How often should maintenance be carried out on lifts?

The amount of maintenance a lift will need depends on several factors including the amount of usage, type of usage and the age of the lift. For example, offices often follow a recurring pattern of fairly high and daily usage, low rise buildings may have lifts which only see sporadic use for accessibility and in high traffic areas, such as airports, lifts can be in constant use for the majority of every day. The usage pattern is likely to impact on what your lift maintenance provider recommends for regular checks. Lifts that are commonly used for luggage, bags and trolleys may also need to be checked more often, as these all pose extra risk of damage to the lift doors.

Regular inspections between examinations need to be carried out by trained individuals with checks of functional lift operation, these checks should determine that the lift is functioning as expected and ensure that safety is upheld.

A service will include checking parts of your lifts such as:

• Landing and car doors and their interlocks
• Worn and other gearing; including main drive system components
• Overspeed Governors (this is a “safety catch” for if a lift car exceeds a certain speed)
• Safety gear
• Suspension ropes
• Suspension chains
• Overload detection devices
• Electrical devices (including earthing, earth bonding, safety devices, selection of fuses, etc)
• Braking systems (including buffers and overspeed devices)
• Hydraulics

This list is not exhaustive and was taken from HSE Guidance for Lift Owners 02/12. https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg339.pdf

What regulations are there for the maintenance and modernisation of lifts?

EN81-20 and EN81-50 are the European standards specifically for lifts with EN81-70 covering accessibility requirements. These should be considered as best practise when updating all parts of the lift but only strictly need to be followed for new installations or major modernisation (refurbishment). Your lift maintenance provider will be able to tell you if any work they are doing is considered to be a major modernisation and if your lifts are compliant to the latest regulations.

About Us

Avire is a manufacturer of communication and safety products for lifts. We focus on creating products that meet the latest standards and go a step further to help protect your lifts and passengers.

At Avire we recognise that Facilities Managers and buildings need visibility of all aspects of the buildings that they manage and that lifts are a vital part of this. For more information on how we can help please get in contact and we can work with you and you lift maintenance provider to find the solution that you need.

All information correct at the time of writing – May 2020.