Does anybody have any experience with walk in bath tubs?

[TygrBright]

20. The care facility my uncle spent his last couple of years in invested in several walk-in tubs.

They had varying degrees of amenities and operational styles that made a difference as far as how the tubs were supposed to be used.

But they were all heated, that is, the tubs themselves were heated, in the seat and the walls, as well as the water itself being hot, to prevent the chilling issue, and of course the bathrooms all had wall heaters to supplement the "regular" heat.

Filling time varied depending on the tub type, with some of the smaller ones being surprisingly fast-- once you're sitting in there, your body displaces a lot of water and it comes up pretty quick. Depending on your plumbing system's pressure, you could fill a tub to waist level in 2-3 minutes.

The real down side is the drain time, because of course, the other end applies, too- you can't open the tub to get out until the water level is below the door bottom. However, there are some pretty clever "fast drain" designs out there that whoosh the water out quite quickly.

Some of the tubs' advantages depend on the model. They may come with different kinds of jets, and different configurations for the seat, so that you're more or less sitting up straight or recumbent. They may be designed to fill to various levels, up to the shoulders in some cases, lower in others. Some come with a shower option, so that you need only sit and use the shower - both hand-held and static options are available.

My uncle had a foot condition, and they'd help bundle him into a warm robe, turn the tub heater on, and sit him in it and run the water just deep enough to give him a foot bath.

Those tubs were designed to be very easy in/easy out but they still had a "lip" that the door bottom fit into, so they're not for someone who can't lift their feet unassisted.

The down side of the tubs, according to the folks who ran the place, was not just that they are pricey, but that the installation was complicated and expensive- they needed to reconfigure the floor drain options, reinforce one of the walls for a shower model, etc. You should plan on getting an installer who knows the ins and outs of the walk-in tub, because they are different.

But we were fairly impressed with the flexibility it gave- there are many conditions for which a relaxing soak is therapeutically superior to a shower.

informatively,
Bright