Support for the Family of Joseph Rosa – Elevator Accident/death NYC

On February 18^th, 2021 Joseph Rosa was crushed to death in elevator fell on him.  At 25, with a brand new bride he was beginning to learn, Joseph Rosa’s future seemed bright. Unfortunately he did not make it home on February 18^th 2021 due to an elevator accident.

 

You can support this young man’s family through a gofundme page

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-the-family-of-joseph-rosa

For everyone in the elevator industry, it is a reality that we work on dangerous equipment daily. Our accidents are typically serious and sometimes fatal.  Please be careful working out there.  We can have all of the safety programs and talk about safety but we all need to be conscience of what we are doing and raise our hand when we are doing something that may be unsafe.

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.

LULA Lift New Construction – Chick-Fil-A – 500 N. Michigan – Chicago, IL

 

In 1946 an entrepreneur opened up the Dwarf Grill in a suburb of Atlanta. This was the start to the Chick-fil-A Empire.  Many years later, we get a phone call from a contractor who was building a new Chic-fil-A on the Mag Mile in Chicago. They wanted to know if we could install a LULA lift in a glass hoistway. We were referred to them by a design team that we worked with on a past project. 

We typically do not install LULA lifts, but this seemed like an interesting project with an iconic brand so we said, yes we can.  We had a great partner with CantonElevator [Eddy, Amy, Jessica(s), Brenna, Rod, Glen, Kathleen and some I am probably forgetting, thank you all!].

Elevator equipment used

            Package provider – Canton Elevator

            Controller – Smartrise

            Door equipment – GAL

            Fixtures – Innovation

 

It all started with a hole in the ground – Back in January we did an owners meeting with the design team, general contractor, reps, etc.  And this is what we saw - the hole was not square, was not correct, and was not lined up with the drawings.  Collectively everyone on the design team, GC, trades and Colley had some work to do.

 

[Elevator pit]

[Elevator machine room]

Steel work – The steel work needed to match up with the pit as well as the building structure.  None of this was easy as we had to make accommodations for the existing conditions.

Elevator work – The steel was up, now it was our turn to install the lift.

Glass work – The glass hoistway looks great on the drawings and renderings, but the crew that put the glass in made their money with this installation.

 

Final product – Take a look at the culmination of the months and months of prelim and onsite coordination.  The project turned out great!

Take away – Every construction/MOD project that isn’t “vanilla” will pit the building owner, GC, CM, trades and elevator contractor against each other, it is the nature of some of the more complicated projects.  The team we had onsite sorted out all of the challenges at this building and did a phenomenal job on the successful installation of the lift. We had a remote machine room, open steel hoistway, COVID and a whole lot of other curve balls thrown our way.  Fourteen Colley Elevator employees had their hands on this project from start to finish; from the first phone call to the final inspection. We had a great elevator project team and a great construction superintendent that worked with us to make this go as smoothly as possible.  

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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.

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

Elevator World – Preventative maintenance – Is technology a complement of substitute for the elevator technician - February 2021

 

This is an article that we worked on for Elevator World tackling the world of remote monitoring.  When the opportunity came up I jumped on it as we just had gotten passed up on an 12 car group of elevators for an OEM because the OEM sold them on remote monitoring.  The building management nor the Condominium Board knew that for the last 15 years they have had the OEM, then a different multinational and their elevators had never been cleaned, but, the whole time they had a gizmo on their elevator that provided remote monitoring.  In our market our OEMs overload their maintenance technicians so they do not even get a chance to do preventative maintenance.  This is our take on remote monitoring.  

If you get the chance take a look at this issue there some other great articles about preventative maintenance and cable care.  www.elevatorworld.com

Special thanks to my coworkers Adam Clayton, Dennis Finn and Cathy Hayat for helping out on the article.  As always thanks to Elevator World for giving us a platform.   

Hey! Sign up for our mailing list!  Top right corner of the blog.

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.

Elevator picture Hall of Fame 2020 - 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 during out 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 we've seen this past year.

Wired! – This elevator is wired and works.  That is about all we can say about this elevator modernization. Looks like there have been some hatchet battles that have taken place in the controller.

Hair club for cylinder heads – This cylinder head a more hair on it than most Buccaneers of a certain age.

Halloween cylinder head – Believe it or not we saw this cylinder head on Halloween.  We got a call from the building that they kept hearing a noise in the pit.  It turned out that the cylinder head was dressing up for Halloween as a cheetah and the noise the building was hearing was from the head purring.

 

Locked, stock and smoking elevator controller – We went all the way up to an elevator machine room with a building owner and he asked the person who went up there if they can help with cutting the lock off.  “I brought up the bolt cutters, can you finish”?  We politely declined.

 

Unicorn – We see all sorts of hydraulic machines and retro fits to machines, this is one of the more unique retrofits I have seen.  The project team did make it work.

 

Anarchy in the hoistway – We went to a building who opted to get safeties installed on their elevator instead of replacing the elevator cylinder to comply with our Chicago cylinder mandate.  Governah! 

 

Just the right spot – Not sure about this one but I’m pretty sure that there is a trust issue or a leak.

 

Crazy Eight – Here it is!

 

The shop never sent me a pit bucket with top – We applaud the intent for some of these stop gap measures, but, sometimes we forget to go back and put in a correct solution.

 

Maintenance mechanic’s new account dream – When a maintenance mechanic walks onto a job for the first time after picking up the building on maintenance, sometimes we find this.  

 

To be fair 99% of the elevators we go through are in reasonable condition but sometimes you pause when reviewing the buildings for maintenance, modernization or service when the sales person brings back the information and we do a job/pricing review.  These are from the 4^th standard deviation.

Hey! Sign up for our mailing list!  Top right corner of the blog.

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.

Elevator pit sump pump – Water in my elevator pit!

We have been seeing more and more water situations with buildings with older elevator systems. We have quite a few elevator pits that do not have sump pumps in pit in the Chicago area.  The biggest issue with the elevator pit is it typically is the lowest point in the building and water will find its way into our pit dependent on the water table in the area. What do you do if you get water in the elevator pit and you do not have a sump pump in it?  There are a few different solutions; inject pit walls, install drain tiles in the pit floor or the best solution is to install a sump pump.

 

[Water in the elevator pit]

[Plumbers pumped it out and prepped for coring]

[Popped the core out and ready for a sump]

[Installed sump - ready for next rain or snow melt]

What is the requirement for an elevator sump pump?  I’m glad you asked. 
In elevators provided with Fire Fighters Operation it is 3000gal/h per elevator.  One elevator 3000gal/h, 2 elevators 6000gal/h, etc.  The reason it is so high is because if there was a sprinkler in the pit, it would need to keep up with the sprinkler. 

What happens if I don’t address the water issue in the elevator pit?  You will begin to damage/corrode your elevator pit equipment, cylinder and piping which could lead to catastrophic failure if left unchecked and not addressed properly.  You will also have all the environmental issues that go along with having stagnant water below your elevator and pushing air to each floor through the gaps in the doors.  And then, there is the smell that comes with the water.  Below is a picture of what happens to hydraulic lines if they are under water.

Hey! Sign up for our mailing list!  Top right corner of the blog.

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.

Hydraulic Elevator Modernization – Forest Park, IL

 

In April of 1969 Colley Elevator ordered material for a building that was being built Forest Park, IL and Feguson Jenkins, Billy Williams, Ron Santo and Ernie Banks where on their way to their ill-fated season where they should have won the pennant race.  52 Years later we modernized the elevator and a few years prior the Cubs won the World Series.  Over the last 52 years we had a preventative maintenance relationship with the building and it finally was time to replace the elevator equipment.  A few great things about this; we had a great relationship with our customer for 52 years and the elevator equipment was still running the day we took it out of service to complete the elevator modernization. 

Existing elevator & project scope – The building owner had a few issues with the elevator system and we had prepared them over the years that the day was coming where they would have to replace the equipment, the day finally came.

[Old Machine room layout]

[New Machine room layout]

New equipment providers

Controllers – Smartrise Engineering

Power units – Delaware Elevator w/Maxton UC4 valve

Door operators – GAL MOVFR

Fixtures – Innovation Industries

Hydraulic elevator controller – The 1969 Elevator Research and Manufacturing[ERM] had seen its better days and was ready for replacement. Some minor replacements had been made over the years; a new electronic selector and a new starter.  

[Old ERM Controller]

[New Smartrise Engineering Controller]

Hydraulic elevator power unit – This was a Colley Elevator special, made in Franklin Park, IL.

[New Delaware Elevator power unit]

[New Maxton UC4 valve]

Door operators – The elevator had a GAL MOD on it prior to the modernization and replaced with a GAL MOVFR.  The door operator came out of the Bronx, NYC across the street from Yankee Stadium.  The New York Mets won the Pennant this year.  As a Chicagoan I'm not sure of the difference between the two teams, they both have pin stripes.

[New GAL MOVFR and fire resistant paint on the wood car top]

 

Elevator fixtures – The old EPCO fixtures are replaced with new code compliant Innovation Industries elevator fixtures.

[Old EPCO elevator car station]

[New Innovation Industries ADA compliant car station]

[Old first floor EPCO hall station]

[New Innovation Industries 1st floor hall station - ADA compliant]

 

Take away – The elevator modernization is a pretty vanilla one in the grand scheme of things.  But, this is what most elevator modernizations are, buildings with older elevator equipment who need to be educated prior to their elevator equipment conking out.  It is amazing to see some of the equipment we installed back in the late 1960’s still running.  I was just at a building in Skokie, IL that still has a 1966 Colley Elevator running.  I’m confident that the elevators we are currently installing, as an industry, will not last close to 52 years.  Way to go 1969 Team Colley.  The Chicago Cubs are still here, Colley Elevator is still here.  We have some legends on both teams.

Hey! Sign up for our mailing list!  We should be getting a monthly email going out sometime in Q1 of next year.

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.