shower Floor Looks Dull or Dirty Compared to the Walls: How to Clean It. To decide which stall suits your project, ask your Ella dealer or the team at (800) 480-6850.

Related Guides

• Installing an Ella One-Piece AcrylX Shower Stall: Alcove Prep, Drain Opening, Fastening and First Use
• Will a Three-Piece Ella Shower Fit Through My Doorway? Piece Dimensions and Turning the Base Sideways
• Does the Ella Shower Stall Come With a Door, and What Size Door Fits the Opening?

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