Traction Elevator modernization – Chicago, IL

This is a very exciting elevator modernization for Colley Elevator.   The building is located in Chicago’s famous Gold Coast and is an old mansion that was converted into condominiums in the 1970’s.  The elevator was originally installed in 1929 and had been modernized in the 1970’s by one of our retired partners when he worked at Gallaher & Speck.  The elevator worked well for its age but had to be modernized again to comply with the Chicago FEO Phase II mandate.  

Existing elevator & project scope – The existing elevator was originally manufactured by Haughton Elevator and Machine Company in 1929.  The car had manual doors during the original installation.  Sometime in the past it was modernized to have automatic doors.  In the 1970’s the elevator had a new CJ Anderson Elevator controller in.  The original machine was still there and is still there, works great, decent condition for the age.  We installed new controller, new motor, new door equipment, new fixtures, new counterweights, rope gripper, brake, governor and electrical on this elevator.  The machine would have been replaced but the location in the building would have been difficult to get a new machine in and the machine has been maintained well and still operates well.

New equipment providers

Controllers – Smartrise Engineering

Motors – Imperial

Door equipment - GAL

Fixtures – Innovation Industries

Traction safety & Misc equipment – Hollister Whitney

Flexible motor coupler - EMR

Traction elevator controller & machine room – The machine room is lined with lead and the old controller is in the middle of the room.  We removed the old controller and put the new controller on the far wall to give some room for the mechanics to work. One of the complaints was that the elevator was too noisy.  I met with the person complaining and it so happened his bedroom was on the same wall as the controller and he heard the contactors engaging.  The new Smartrise C4 should eliminate this issue.

[Old machine room]

[Old controller]

[Old controller moved out]

[New Smartrise C4 controller moved in]

  

Elevator machines– This is a very old Haughton machine that had its original brake.  We opted to keep the machine, replace the motor and brake.  Over the years the building has undergone several construction projects which would have made installation of a new machine nearly impossible without ripping out walls in residents units.  The project team did an incredible job with making the new equipment work with the existing machine space.

  

[Old Machine]

[Waiting for motor & brake - Lots of field modification]

[New motor, rope gripper, brake]

 Elevator fixtures – We installed new ADA compliant Innovation fixtures. Nothing splashy or fancy, just looks good and works good.

[1970 hall button]

[New ADA 2020 hall button]

Car top – This car top was small, it was a challenge to put all of our new equipment on it.  I believe the project team had chisel the dinosaur bones off the car top.  New look, great look!

[Old car top]

[New car top]

Counter weights – We removed the existing sash weight counterweights for new Hollister Whitney counterweights.

[Old sashweights]

[New cables & counterweights]

Door equipment – We put all new GAL equipment on the elevator doors which was a challenge due to the center opening 2 speed small doors.  Take a look at the first picture and how small the doors are.

[Tiny 2 speed center opening doors]

[Old hatch doors]

[Freshened up hatch doors]

Take away –The field team who did the installation moved mountains on this one! This was a total team effort on Colley’s part, we had 15 people from the company who worked on the project from the first phone call to the final inspection.  We had some great support from EMR on the motor coupler fitting the 1929 machine and 2020 motor correctly.

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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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