Home Elevator Maintenance Tips: Dos and Don’ts In Detail

Problems That Can Occur In Home Elevators

Before we understand the solutions, we’ll have to look at the potential problems that can occur with a home elevator. Here’s a detailed dive into everything that can go wrong with your home elevator:

1. Misaligned Motors
Misaligned motors are when one of the motors drives out of sync with the others. This is a major hazard because it could lead to undue stress on one motor and lead to tumbles or falls. It’s also a major financial problem because you’ll have to replace the worn-out parts more frequently because of excessive stress.

2. Worn Sheaves
The sheaves are rolling drums that keep suspending and regularizing the hoisting cables, counterweight, and main elevator body. Worn sheaves could cause damage to the cables, which could in turn lead to snaps and other hazards. Inspecting your sheaves is of the utmost importance to avoid unnecessary risks.

3. Elevator Controller Issues
The elevator control box could malfunction due to several issues. Since it controls most of the functions of an elevator, having a busted controller is asking for trouble. Controller issues are generally rare, but we’d recommend keeping an eye on them.

4. Contimated Elevator Oil
Elevators, like most mechanical machines, use oil to propagate. The oil acts as a lubricant to prevent wear and tear between turning gears, sliding pieces, and other small bits. Sometimes a dislodged piece of metal or other bits can contaminate the lubricant oil and cause prolonged wear and tear.

5. Worn Cables and Faulty Wiring
Elevator hoisting cables and traveling cables are in a constant state of wearing down. Because of the constant load and stress, these cables and wires need eventual replacement. Generally, elevator cables need to be replaced every 3 to 5 years to keep the elevator safe and functional.

6. Elevator ARD Problems
An ARD (Automatic Rescue Device) is a backup supply for an elevator. Generally, an ARD contains enough juice to take your home lift to the nearest floor in an emergency power failure. If there’s something wrong with your ARD, you’ll be left stuck in the elevator.
In offices and buildings, you’ll have someone, like a guard, take emergency steps. When you’re alone at home, this could spell disaster for you. Remember, always check your ARD, and if you want to know more, read our What is ARD guide.

How to Maintain Your Home Elevator

You cannot troubleshoot all home elevator problems on your own. For example, you can’t fix faulty wiring by yourself if you have no prior experience. You can, however, inspect your elevator to find faults, and call a professional elevator repair company on time.
You can also clean and maintain some of the smaller bits of your residential elevator. Let’s look at how you can undertake both of these tasks.

Cleaning Your Elevator
Fortunately, cleaning an elevator is super simple, and here’s how you can do it:
● Take a 70% alcohol solution and a microfiber cloth.
● Spray the alcohol cleaning solution on the surfaces of the elevator.
● Gently rub and clean with the soft microfiber cloth.
● Use a room spray to give your elevator that fresh smell.
Overall, this is all it takes to clean your elevator. You can use a standard broom or vacuum to clean the floor, and a standard sanitization solution to clean any reflective mirrors.

Inspecting Your Elevator
Here’s how you can do a simple inspection of your elevator:
● Call the Elevator: Check if the elevator is level with the ground. If it isn’t there might be something wrong with the suspending wires or the stopgap beneath it.
● Check the Buttons: Press each button on the elevator to check if it works properly. If any of the buttons aren’t working, you’ll have to call a maintenance company to repair them.
● Double Check the Doors: The doors of an elevator should open and close smoothly. You can also check the safety sensors by placing a dummy object in the door to see if the elevator doors identify obstructions.

These are some of the things that you can check by yourself. If any of these aren’t working normally or your elevator malfunctions, you will have to arrange a maintenance visit.
When the elevator service experts arrive, they will check your elevator for the following things:
● Elevator Motor
● Elevator Door
● Door Sensors
● Car Operation Controls
● ARD Emergency Systems
● Rail System
● Travelling Cables
● Sheaves
● Drive System

Replacing Worn Out Parts
Elevators are complex machines that have tons of moving and stationary parts. Without regular and preventive maintenance, an elevator will lose its value and eventually break down. Unfortunately, only an elevator technician can replace old or malfunctioning parts of an elevator.
An average person doesn’t have the skills or tools to understand, analyze, and replace every piece of an elevator. The good news is that there are countless elevator repair or maintenance services, that can do all of the work for you at a fraction of the cost.

Importance of Regular Residential Elevator Maintenance

Proper maintenance of an elevator car and the associated parts can save you from a lot of trouble down the road. Let’s briefly discuss the importance of regularly scheduled maintenance:

Longer Lifetime: When you keep your elevator maintained, you reduce stress on the individual parts and increase its longevity. It means you have to pay less for the convenience of a home elevator while you enjoy it fully for a lifetime.

Less Medical Bills: Faulty or misaligned elevators could cause multiple problems or accidents. A simple tumble or fall could lead to multiple injuries and astounding medical bills.

Minimal Repair Costs: Maintenance is essential to bringing down long-term repair costs. If you wait for your elevator to break down completely, you’ll have to pay more than $15,000. However, if you take care of basic maintenance tasks, you won’t have to pay more than $7,000.

Home Elevator Maintenance Costs

The average maintenance costs for a home elevator can cost between $1,000 to $20,000. This figure changes based on the type of elevator you’re using, the extent of the damage, and the time it takes to fix the elevator. For reference, $20,000 is the maximum figure for a complete reinstallment of the elevator cab.
If you carry out frequent elevator inspections and service your elevator in a timely fashion, you’ll only have to pay the least amount per year.

How Often Do Home Elevators Need to Be Serviced?

Low usage or personal lifts require 2 to 4 services per year. Apart from this, we’d recommend keeping an eye on the workings of the elevator and going for a routine maintenance check every month or two.
If you aren’t well versed in maintenance checks, you can schedule regular maintenance checks by contacting an elevator maintenance and repair company. It saves you a lot of time, money, and effort.

Maintain Your Elevator And Get Discounts

Maintaining your home elevator is super-easy when you realize what you can and cannot do. For example, you can clean the elevator and inspect it for damage. When you recognize the damage or problem, you can contact a professional elevator repair person to help you out.

Finally, the quality of the elevator you use plays a significant role in its maintenance schedule. The better your elevator is, the less it breaks down. At DAZEN we believe in quality and affordability for all of our customers.

We are elevator manufacturers and maintenance experts, dedicated to making the lives of our customers much safer and better. Get in touch with us today to get your home elevator back into tip-top shape. Request a quote today, or email us at info@dazentech.com.