Home Elevators & Lifts near you

The mechanism is specific. A residential elevator normally has two barriers at each floor: the swinging hoistway door in the wall, and an inner car door or gate. Where the space between them is deep enough for a small child to stand in, a child can be shut inside it by the hoistway door and then crushed or pinned when someone on another floor calls the car. CPSC's remedy is to eliminate the space rather than to supervise around it.

In 2022 the agency and three manufacturers announced voluntary recalls covering about 69,000 residential elevators, with space guards provided free of charge and help with installing them provided on request. Further recalls followed from other firms, and CPSC also issued a warning about a company that had not agreed to a recall, along with an unusual instruction to check elevators in vacation rentals as well as at home.

Several very different machines get sold under the same search term, and they are regulated, priced and maintained differently. Establish which one a company is quoting before comparing anything else about the proposals.

There is no single national elevator rulebook you can download and rely on. The ASME safety codes are model standards, and each state decides which edition it enforces, which is why two installers in neighboring states can both be right about different requirements. Minnesota's Department of Labor and Industry lists the codes it has adopted, including ASME A17.1-2016 for new and altered installations along with its maintenance and testing requirements, ASME A17.3-2015 for existing elevators, ASME A17.5-2014 for elevator electrical equipment, and ASME A18.1-2017 for platform lifts and stairway chairlifts.

Connecticut shows how the editions stack up over time. The Office of the State Building Inspector lists the safety code for elevators and escalators as ASME A17.1-1987 effective June 1, 1990, then ASME A17.1-1996 effective June 2, 1999, then ASME A17.1-2013 effective January 3, 2018, and it names private residence elevators expressly among the conveyances it is responsible for, alongside elevators, escalators, dumbwaiters, moving walks, tramways and personnel hoists. The state reports over 19,000 elevators and escalators registered with it.

Two practical consequences follow. An elevator built to an older adopted edition is not automatically unsafe, but it may lack protections a newer edition requires, which is exactly why CPSC points at the existing-equipment code A17.3-2017 for inspections of elevators already in service. And when a company tells you what the code requires, the right follow-up question is which edition your state has adopted and when.

The credential that matters is the state elevator license, and in several states it is not optional in any part of the work. Minnesota states that only licensed elevator contractors may install, maintain, alter, repair or test elevators and elevator-related devices in the state, and that permits are required for the installation, alteration and removal of elevators, with repair permits limited to what the rule identifies. Connecticut's inspectors witness required tests performed by state-licensed elevator contractors and investigate accidents and complaints.

That sits on top of the ordinary construction approvals, not instead of them. Cutting a hole through the floors of a house is structural work; the hoistway, the pit and any machine space are construction; and the supply circuit, the lighting and the emergency communication line are electrical work. Expect a building permit and an electrical permit in addition to whatever the state elevator program requires, and expect the elevator itself to be inspected and tested before it may be used.

Ask for the elevator contractor's state license number, ask who will pull which permit, and ask in writing who performs the acceptance test and the periodic inspections afterwards. If a bid is cheaper because none of that is in it, you are not comparing the same job.

A home elevator is the one machine in a house that carries people, and it is usually the least used and least watched. Interlocks wear, door gaps change when hardware shifts or a door is replaced, batteries for emergency lowering and for the car light age out quietly, and telephone lines that were installed for the car's emergency communication get disconnected during some unrelated project years later.

Set up a service agreement with a licensed elevator contractor and keep the records with the house. When you sell or rent the property, hand over the manuals, the inspection records and the recall status, and say plainly whether the door gap has been dealt with. If children visit, treat the elevator as you would a swimming pool: locked when not in use, and never a place to play.

Two proposals for the same house often differ because one includes the construction and the other does not. The variables that move a residential elevator project most are the number of floors and the total travel, the drive type and the machine space it needs, whether a hoistway already exists or has to be built through finished floors, pit and overhead clearance in a house that was not designed for either, the electrical supply and the emergency communication line, the state permit and inspection process, and the door and gate arrangement, including the guarding that closes the entrapment gap. Ask for the equipment and the building work priced separately and the comparison becomes possible.

LokalMatch is where that search starts. You describe the house once: how many floors, what you need the lift to carry, whether there is anywhere a shaft could go, and whether this is a new installation or service on an existing elevator. Elevator and lift companies covering your area receive the request and the interested ones contact you. Pros pay for the requests they receive and homeowners use the service free. LokalMatch does not install or service elevators, does not set or negotiate prices, and does not vet, rank or recommend any company, so verifying the state elevator license, the permits and the inspection remains your job. This guide is general information, not safety or legal advice.