Which Ella walk-in tub is best for seniors, and why?

The best walk-in tub for a senior is the one whose seat is wider than their seated hips, whose threshold they can step over comfortably, and whose door swings the right way for the bathroom, so no single Ella model is best for every senior. Within the Ella lineup, the Monaco gives the lowest published step-in together with a 23-inch seat, the Ultra suits a smaller bathroom with its inward door and ADA compliant 17 inch seat height, the Flow fits through a 28 inch doorway, and the Transfer32 serves a wheelchair user who slides across the seat. How do I choose the best walk-in tub for a senior? gives the measuring method; this page matches each model to the senior it serves best and explains why.

Why Any Walk-In Tub Is Safer Than the Tub It Replaces

A conventional bathtub asks the bather to lift a leg over the rim, lower down to the floor of the tub, and later stand up from that floor on a slippery surface. A walk-in tub removes each of those moves. The bather steps through a low door, turns, and sits on a built-in seat behind a sealed door, with grab bars, a textured floor and a chrome stainless steel latch that pulls the door tight against its seal. Every Ella walk-in tub has a low threshold, running roughly 3.5 to 7 inches depending on the model and drain setup, compared with the 18 to 22 inch wall you would swing a leg over on a standard bathtub. Oversized easy-turn drain openers with a large 2 inch drain and a safety chain let the tub empty without the bather bending for a small stopper, and the acrylic surface is durable and easy to clean, which matters when the person cleaning the tub is also the person bathing in it. Whether a walk-in tub is right for a particular senior comes down to mobility, bathroom size and whether someone helps at bath time, and Are Walk-In Tubs a Good Choice for Seniors and Aging in Place? weighs those three questions in detail.

The Ella Models Compared, by the Senior They Serve Best

The table gathers the published step-in, seat and door figures for the models that come up most often when a family is shopping for an older bather. Where a figure is not published for a model, the cell says not listed rather than guessing.

What the differences mean: the lowest published thresholds belong to the outward-swing door models, and an outward door needs clear floor in front of the tub but makes entry easier for someone who is unsteady on their feet. Inward-swing doors suit smaller bathrooms and can be removed for cleaning, and the Elite at about 6.5 inches and the Ultimate at about 6 to 6.5 inches sit in that group alongside the Ultra. The Front Entry is the one Ella model that is not ordered as left-hand or right-hand, because its door is on the end. For every side-door model the door side is chosen as left or right as you face the tub, so measure the room and the approach to the tub before you settle on a model.

Seat Width, Seat Height and Soaking Depth

Ella's measuring method is simple, and it decides the model more than any ranking does. The senior sits in a chair facing a wall, in a relaxed position, and you take three measurements: hip width while seated, shoulder width while seated, and length from head to feet while seated. The tub seat must be wider than the hip figure, the shoulder figure tells you whether the tub has proper shoulder room, and the seated length gauges the tub length that fits. Seat width runs from 19 inches on the Petite and Transfer26 to 29 inches on the TransferXXL, so the seated hip measurement narrows the field quickly. Seat height is 17 inches on most models, similar to a standard chair, so sitting down and standing up use the same motion as rising from a dining chair.

Soaking depth is set by the interior length, the seat length and the depth from the top of the seat to the overflow drains. That seat-to-overflow figure runs roughly 15 to 18 inches across the mid-size models; the Ultra gives 17 1/2 inches, with 42 inches of interior length and 24 inches of shoulder width, while the Flow offers 38 inches of interior length. A tall bather with a long torso sits higher in the water than a shorter bather on the same seat, which is why a bather around six feet or taller should look at the long-seat models, the Big4One and the ShaK. Bigger is not automatically better, because those long seats can be uncomfortable for an average or shorter person. Weight has no single published limit across the lineup, because every shell sits on a rustproof stainless steel frame that carries the load to the floor: if the person can sit comfortably inside the tub, the tub holds them. The Ultra's seat height, soaking depth and interior figures are shown on screen in Ultra, Standard, Flow and S-Class on Video, and the video on this page walks through the Flow, the compact model that fits through a 28 inch doorway and takes an extension panel so it can fill a 60 inch tub alcove.

Lowering the Step-In Further

The drawing figure is only the starting point. The tub sits on adjustable leveling legs, and a recessed drain lets the tub sit lower, so thresholds can be reduced to about 3 to 3.5 inches by setting the tub lower with the drain below the subfloor. The S-Class, for example, is offered with a 3 inch threshold height in place of the 6 inch height, a version that requires subfloor access to the drains. Cutting the apron or end panel to make a tub sit lower voids the warranty, so the lower setting has to come from the legs and the drain, planned with your installer before the floor is opened. If a senior cannot clear the published step-in of the model whose seat fits them, ask your Ella dealer or the team at (800) 480-6850 whether the recessed-drain setting is possible in that bathroom before you move to a different model.

Walk-In Tub or Walk-In Shower, and Having Both

Families often ask whether a walk-in shower would be safer than a walk-in tub for an elderly parent. The answer turns on whether the person wants to sit and soak, because an Ella walk-in tub is also a seated shower. The Ultra ships with the 5-piece fast-fill faucet and hand shower and offers the four-fold glass screen and the rain-head shower column as options, while the Flow comes with a two-piece fast fill faucet set, an extendable multi-function hand shower, a dual port oversized drain with an emergency pull chain, and a single dedicated protected GFCI connection. That combination gives a senior a soak with a low door, a seat and grab bars on bath days and a seated shower on the other days, in the footprint of the old tub. A family that decides a shower fits the person better can stay within the same dealer network, because Ella also makes acrylic shower walls and shower bases, as described in What Products Does Ella's Bubbles Offer?. Whatever you choose, plan around the actual size on the spec sheet, and let the seat, threshold and door figures pick the model. Each of those features is explained one by one in What Are the Most Important Walk-In Tub Features for Seniors?.

Watch: The Ella Flow: Best Compact Walk-In Tub for Seniors | Ella’s Bubbles with chapters and a full transcript.

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