ECI GAL Canada mechanical elevator door restrictor

This will be the 4th of a few posts on elevator door restrictors.  We get a lot of questions in our area about door restrictors when some of the restrictors begin failing.  Many in our area haven’t worked for years due to entrapments. We get asked; Why did it fail? What is the next step?  We say “replace it with XY or Z”.  But many building owners have no idea what a door restrictor is or the differences between the different types.

What is a door restrictor? – A door restrictor is a device that restricts the elevator car door from opening more than 4” when it is outside the landing zone.  The landing zone is typically 18” above or below the floor.   Essentially this device traps someone in the car so they cannot get out of the car and fall below the car down the hoistway.  An elevator person or emergency services should be called to get a person out safely.

Why did the door restrictor come about? – I know there are people out there that can explain or tell this more accurately than myself, but, from what I know there was a series of accidents within a short period of time with people getting out of an elevator that was out of the landing zone and they fell down the hoistway and got seriously injured or died.  I believe a few of these accidents occurred in Chicago in the 1990’s.

The GAL Canada/ECI door restrictor is fairly versatile and can be used on many applications.  I have seen it installed incorrectly causing doors to slam and there are more parts then some of the other door restrictors out there.  We have not installed any of these but the ones we have repaired have worked great and the support GAL Canada gave was incredible.

There will be 5 restrictors we discuss pros and cons for.  This one is GAL Canada or ECI’s mechanical door restrictor  

Pros

1.    Easy to install 

2.    Reliable

3.    No electronic parts

4.    Great customer service

Cons

1.    Cannot be installed on all elevators

2.    Can be installed wrong

Purpose of this information - We frequently see on elevator violations “Repair door restrictor” or we see entrapments due to malfunctioning door restrictors.   If a building has a door restrictor from the 1990’s, 2000’s there may be a better replacement such as a door clutch mechanical restrictor[ECI/GAL Canada], GAL mechanical or a SEES style door restrictor or replace with a newer version of the Adam’s Hatch Latch.

As always feel free to contact us at www.colleyelevator.com, email Craigz@colleyelevator.com or call 630-766-7230.