Hydraulic Elevator Modernization – Montgomery MiProm – Park Ridge, IL

In May of 2002 I made my first sales visit to this building in Park Ridge, IL.  Years later we ended up doing a modernization on 3 of the elevators and they left one alone as it was newer than their 1960’s equipment that was in the old part of the building.  While newer equipment it was Montgomery Elevator Miprom equipment which isn’t always everyone’s favorite to work on.

Existing elevator & project scope – A new owner bought the building and was doing capital improvements and the non-modernized elevator had a habit of shutting down on the weekends.  This piece of conveyance equipment was critical in their building traffic pattern and could not have shut downs.  We made a recommendation to replace this piece of equipment for two reasons; 1^st was the critical nature of this elevator to the building and 2^nd was the amount of technicians who are proficient in Montgomery equipment will be fewer and fewer as the years go by due to the retirement of domain knowledge.  The new owners agreed and wanted a completed mechanical and electrical modernization.  This was completed on 12 hour days and delivered early back to the building.

New equipment providers

Controllers – Smartrise Engineering

Power units – MEI

Door operators – GAL

Fixtures – Innovation Industries

Elevator machine room– With updated equipment, painted machine room floor and new electrical makes it look a lot better!

[old Machine room]

[old Machine room]

[New Machine room]

[New Machine room]

Hydraulic elevator controller – The original control system was in really poor condition and had a history of getting hot.

[Old crispy MiProm controller]

[New Smartrise Engineering Controller]

Hydraulic elevator power unit – The old Montgomery power unit was wearing and experiencing fatigue.  It also was leaking a decent amount.

[Old Montgomery dry power unit]

[New MEI power unit with Maxton UC4 Valve]

Door operators – The elevator had MAC operator and equipment.  We replaced the operator with a GAL MOVFR and retained the MAC hatch equipment was replaced.

[Old MAC operator]

[New GAL MOVFR II operator]

Elevator fixtures – The old Montgomery fixtures went away and new Innovation flush mount fixtures to meet ADA and elevator code requirements were installed.  I was pretty excited to see how the main landing turned out with the digital PI to replace the multi light on the right hand side of the door frame.

[Old Main landing with multi light position indicator]

[New flush mounted buttons & digital position indicator]

[Old Montgomery car station]

[New easier to use Innovation ]

Take away – With how important this elevator was to the building the modernization was long overdue.  Our project team nailed it and brought it in early.  Another great team effort from signing of contract to engineering to delivery of equipment, project support and finally field personnel execution.  We also had some help from our Park Ridge Elevator Inspector who made it out there when we requested it.  Thank you to everyone involved.

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If you have any questions or would like additional information feel free to contact me at CraigZ@colleyelevator.com or 630-766-7230 ext. 107.

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