If your Apollo bathing system won’t drain, start here. Door-entry tubs are built with a water-level safety interlock, so a drain problem usually shows up first as a door that won’t open. That’s alarming to see — but it’s the safety system doing exactly what it’s designed to do.
If a Resident Is in the Tub Right Now
Call 877-234-2284. Keep the resident warm and covered while you wait. Do not force the door — the interlock is holding it shut because there’s still water above the release level, and forcing it won’t open it any faster. It can also damage the latch or seal, which turns a delay into a repair.
Why won’t the door open?
Apollo door-entry tubs interlock the door with water level as a safety feature, not a malfunction. The door is designed to stay sealed while there’s water in the tub, so a resident can’t be left exposed to a door that opens mid-bath. If the tub isn’t draining, the water level stays high enough to keep that interlock engaged — so the door staying shut is the system working correctly while the real problem is upstream, in the drain.
Quick Checks
Before calling, these three things take under a minute to check and solve a large share of drain calls:
- Drain valve position — confirm the valve is fully open, not partially closed.
- Visible obstruction — check the drain screen inside the tub for hair, debris, or a washcloth.
- Drain line blockage downstream — check whether other fixtures on the same line are draining normally. If they aren’t either, the blockage is in the building’s plumbing, not the tub.
The tub drains slowly, leaves standing water, or has never drained fully since installation
This points at drain elevation, not a fault in the tub. Apollo tubs drain by gravity, so how well a tub drains depends on how much fall the drain line has below the tub floor. This isn’t a pass/fail check — a small pitch shortfall can mean slow or incomplete draining rather than a complete stoppage, and how bad it gets scales with how far the drain connection sits above the tub floor. If this describes what you’re seeing, the fix is at the drain line, not the tub, and it’s worth confirming drain elevation before the next service call gets booked.
Our pre-install readiness checklist covers how to check and correct drain elevation, and what goes wrong during a bathing system installation walks through why this is the single most common install-time problem we see in the field.
If It Drained Before and Then Stopped
If the tub used to drain normally and has recently stopped or slowed, that points at an obstruction or a valve problem rather than elevation — elevation problems don’t appear suddenly on a tub that’s been draining fine for months or years. Recheck the drain valve and screen first; if both are clear, the blockage is likely further down the line and worth a plumber’s look.
When to Call
Call 877-234-2284 or email techservice@apollobath.com if: a resident is in the tub and the door won’t open, the quick checks above don’t resolve it, or the tub has never drained fully since it was installed. That last one is worth flagging even if it isn’t an emergency today — an elevation problem doesn’t fix itself, and it’s easier to correct before it becomes the reason a bath gets skipped.
Related: Support home · Pre-Install Readiness Checklist · What Goes Wrong During a Bathing System Installation