Community Associations Institute [CAI] – Condo – HOA – Conference & Expo 2023 - Rosemont, IL

 

We were back at the CAI condo-HOA conference & expo this year on Friday, February 10^th, 2023.  We set up our booth to visit with homeowners, property managers and other trades who do work for Associations.

The Community Associations Institute [CAI] is an international membership organization dedicated to building better communities.  CAI has over 40,000 members and 64 chapters worldwide and provides information, education and resources to homeowner volunteers who govern communities and the professional who support them.

Colley Elevator has been coming to the show for the last 11 years and has a very positive experience at these conventions.

 

 We had some great Colley ambassadors spent the day talking to existing customers, potential customers and other trades that where showing there who we have mutual interests.  We heard a lot of compliments of our service and fielded questions on new codes, requirements and talked about potential leads.  The show also had opportunities for homeowner education which we got a chance to sit in on.

One of the cool things about the show is to bump into people that you may have traded emails with or talked on the phone with and meet them in person.  I heard a “I just want to let you know that you guys are great and made our transition into managing this building very easy when we took over at XXXX Street.”  That is great to hear!  Go Team Colley!  We also got to spend time with our friends over at VDA, who were also presenting, VDA is a great elevator consulting firm across the country.

Thank you again to the CAI for having us at the show and we look forward to working with you more in the future.  

We also are giving away a Walter Payton Jersey for those who sign up for our newsletter before 3/3/23, so get your name on the list!

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.

Elevator picture Hall of Fame 2023 – Superbowl of Elevators

The Hall of Fame posts are typically some of the more popular blogs in the Colley blog history. We get to see a lot of elevators during the year at our initial visits for pricing or during engineering for projects.  Of the hundreds of elevators and thousands of pictures we look at, these are some of the gems I've seen this past year.

 

Olive Oil – Popeye the cartoon was on every once in a while when I was younger and was always a treat.  Bluto would mess with Popeye, somehow Olive Oil would get involved then Popeye would eat his spinach and save the day. Lots of things going on in this elevator pit; 2 pit buckets, a rec pump and lots of oil.  I’ll give it to the elevator that it is a very crummy cylinder head but holy smokes!  This elevator pit needs some spinach.

 

Art class is for creativity – I like to think I was creative and orbited creative people; artists, musicians, metal workers, etc.  While I try, that part of my brain never developed as much as my friends/coworkers.  There is a place and time for creativity and that time is not for emergency hoist way opening devices.

 

The teacher gave you a D – Bozo called and said he needs a new Cookie. I’ll check the check charts and make my recommendation. This is from getting a call to go to a building and bid maintenance and a project that a consultant was part of.  The elevator maintenance company was coming to the building monthly, but the building got a “D” grade for maintenance from the consultant.  As an industry we can do better, this car top is a disappointment. 

 

All Star– Do you remember that song from the band Smashmouth?  They had a few singles, but now they have a great gig doing summer dates with Sugar Ray and probably making some good money on nostalgia.  Well the singer of Smashmouth had a personal implosion and broke up the band.  I think it would be pretty cool to play weekend festivals and get paid $20,000 to 40,000 per show.  I don’t know if I remember seeing two egress levels before, maybe the guy from Smashmouth is the Braille guy for an elevator company and only puts up star Braille.  We would hire him just to say we work with the guy from Smashmouth.

 

When it rains it pours– One of my favorite bands is a group called Jawbreaker who had the Morton Salt girl on their shirts for the longest time.  Jawbreaker ended up signing to a major label and put a great record out but it was ahead of its time. They eventually broke up and then we all caught up and now love this record.  In Chicago we had a super storm that clocked the neighborhood in Chicago called Rogers Park. This neighborhood was mainly constructed in the late 1960s and most of the elevators do not have sumps.

 

Your hair is everywhere– There was a guy from Florida called Chris Carrabba who was in a few bands, most notably Dashboard Confessional, and hit it big by singing a song called “Screaming Infidelities”.  I always wondered where all the hair that he mentions in his song went. I would imagine this is 30 years of hair that has collected here, is this hair screaming infidelities? 

 

Free storage – In a lot of residential buildings we take care of you need to pay for storage or buy the unit.  A few people know the secret room where you can jam in all your stuff for free - our elevator room!  And thank you to the building for doing this because we, as elevator personnel, love moving your stuff out of the machine room to service your elevator.  The bright side is that we can give the people waiting for the broken elevator to be fixed a chair to sit on and pumpkins to play with while they wait. 

 

Who done it? – Professor Plum in the cloak room with the candle stick.  I know we don’t like Madison controllers and they all should have been modernized by now but Holy Smokes!  License and registration please.  

 

Snake eyes– I always wanted to know why Snake Eyes didn’t talk and Storm Shadow did?  Why was Snake Eyes in black and was good and Storm Shadow in white and bad?  We cleaned up a packing leak at an industrial facility the other day and found this little fella in our elevator pit.  I'm color blind but did you notice that Cobra Commander wore Dover blue in the 1980s?   Could Cobra Commander have been the CEO of Dover Elevator?  Destro his #2?  What did the Baroness do?  Is Serpentor in charge of TKE?

John Dodds and Dustin Witham I’m thinking of you guys as the Super Bowl is happening and hope you brokered some type of friendly wager.  

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.

Hydraulic Elevator Modernization – Norridge, IL

 

This is a story about elevators installed in 2000 by Schindler Elevator.  The challenges with these specific cars was the control platform[no technical support], part availability and reliability.  The campus developed a capital plan for all of their elevators while working with an elevator consultant.  These two were next on the list to be replaced.

Existing elevator & project scope – We replaced the elevator controller, fixtures, door operators with associated door equipment and the hydraulic power unit.

New equipment providers

Controllers – Smartrise Engineering

Door operators – GAL MOVFR w/new ECI door equipment

Fixtures – Innovation Industries

Power unit – MEI with Maxton valves

Elevator controller – The existing elevator had a Schindler/Westinghouse MPH 2 control system that, in our opinion, needed to be replaced due to reliability issues, proprietary nature of controller[no technical support] as well as part availability.  The new Smartrise control system will allow the building to have technical support as well as a much easier time getting parts.

[Existing Schindler/Westinghouse MPH 2 control system]

[New Smartrise Engineering hydraulic elevator controller]

Elevator door operators – We replaced the original GAL ECI door operator with a GAL MOVFR door operators and replaced the ECI door equipment with new ECI door equipment.

 

[Existing ECI door operators]

[New GAL MOVFR door operators]

Elevator fixtures – We installed Innovation Industries hall and car fixtures to replace the original Schindler/Westinghouse fixtures. The new car panel complies with the recently mandated A17.1.2019 code which requires two way visual communications designed for hearing-impaired riders.

 

[Old Westinghouse/Schindler Elevator car station]

[new Innovation Industries car station with visual text feature]

[This car station has a camera, screen to read text communication and yes and no buttons]

Hydraulic power unit – We removed the Schindler submersible power unit with UV5 valves and installed an MEI Elevator submersible power unit with a Maxton UC4 hydraulic control valve.  The controllers mounted on the front is easier to install but harder to work on because you need to get on your hands and knees (or bent over) to see everything.

 

[Existing hydraulic power units with EECO UV 5 valves and controllers mounted on the front]

[New MEI power units with controllers mounted on the wall at eye level so you can easily work on them]

[New MEI valves and inflatable muffler to reduce noise]

Take away – This building has a plan to replace all of their elevators because they need reliable vertical transportation for their population.  The building has a plan and list of the elevators in order of need and is capitalizing them each year to spread out the projects/cost.

Team work– The sales person and the project team who finishes typically get the glory on a project.  In between the initial contract sale and the final acceptance are many other people who work on the project to make it successful.  From the truck driver to the engineer to the billing department to the assist when needed 12 Colley Elevator employees where involved in the project and we had tremendous team work on it.  Thank you everyone without you we would not have had such a successful delivery!  Let’s not forget our great material supplier participation!

Team work with the building – We have a great building owner who we can work with hand and hand with the challenges that pop up, this helps tremendously to make a smooth project.  Great communication, great team work, great results.

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.