State of Illinois Fire Marshal Elevator Safety Review Board Meeting 11/7/24

This was an important meeting of the Elevator Safety Review Board.  There is a lot of discussion about the upcoming adoption of A17.1 2022 and the ramifications it will have for our industry and building owners.  We previously reviewed some of the upcoming code change requirements on A17.1 2022 code update blog.

New Chair – Juan Gonzalez – Governor appointment – Congratulations!

Between January 24’ to October 24’

            489 Permits

            657 Licenses

            417 New units registered

            9,783 Total certificates issued

 The biggest item on the table was door lock monitoring.  In A17.1 2022 the new code requires all elevators to have this feature.  This means that if your elevator does not have door lock monitoring, you will be required to. 

It was suggested to give buildings a compliance date of 3 years after adoption of the A17.1 code.  It is for all elevators, no grandfather.  Newer elevators already comply.  It was noted that door lock monitoring is critical to prevent injuries and fatalities.

There was a question that if a device and/or add on panel was installed to get the older elevators to comply with door lock monitoring, would it require the building to bring the rest of the elevator up to the current code requirements in A17.1 2022.  The answer by the Board's elevator expert, Dick Gregory, was no.

The board motioned and approved a 3 year grace period after adoption of the new code.

It was discussed that the changes reviewed at the meeting may require a different vote on an updated version of the safety rules.  The next meeting on March 6^th, 2025 will again discuss the new code and the changes to the rules for final adoption at the Board level.  After adoption at the Board level, it would go to Springfield for the final part of the code adoption process.

The Relay Robotics application discussion was pushed to the next meeting.

Meeting adjourned

What is door lock monitoring? Door lock monitoring is a safety system that monitors the position of the doors and status of the door contact circuit.  Very simply, this does not allow the door locks to be jumped out or to malfunction and allow the elevator to run with doors in the open position.

This can be a very expensive proposition for buildings with an elevator control system that is older than 20 years old.  If your elevator control system is older than 20 years old you may need to modernize the elevator control system or add door lock monitoring provisions.

When will the new code be in place? Good question, with the new changes to the wording in the safety rules it will require an additional vote in March’s meeting and then the Springfield process starts.  If I where to guess sometime mid to late 2025.  That is only a guess. 

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.