Walk in baths: who they actually suit

Walk in baths are the most heavily advertised product in this market, which is exactly why it is worth reading something calm about them. They suit a particular person very well, and they suit everybody else rather badly.

The idea is a bath with a sealed door in the side, so instead of swinging a leg over a high rim you open the door and step in. Most have a moulded seat, a thermostatic valve so the water cannot run too hot, and a grab point or two.

The part the adverts skip

You get in before the water does. The door cannot open against a full bath, so you sit in an empty bath while it fills, and you sit in an empty bath again while it drains before you can get out. Depending on the taps and the waste, that is a few minutes at each end, in the cold.

This is manageable and millions of people are perfectly happy with it, but it is the thing owners wish somebody had said out loud. Ask the installer for the fill time and the drain time for the exact model, and ask whether a fast fill tap and a quick drain waste are included or extra. Ask about a top up of warm water while you wait, too, because some models handle that better than others.

What the door has to do

The door seal is the entire product. It is under water pressure every time the bath is used, for years. Inward opening doors are held shut by the water itself and take up a little room inside; outward opening doors give more space to get in but rely wholly on the seal and the latch. Neither is wrong. What matters is that the seal is replaceable, that replacements are actually available, and that the hinge side suits how the person approaches the bath in that room.

If you are looking at photographs of a bath and the door hinges on the far side from the doorway, somebody has staged the picture rather than measured the room.

Who a walk in bath genuinely suits

• Somebody who wants to soak. If a bath is part of how the day works, and a shower would feel like a loss, this is the product that keeps it.
• Somebody steady on their feet but not over a high rim. A step through of a few inches instead of a climb of 2 feet.
• A household with a second bathroom. The waiting matters less when nobody is queuing.

And who it does not suit: somebody who would rather shower, somebody who gets cold quickly, somebody who may need a carer or a chair before long, and any household where this is the only bathroom and there are teenagers in it.

Bath and shower together

Most makers offer a version with a shower over the top and a screen, which is the sensible compromise if the household is split. It costs more than a plain walk in bath and it does mean standing in the bath to shower, which is worth thinking through for the person it is actually for.