Are You UNDER ELEVATED?

Are you UNDER_Elevated?

How many times have you heard your building occupants complaining about slow elevators in your building?  I think elevator companies should devise some method of determining how many times the passenger hits the hall call button before the elevator finally arrives. Slow elevators incur a myriad of costs.  Hall buttons need more frequent replacement, productive work time is lost, and reputations suffer causing reductions in rent for landlords. It’s difficult to come up with an exact method of quantifying these costs but I think you understand what I’m talking about.  I’m sure also that the readers can come up with several other problems. (send me a list if you can).

Architects usually start out with the best of intentions and they have formulas for calculating the occupancy of buildings. However there is no formula for the changes that can occur in the life of a building. Structures can be converted from industrial to business or residential us; from business to public use, or retail etc, etc. I think the only thing we can count on here is that the structure will not end up serving the original purpose it was built for.  To add to the confusion we are fast becoming an instant society. We don’t just want fast results any more we want instant results. The “I want it NOW!” generation.  As an example who goes to the library for information anymore just “google” the topic and you can get hundreds of thousands of links to information within seconds of pressing the enter button.

Enough said, I think you get my point here.

If your occupants are complaining there are several things that you may be able to do short of building a new elevator onto the side of your building.  First it would be a good idea to bring in a consultant to assess the integr5ty of your conveyance system and the quality of your maintenance program.  Their report should include contract speeds (the speed that the elevator was designed for in traveling the hoistway), floor to floor times, door open and door close times, and other relevant data.  The report should also include some suggestions for upgrades that can be made to “speed up” your system. Keep in mind that the contract speed can be changed but not without some major engineering involved, besides that’s never the first place to go.

After you have received and digested your report, share it with your current service contractor then sit down and discuss the possibilities. They may have some additional suggestions to add into the mix. Perhaps there are simple inexpensive changes they can make to enhance the quality of the service.  I don’t like to use the term “speed up the elevators” because it rarely happens.  What you really do is decrease the floor to floor times.  Think about it, in a 30 story building if you take 1 second off of the door opening time and 1 second off of the door close time you have potentially taken 1 full minute off the time it would take to travel all thirty floors with a stop at each. Everyone is familiar with the relativity of time. When you have to find a restroom on a long turnpike a minute seems like an hour but when you are sitting outside your boss’ office waiting to get a grinding for losing the Schmedley account time marches much more quickly!

Whether you have old or new elevators, whether they are hydraulic or traction , know that you have options all over the place. The very first being , reducing the door operation times. This can be expensive or not depending on which direction that you choose to go and the original design of your system.  Your current contractor should be able to tell you whether or not it’s possible to reduce these times with your current equipment. If not,  they may suggest that you look at the purchase of a new conventional door operator. I like to recommend a heavy duty one just because.  Many doors are adaptable to the newer linear door operators.  These can be set to open lightning fast and close at a normal speed so as not to “guillotine” passengers entering the car.  They are a bit more expensive and require more labor to change the door operating components but require a lot less maintenance and have proven their reliability over and over in the last ten years.

That’s about as far as I can go here today (retirement is keeping me busier than work did).

Next time I will discuss other methods of making the trip faster.

Until then as always, any ideas, input or comments are appreciated. Especially want to thank my regular readers fro your emails and compliments.

For now I’ll leave you with the following quotes:..

Never try to impress a woman. Because if you do she'll expect you to keep up to the standard for the rest of your life. And the pace, my friends, is devastating.
W. C. Fields

Or…

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else.
Will Rogers

Don’t forget to email me (elevatorernie@hotmail.com). Your suggestions and questions are always welcome.

Thank you,

Ernie