Elevator Picture Hall of Fame – Volume 1 – 2021

We get to review a lot of pictures when we go survey elevators for sales, shut downs or engineering.  Here are a few of the more unique ones we pulled out for our Elevator Picture Hall of Fame – Volume 1 – 2021.

Soft Start Edit – This is a first for me, seeing an edit on a soft start.  I’m sure there is a story to this one, I just don’t know it. 

Holy Santa Monica! – This is one of the more disastrous pits I have seen in a while.  It is from a south loop building that probably had a conversion in the early 2000’s from a freight elevator. 

Run Away – Anyone that has ever worked with this type of run station knows what controller this is.  The only reason I remember is because the marker labeling had worn off and I almost couldn’t get the car running after trying to do engineering for a similar elevator.  The wiring is on the more interesting side.  Lots of interesting things going on, on this car top.

 

Wired – There are a lot of wires. A lot of wires going places.  A lot of wires on the bottom of the controller.

 

Not Your Biggest Fan – This non-Colley elevator professional is not a fan of cleaning the fan.

 

Pit Notching – The hall of fame is not always for bad actors.  This actually really impressed me with the concrete work for our equipment and sump.

 

I’ll Get it Next Time – The way the dust has coalesced it appears it has been several moons since someone did anything here.

 

Pipes and Smokes – I had to take a few looks here to see that the smoke and heat detectors are really installed on the hydraulic line.

 

Strange Mod – We got a service call from a building we don't maintain. As a favor to the shared client, we sent a sales person out. They found that the elevator was out of service because someone was in the middle of installing a door operator.  It turned out there was some communication issues and the building had no idea they were getting a door operator.

 

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.

Also check us out on Instagram @Colleyelevator see what we have been up to.

End of Life/Obsolete Elevator Equipment – Dover DMC Elevator

This is the 5^th in our series of end of life/obsolete elevator control systems.  Everyone has a ton of these everywhere in the United States!  The Dover DMC was installed in 1985-2001[2] +/-.  In the Chicago market this is a huge part of every elevator company’s portfolio.   We waited to run this blog because I had not seen a Thyssen sales person tell a customer it was obsolete.  That changed a few weeks ago when a potential customer shared their email with me from a TKE employee indicating the DMC platform is considered obsolete.  While we knew that some of the circuit boards had been considered obsolete, the TKE email was a good reason/reminder to add this to our “end of life” series.

What’s the story?  Dover Elevator installed elevators from 1955 to 1999 and was the 3^rd largest elevator company prior to selling to Thyssen Krupp[now known as TKE].  After Thyssen Krupp bought Dover, they branded the TK name on it prior to moving to a totally different platform called the TAC 20.  The Dover DMC was a wonderful, very reliable software based elevator control system. While the Dover DMC had some drawbacks, it has been a very reliable work horse for many buildings. Recently Thyssen or TKE decided to discontinue support for the Dover DMC and will no longer manufacture solid state boards.

Who this impacts – If you have a Dover DMC control system you should begin putting money away for a control modernization.  There are still parts available, we have parts, but when they are gone, they are gone. 

Are parts still available? – Yes and no.  There are 3^rd party manufacturers that stock some of the boards.  There are a few elevator solid state board repair shops that will repair the boards.  The warning with any board repair is that while the intention is to be successful, sometimes board repairs are not successful or take a few tries.  If you don’t want these challenges, replace the elevator controller prior to going down this painful road. 

Take away – If you have one of these controllers in your building get a plan together with your elevator contractor.  See if they have replacement parts and how many.  If your CLC board, selector board, door board or any other board goes out, do they have a replacement?  How many?  When it rains it pours, be aware that there are a lot of these out there and if a few have issues at the same time and require spare parts, you are pulling from the same spare part pool which is finite.  

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. 

Also check us out on Instagram @Colleyelevator see what we have been up to.

Property Manager Lunch & Learn - Elevator 101

 

One of the great mysteries in the property management world is elevators. How can a device that's so simple cause so many headaches?  We are the contractors behind the curtain.

At Colley, our passion is elevators and we've been at it for more than a century. We'd love to pass some of that knowledge along, an educated customer is a better customer, so please keep an eye out for our first in a series of Lunch and Learn workshops. 

Details will be coming shortly, but in this series you can expect to:

• Learn the basics about elevators and their main components.

• Find out about the most common violations and how to avoid them.

• See what goes into the price you pay for maintenance, repair and various services.

• Discuss the expectations should you have from a maintenance company based on the elevator's usage and traffic patterns.

• Find out about upcoming code items that will have a major impact on your building(s) in the very near future.

Lunch will be provided along with the opportunity to win great prizes; Colley Elevator Yeti Tundra Cooler[$400.00 value] and gift cards.  

 
Get lunch, get educated, and have a chance to ask the questions that your building owners, unit owners, board members and tenants are always asking you!

Contact Cathy@colleyelevator.com to be sure you receive the invitation to the first Elevator 101.

Colley Elevator featured in Community Associations Institute Summer Magazine

 

Colley Elevator was excited to be a part of CAI[Community Associations Institute]’s summer magazine.  Our feature is about the elevator industry moving away from physical visits to buildings and replacing them with “as needed” or predictive technology.  

We also got a feature from one of our great mechanics finding a cat in an elevator hoistway.  This is one of the more wild service calls we have seen over at Colley.

Thank you to our friends at CAI for including us in your magazine.  To learn more about CAI Go to https://www.cai-illinois.org/

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.

Also check us out on Instagram @Colleyelevator see what we have been up to.