Monday, July 13, 2020

Great elevator cylinder replacement story – Chicago, IL

Colley Elevator completes a lot of cylinder replacement projects.  Each project is unique, each project takes a team to complete.  This particular project is one that took a team of 12 from start to finish to complete.

We got a phone call from a building owner indicating he had gotten our phone number from a retired elevator inspector and asked if we did elevator cylinder work.  We told him, yes we do, we do more cylinder work than any other company in the Chicago area.  We made a time to visit the building and the elevator was shut down and locked out and on pipe stands.  The sales person went out and after initial review there was some signs that this could have been a false positive because of a few things.  The last thing we want to do is replace a cylinder that was misdiagnosed.  We had a free service team in the area and they came over, did some diligence and retested the cylinder and indeed the incumbent company was correct, it was a cylinder leak. No charge to the building, something we like to do just to be 100% we have a leak.

[Initial visit to building]

It took a few weeks for the building to decide who to work with, they ended up working with Colley.  We had the measurements from our first visit so we were able to order everything right away.  The cylinder took about 4-5 weeks to get.  When we found out it was actually going to ship, we pulled the cylinder out.  While the cylinder was being pulled out the new cylinder & piston hit the dock, we prepared it with a tape coat wrap for extra protection.

[Cylinder hole after cylinder was removed - No visible hole]

When the cylinder came out the hole did not look promising.  The hole backfilled on itself and we only had a 7” diameter hole.  We notified the building owner that this did not look good and prepare the building for a well driller. But!  First we were going to give it our best shot.  We bought a cylinder bag instead of using rigid PVC, we scheduled the debris removal truck, we scheduled the welder to be there the same day.  Good news!  Debris removal truck got us a 24” diameter hole and welder zipped it up, we pretested the welds[not too many companies still pretest welds, we believe this is very important before it gets buried.] and plumbed the cylinder.   A few days later, we are back filled, the piston is in and car is unhung.

[Completed cylinder replacement]

Equipment providers 

Cylinder - Elevator Equipment Corporation EECO

Shut off valve - Maxton

While the building owner sees or talks to  3 or 4 people from Colley behind the scenes there was 12 people who worked on this project in one form or another.  Without each person doing their part of the project it would not have been a success.  From top to bottom this was a complete team effort!  Project team kicked tail! A win for the building!  A win for Colley!  Good work everyone!

[Unpainted machine room]

[Finishing touch! Machine room paint job!]

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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 or on our web page at www.colleyelevator.com


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