Hydraulic Elevator Modernization – Downers Grove, IL

 

In 1985 we installed 2 elevators at an office building and then provided the maintenance until the early 2000’s.  We received a call last year that the building needed a new cylinder so we replaced the cylinder.  During the FAID testing, we discovered the elevator could not become compliant to our JHA’s expectations for Fireman’s Recall.  We pitched a modernization to replace the obsolete Vertitron control systems and we got a chance to replace the equipment at the building.

Existing elevator & project scope – We replaced the elevator controller, fixtures, door operator and hydraulic power unit.  We also replaced the cylinder before this project started.

New equipment providers

Controllers – Smartrise Engineering

Door operators – GAL MOVFR 

Fixtures – Innovation Industries

Power unit – MEI w/Maxton valves

Cylinder – ITI Hydraulik

Elevator controller – The existing controller was a Vertitron VH-40 elevator controller that is no longer supported and parts are not available.  We replaced it with Smartrise Engineering C3 controllers.

 

[Existing Vertitron elevator controllers]

[New Smartrise Engineering elevator controllers]

[New Smartrise Engineering elevator controllers]

Elevator fixtures – We installed Innovation Industries hall and car fixtures to replace the original Inland fixtures.  You can see that our new car station has the 2019 compliant visual text component by Rath Microtech.

 

[Old Inland car station]

[New Innovation Industries car station]

[New Rath Microtech visual communication]

Hydraulic power unit – We removed the Colley Elevator power unit and replaced them with an MEI power unit with a Maxton UC4 valve.

 

[Old Colley submersible power units]

[New MEI submersible power units with Maxton UC4 valves]

Elevator door operator – We removed the GAL MOD door operator and replaced them with a GAL MOVFR closed loop door operator.

 

[Old car top with GAL MOD door operators]

[New car top with GAL MOVFR elevator door operators]

Elevator cylinder – We replaced the EECO cylinder with an ITI Hydraulik cylinder

 

[Old EECO cylinder]

[New ITI Hydraulik elevator cylinder]

Car ID tags – This is a very small piece of the modernization, but we now have to label each elevator with 2” or larger car ID tags at the main fire floor and alternate landing.  The tags need to be on both sides of the door frame.  In this case, there is no door frame but rather brick entrances.

 

Take away – We are seeing more and more elevator control systems become obsolete and are not supported.  The elevators may work well, but there are severe limitations on programming or making changes.  If there is a board that goes out on the control system you get into the repair game which can take 4-6 weeks and you have a coin flip of a chance[50%] that the repair will actually fix the board.

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, 14 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!

Finishing touches – The project team did a great job on the finishing touches to this project.  Machine room painted, car tops cleaned and elevator pits painted.  Love seeing this!

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.