Elevators bad & ugly pictures

During our travels this week we saw a few interesting elevators.  Here are a few of the more interesting elevator systems we saw this week.

Elevator #1 - This was an elevator at an old building on Milwaukee Ave in Chicago.  Believe it or not when someone ran the elevator oil was spraying everywhere.  I would put the elevator’s age at early 1960’s.   The unfortunately part of this elevator system is that if the building decides to repair the hydraulic power unit they will have to replace the cylinder because it most likely is a single bulk head cylinder.  It is possible that the cylinder has been replaced but I was not going to run this elevator up to find out.

Take away – Have your elevator maintained, this elevator very well could be operating if it was maintained over the years.  Being it was neglected it now looks like it was discovered in the Titanic wreckage.

Elevator #2 - This was an elevator that we do maintenance on that when the mechanic walked in for maintenance the elevator did not work.  We went through the fault codes on the controller then opened up the elevator door and found this.

Take away – An apartment building’s elevator is not the owner’s storage closet. 

Elevator #3 - This was an elevator that a building owner wanted repaired.  This elevator most likely is from the mid 1960’s and appears it has been rewired once or twice.

Take away – If your elevator system gets to this point the building owner really should be replacing the elevator system.  While this elevator may work, when you get into rewiring the elevator system to this extent you get into a area where it may not operate as it was designed to.  This elevator control system serviced the building for 50+ years and is ready to have a new system take its place so a building can have safe and reliable elevator service.

If you have any questions or would like information from Colley Elevator you can go to www.colleyelevator.com, email Craigz@colleyelevator.com or call 630-766-7230.