Why is my lift not working?

The plight of the forever broken-down lift is one that’s becoming so regular, even the BBC goes on about the residents of London tower blocks having to scale the stairs for months on end. Increasingly, we have customers come to us for help with lifts that have been out of service for a longer than usual length of time.

But why? What ubiquitous factor is causing such an impact? Typically, when a lift is out of service, the lift maintenance contractor will attend the site, diagnose the problem, and either repair the lift there and then or order components that they do not have in stock to get the lift working. At simplest, this should be a process of a few days before your lift is back in service. But why is this so often not the case?

Why does the lift contractor not carry the spare parts for my lift?

In the UK, we have the option to choose between multi-national original equipment manufacturer (OEM) suppliers and independent lift contractors when sourcing spare parts. This is useful, providing more choice and ensuring pricing and quality remains competitive. However, there’s now so much choice that it impedes efficiency, as no contractor can carry spare parts for all types and manufacturers of lifts.

If you have an OEM lift and it is maintained by anyone other than the multi-national OEM, then spare parts from the OEM will cost you more to buy and will be delivered whenever the OEM can get them from their factory. Some OEMs will not use their local stock of spare parts to sell to outside contractors, but will instead order them in from their overseas factory.

Alternatively, if your lift is manufactured and installed by an independent contractor and they have used locally sourced components, then any maintenance contractor will be able to source the parts to repair your lift, or indeed source an alternative part that will work just as well, to repair your lift.

However, there are quite a few independent manufacturers who will try and source all their parts cheaply. This would include sourcing vital components such as the controller, wiring harness, lift positioning system, door operator, doors and main motor, or main gearbox and motor, from factories in countries who do not have very good quality control, use cheap labour and value engineer their equipment to be as cheap as possible. Once one of these lifts are installed in your building and it breaks down after its 12-month warrantee period, it can be almost impossible to source spares from the factory in the overseas country. This can be due to language barriers, exorbitant prices and long lead times, equipment no longer being manufactured and companies no longer trading.

OEM suppliers

In the UK there are many multi-national OEMs who manufacture and install lifts. They manufacture and install lifts to meet several ‘model’ type lift ranges. This means that they will provide an off-the-shelf generic product and all you need to do is provide the lift shaft sizes they tell you to.

Therefore, in certain circumstances, an OEM lift will take very little capital investment and can suit a site perfectly, going on to run trouble free for 15-20 years. The OEM may then tie you into an expensive, long-term maintenance contract, but as long as they maintain the lift and you pay, this option works. This low-cost capital with higher cost maintenance model works well for developers, who only need to provide the capital costs and do not need to worry about the ongoing maintenance cost.

There are of course multiple different types of buildings where the OEM lift is not suitable, such as if you are refurbishing or replacing your lifts and the lift shafts, pits or headrooms are non-standard; most social housing blocks, high public traffic, vandalism or misuse prone sites; certain environmental factors such as on the sea front, in hospitals, mines and other non-standard applications.

Independent suppliers

The independent market in the UK consists of over a hundred lift contractors who will all install and maintain lifts. The installation of these lifts may require several different suppliers and use variously sourced parts to create the necessary components. The lift contractor will assemble and test each collection of parts to create a viable working lift installation, which will then be given a UKCA (United Kingdom Conformity Assessed) marking, replacing the CE marking from Europe. In general, these lifts are a bit more expensive that the generic lifts supplied by the OEMs, as these are bespoke made for each site, lift shaft constraints and environmental factors.

The independent lifts are generally more reliable and will, in most instances, last longer than a generic OEM lift. The downside to the independent market lift solution is that they do not have the ability to spend the same amount of money that the multi-nationals spend on research and development, and therefore are not suitable for high rise, high speed, and complicated control arrangements, although they are not too far behind these days.

So, although these lift contractors will often prove a more reliable, robust proposal for buildings, they generally will have greater magnitudes of options for spare parts, leaving thousands of different components that a lift contractor would need to carry to fix any break down in the UK on the spot.

Importing lift parts

Typically, when your lift has been shut down for several weeks or months, it is because the lift contractor has ordered a part that is taking a long time to be shipped, usually from a foreign factory. The customs process has become more onerous since Brexit, causing considerable delays.

This is when we would normally get a call from the customer asking us to see if we can help speed up the process of obtaining the part. We know a lot of suppliers in the industry, but even if we call to add our weight behind the request, we will often find that the repairs, service or managing director from the lift contractor has already been in contact.

Shipping

The shipment of the replacement parts from abroad through to British customs and then onto the lift contractor is largely dependent on how the item is shipped, whether it has or hasn’t been labelled urgent, or express. Some suppliers will ship within 24 hours and pay for the extra shipping all the way through from the lift contractor and to the client. However, if the lift contractor cannot pass the cost of this to the client, a contractor will often opt for a cheaper method of shipping.

Additionally, if the OEM or the client’s recognised lift contractor no longer maintains the lift in question, then it is not in their interest to get parts out to a third-party lift contractor in any great hurry.

They would much rather be in a position to suggest that if they or their agent were still maintaining the lift, you would get your part a lot quicker than a third-party agent can source it. They may prioritise selling parts to their approved sub-contractors and agents over other clients.

So, how can you address these potential pitfalls?

The best way to ensure that you get a lift that is suitable for your building and the environment is to engage with an independent specialist lift consultant who can provide a bespoke specification and advice on what type of equipment to use.

Without a detailed technical specification being provided, such as would be provided by Cundall in our capacity as a lift consultant, some lift contractors will scour the globe for the cheapest possible package parts that they can put together to form a lift. This will successfully lower the initial cost of a lift’s installation, sometimes by up to almost half the price of their competitors, but quality will be thrown to the wayside in the process and maintenance will have just got a whole lot harder.

Once priced proposals have been received for your lift, a lift consultant will assess not just their pricing choices, but also consider the technical merits of their proposal. By helping you to know which lift contractor has the best offer and why, you will come to understand why you should avoid some offers and how to spot future disaster, even when they may be disguised as great value for money.