Elevator Modernization

There is no standard modernization package

Most suppliers publish a fixed package and fit the building to it. We do not, because the honest answer to "what needs replacing?" is that it depends on what has worn out on that lift.

At the light end, a lift that has been maintained properly may need only new cabin interior cladding and new door panels. The mechanical and electrical systems are still sound; the building simply wants the lift to look and feel current.

At the heavy end, on a lift that has been running for decades, everything except the guide rails may need replacing.

Between those two ends, almost any combination occurs. The traction machine is a good example: on some lifts it is still sound and stays; on others it is replaced along with everything else. The same is true of the doors, the control panel and the fixtures.

Cabin, landing and car doors, traction machine, control panel, push buttons and indicators can each be supplied on their own or together. We do not sell them as named packages, because naming a package would mean deciding the scope before seeing the lift.

What can usually stay, and the one item that decides everything

The shaft itself almost always stays. In many projects the guide rails and the counterweight can be reused as well, and when they can, the job becomes far shorter and far less disruptive.

The rails are the pivot. On a lift that is very old, the guide rails are often no longer true — decades of use leave them bent, and a bent rail cannot guide a new car safely or quietly. When that is the case the rails have to be replaced too, and the work moves from an equipment change to a shaft job: rails, brackets, alignment.

This single question — are the rails still true? — separates a one-week job from a longer one.

How long the lift is out of service

A lift has to stand still while it is modernized, so the building's real question is not how long the parts take to make but how long the lift is unavailable.

Where the guide rails and counterweight do not have to be changed, the work is completed and handed over in five to seven working days.

Where the rails also have to be replaced, the lift is out for longer. We do not publish a figure for that case, because it depends on the number of stops, the travel height and the condition of the shaft, and a number given before the lift has been assessed would be a guess. It is quoted in writing before the order is confirmed.

For a building manager this is usually the deciding question, so it is worth asking every supplier for it in writing — and worth being cautious about any supplier who gives the same answer for every building.

Delivery: two to three weeks

Modernization components are delivered in two to three weeks.

That is faster than a new lift. A standard complete package from our factories ships in four weeks from order confirmation, and a package needing custom engineering in six to seven. Modernization is quicker because the components are drawn from established production rather than engineered from a blank shaft drawing.

How the lift is assessed before we quote

Nothing can be quoted until someone has established what is actually worn. For export projects that happens in one of three ways, depending on who the buyer is.

If you are a lift company. You inspect the installation yourself and tell us which components you want to replace. We price that list and give you a delivery date against it. This is the fastest route, because the technical judgement has already been made by someone standing in front of the lift.

If you are not a lift company. Send us video and photographs of the installation, and describe the faults you are having — what the lift does, when it does it, what the maintenance company has already tried. We tell you which components need to be replaced. Symptoms are informative: how a lift fails usually indicates which part has failed.

If there are many lifts. Where the number of lifts justifies it, we send our own team to inspect on site. This is the most accurate route for a portfolio — a housing estate, a hotel group, a municipality — where a wrong assumption repeated across twenty lifts is expensive.

In all three cases the output is the same: a written list of what is being replaced, a price against that list, and a delivery date.

Proprietary systems: why some lifts cannot be partly modernized

There is one situation that changes the scope regardless of wear, and it is worth knowing before an assessment rather than after.

Some manufacturers code their components to each other. The controller, the push buttons and the door equipment are matched electronically at the factory, and the system checks that the parts it is talking to are the ones it left with. Replace a single item — a button panel, a door operator — and the lift will not run.

On those installations, partial modernization is not possible. It is not a question of quality or of fit; the system is designed to refuse third-party parts. The practical consequence is that the scope jumps: control panel, buttons and doors have to be renewed together rather than item by item.

Any make of lift can be modernized. But on a coded system the choice is not between a small job and a large one — it is between renewing the electrical package as a whole and leaving the lift as it is. Establishing which kind of system is in the shaft is part of the assessment.

Which standard applies to a modernization

This is where modernization differs most from a new installation, and where a lot of confusion sits. A new lift is straightforward: Lifts Directive 2014/33/EU, EN 81-20 and EN 81-50. Work on an existing lift is not governed by the same route.

EN 81-80 is worth understanding properly, because it is the standard written for exactly this situation. Rather than requiring an old lift to meet the current construction standard outright, it assesses the installation against a list of known hazardous situations and ranks them, so that the money goes to the highest risks first. The current edition is EN 81-80:2019. Older references to a list of 74 hazards come from the superseded 2003 edition; the 2019 revision expanded it to 85.

A note on national rules. The table above covers the European standards, which are used internationally. Every market also has its own regulations on top of them — in Turkey, for example, work on existing lifts is governed by the national lift operation and maintenance regulation and the periodic inspection regulation. Those rules apply in Turkey and do not transfer to your market. Your own authority or notified body decides what applies where the lift is installed, and it is worth confirming that before the scope is fixed.

Modernize or replace?

Replacement makes sense when the shaft itself is wrong for the building — too small a car for the traffic it now carries, a pit or headroom that cannot accept modern safety gear, or a structure that has moved.

Modernization makes sense in most other cases, and particularly when the shaft is sound and the rails are still true. It costs less in building work, it is delivered faster, and it does not require the floors around the shaft to be opened up.

The assessment answers the question. It should establish, in writing: the condition of the guide rails, whether the counterweight can be reused, whether the control system is a coded one, the number of stops and travel height, and which safety components have to change to meet the target standard.