Short answer: yes. Apollo Bath builds bathing systems for care facilities only. We do not sell or install walk-in tubs for private homes, and we do not have a residential line.
We get asked this often enough that it deserves a straight answer — usually by someone who found us while researching a walk-in tub for a parent, or by a facility that wants to know whether the tub they saw advertised online is the same thing we build. It is not.
Why we only build for facilities
Apollo has been manufacturing bathing equipment in Somerset, Wisconsin since 1978. Everything we make is designed around a single set of conditions: many residents a day, multiple caregivers, a documented cleaning procedure between every use, and a service life measured in decades.
That is a genuinely different engineering problem than a tub installed in one family’s bathroom. A residential walk-in tub might see a few baths a week. Ours are built for a bathing room that runs all day, every day, for twenty years or more — and we still stock parts for systems installed in the 1990s.
Building for both markets would mean compromising on one of them. We chose the one we know.
What actually differs
If you are comparing options for a facility, the differences matter more than the marketing suggests:
- Duty cycle. Components rated for continuous institutional use, not occasional household use.
- Transfer method. Many residents cannot walk into a tub. Seated transfer without a lift or a pivot is what separates a bathing room staff will use from one they avoid.
- Fill time. A fifteen-minute fill means the next resident waits in the hallway. Rapid Fill™ changes how many baths a shift can complete.
- Cleanability. A documented disinfecting procedure between every resident, with surfaces and materials that survive it repeatedly.
- Certification. Facility engineering will ask. Our systems are IAPMO R&T listed — the Advantage™ under file SP-13351 and the ReGen™ under file SP-17702 — certified to ASME and CSA plumbing standards, with quarterly factory audits.
- Parts availability. The most expensive bathing system is the one that becomes unserviceable.
We wrote a fuller breakdown here: Commercial vs. residential walk-in tubs.
If you are shopping for your own home
We are not the right fit, and we would rather tell you now than waste your afternoon. Apollo systems are sold to facilities and installed as commercial equipment — the pricing, the freight, the installation requirements and the support model are all built for that.
For a private residence, look for a manufacturer or dealer who specialises in residential walk-in tubs. They will be better set up to help you, and the product will be designed for how you will actually use it.
If you are buying for a facility
Then you are in the right place. Apollo sells direct to facilities and works with the contractors, plumbing subcontractors, architects, distributors and group purchasing organisations who buy on their behalf. Most orders are one to four systems.
Two questions get you to the right system: can your residents enter a tub on their own, and what does your room allow? The bathing system selection guide walks through both, or tell us about your residents and your room and we will configure it.