Gareth Lomax, Director at Ardent Lift Consultancy, talks about the different services required for lifts.

With this month’s edition of Flat-Living looking at the various services installed within blocks, we thought we would look at those directly impacting on lifts.

Power Supplies

The most obvious and important is the incoming power supply to the lift installations, this is often via a 3-phase supply for passenger carrying and larger goods lifts. 3-phase is a form of polyphase system, whereby a building can utilise higher voltage performance, whilst still supporting lower voltage circuitry.

3-phase motors utilise alternating current to provide an energy efficient supply of power to the drive, enabling a steady flow of power to be maintained, levelling out the need for power spikes. The 400v supply generated by this solution offers three times the power output against the single-phase equivalent, whilst only requiring a 50% increase in conductor material (3 wire, over 2 wire system).

Smaller domestic and goods lifts often run on a single-phase system, due to the power requirements being far less than their conventional counterparts.

Secondary Supplies

Not required unless the lift is to perform as an Evacuation or Firefighting unit, the maintenance of secondary supplies is often overlooked after the installation and commissioning phase of a scheme i.e. did you know, it is recommended that lifts secondary power supplies are tested MONTHLY?

There are a number of ways to provide secondary supplies (all of which should have automatic changeover switchgear), these include:

• Incoming mains from alternative supply to the primary power source

• Generators can be used to provide the secondary supply, though these too need to be tested monthly

• UPS (uninterruptible power supply) systems (i.e. large energy stores such as batteries) can be used for standalone supplies for Evacuation lifts, but the lift must be able to run for the time required to implement the Evacuation Plan.

Telephone Lines

Telephone lines (often fixed, but more frequently seen as GSM units) are required to maintain the communication between entrapped passengers and the lift service provider in the event of emergency. 

These systems are used to report the event that has led to the emergency, report the location of the lift and to ensure the passenger is comforted in the knowledge they are safe and an engineer has been dispatched for their rescue.

Telephone lines are often forgotten about and a frequent issue is the line being cut off as a property stops paying for a phone number they no longer recognise. Modern autodialler systems self-test to ensure phone line faults are immediately reported, but lots of lifts are still using systems that pre-date this functionality.

GSM units are more and more frequently used on this basis, as the provision of 1, 2 or 3-year contracts (as a normal mobile sim card) are being offered to clients. Often issues with signal are cited as a reason not to move to this type of service; however, as long as the supplier checks signal strength of multiple providers before allocating a network, this should be avoided. There are also aerial extenders and signal boosters available to assist.

Irrespective of the system used, phone lines should be monitored frequently and reinstated as soon as a problem is noted, they could be the difference between life and death in extreme circumstances.

Security Systems

Frequently found in major cities, building security integration is becoming more commonplace with access to buildings and their upper floors being intrinsically linked.

This can be as simple as granting access only to residents via a key card or fob, to the fully integrated speed gate systems which direct you to your first available lift and carry you to a pre-programmed floor.

BMS (Building Management Systems)

The next step in building management (and one that has been with commercial properties for decades) is the building management system, which enables the building management team to monitor many services within the property, while at the comfort of their workspace.

This relates to lifts systems via inputs/outputs on lift control systems, with simple designs offering data on the status of the lift (operational or not); whereas more complex systems provide real time information on lift position, speed and direction of travel, even permitting changes to the performance of the lift remotely if required. This level of access should only ever be permitted to suitably qualified operatives.

CCTV

Since Orwell’s 1984 the idea of ‘Big Brother’ watching us has been in the public psyche and CCTV is regularly installed on housing developments for the security of the premises.

This is equally true in lift cars, where there is the opportunity to install cameras for onsite security to monitor the lifts. Traditionally only used in cases of repeated vandalism to catch the perpetrators, modern systems can use two-way video to aid entrapped passengers further when they see them in signs of distress.