Confusing Terms In The Pedicure Spa Industry
The Difference between pipeless pedicure chairs, plumb-free pedicure chairs & portable pedicure chairs
So you want to open a new salon or move to a new location but you don’t have a lot of space or access to plumbing for a regular pedicure chair? That doesn’t mean you can’t provide one for your customers and give them the full pedicure spa experience they’re expecting.
Thanks to our Plumbing-free pedicure chairs your spa can offer pedicures without the need to connect them to your plumbing to fill the basin with water. This means you don’t need any installation and it doesn’t take up a lot of room in your space.
So does that mean they are all portable?
Both a plumb-free pedicure chair and a regular chair have foot spa basins with jet streams to massage clients’ feet. The difference is how the jets are created. Traditional pedicure chairs create the jets using a network of pipes and a pump. The pipes take the water from one side of the basin and shoot it out the other. They also have a drain to empty the basin after the pedicure service is completed.
This makes matters even more confusing since there is also the term pipeless pedicure chairs. These are systems that use underwater fans to create the jet stream. But you still need to connect these chairs to plumbing to fill the basin with water and drain it afterward.
‘No-plumbing’ chairs use a built-in propeller to move the water across the basin. There is no plumbing involved so you have to fill the basin manually at a water source and take it to a drain afterward to empty.
Plumb-Free Pedicure Chairs Don’t Necessarily Mean Portable
Unfortunately, a lot of people use these terms interchangeably but this is actually wrong. Many of the plumb-free pedicure chairs that are referred to as ‘portable’ are heavy and difficult to move around in reality. When you see a manufacturer advertising a ‘no plumbing’ chair as ‘portable’ in the title of the page, it’s important to check the weight and dimensions before purchasing. More honest providers don’t use the term portable. They call their chairs plumb-less or no-plumbing pedicure chairs or even plumb-free chairs.
As you can see, there is no industry standard for using these terms. So you have to pay close attention to the description of the chair. Keep in mind that when they use the term portable, it does not mean the chair is easy to move around. It usually only means that the chair does not need any plumbing.
There are definitely real portable pedicure spa’s on the market and we sell 2 different brands. The Gulfstream Mini Lavender and the Continuum Pedicute, both excellent portable pedicure spas. These don’t come with an actual chair. But the spa bowls themselves are super portable and easy to roll around in your salon or even to take with you on your visits to a nursing home for the elderly, but more on that later.
Why Use a Plumb Free Pedicure Chair?
It may simply not be practical for you to set up a plumbing system to support plummed pedicure chairs. Or you may not be able to afford the high cost, or you may be renting the building and your landlord does not allow you to set up a plumbing system for your pedicure chairs. There can be many different reasons why you might choose to use this type of salon chair and it is up to you to decide if it makes sense for you and your space.
When you choose to work with plumbing-free chairs you are not only able to quickly set up a pedicure at your spa or salon space, but you can also rearrange them without having to move the plumbing around. Best of all is that you never really have to deal with interruptions to your business, simply start offering pedicures as soon as the chairs are moved into place.
