Did you know that the walk-in tubs industry has a dirty little secret that they’re trying to keep from you?
Since 2002, I’ve been trying to help seniors, their loved ones, and people with health and mobility issues discover the huge benefits that high-quality, properly designed, and installed walk-in tubs can provide to us as we grow older.
And one of the big benefits is I can expose myself to literally life-altering natural therapies and healing processes, but I can’t do that under certain circumstances, and those are the circumstances that the other folks in the walk-in tubs of the industry don’t want you to know about.
In particular, what I’m talking about is the fact that they will put water jetted systems on your tub or low-end air systems. Either one of these processes can be very, very dangerous for you.
The problem is when we bathe in a personal bathing appliance, let’s face it, it’s not a real clean process. The issue is, as I bath all of my body materials, the oils, the dead skin, the body fluids, all of these things get into the bath water, and when I have a water jetted therapy system that is taking that bath water and putting it into piping and then pumping it back into the tub, I set up an unhealthy environment, an environment that will allow the development and growth of what’s called biofilm or biomaterial.
This is actually molded bacteria, growing organisms that develop in the piping.
Now, the industry’s going to tell you “Oh, we’ve got drains, the piping at a slope, so it drains out. You don’t have to worry about standing in water in the tub”.
The issue, the industry standard is according to ANSI, which is one of the safety regulatory bodies that inspect all these tubs, they’re all going to leave at least 10 tablespoons of water in the piping. You can’t get rid of all of it, but it doesn’t take much.
The other issue is that even with the water standing, this grunge, this filth will attach to the materials inside the piping. So the best way I know to describe it to you is to think if you had a regular bathtub, not a jetted tub, just a regular bathtub, and you bathed in it every day and you never cleaned the bathtub.
You’d have this biomass, what we call “a soap scum ring”, form around the perimeter of the tub. And the only way you can disinfect that tub is to mechanically disinfect and scrub it to get it off with some sort of disinfecting solvent. You can’t do that inside the hard piping of a jetted tub.
Now, what the people in the industry will tell you is that you can pour bleach into it. You can put dishwashing liquid in it, vinegar, baking soda, whatever. They’ll suggest you can use them to disinfect, and the bottom line is they don’t work, they just flat don’t work.
I’m attaching a link to an article where an expert in this area, a doctor, and also a microbiologist from Texas, Dr. Rita Moyes. This doctor researches water jetted tubs for sanitation.
You can read all the dirty little details I’m telling you, but Dr. Moyes is very clear that 100% of water-jetted tubs contain unacceptable levels of contamination.
Now on our medical hydrotherapy, we rely on an air-jetted process, but in order for it to be medical hydrotherapy and to stay sanitary, what that means is what’s in the bathing wall has to go down the drain and not get into any of the plumbing and piping.
And unfortunately, even some of the higher-end walk-in tubs out there use low-end air systems jets.
We use medical-grade stainless steel jets that have a check valve venom. And this check valve is going to prevent the dirty filthy water from getting into the airlines. And then we also have a self-cleaning cycle.
So there you go, think about it, but whatever you do, you should invest in a walk-in therapy tub. You should not invest in any tub that has a water-jetted system on it.
And you should make sure that the tub you get is not only the right one for you and the highest quality but that the system on that qualifies as medical hydrotherapy.
You’ll be glad you did, I guarantee it.
