If you are a building owner who rents your building to one or more companies or you are a business owner who owns the business premises your company is based in, there may come a point when you decide that you wish to have a commercial lift installed.
This can provide benefits such as making it easier for staff and visitors to access upper floors, and make the movement of goods and inventory around your business premises a more efficient operation.
If you decide to have a commercial lift installed it is a fair bet that this is not something that happens regularly.
Given that modern commercial lifts can have a lifespan exceeding 20 years, it is not the sort of installation that happens multiple times within the same building.
As such this may well be the first time you have ever undertaken such a project. Whilst it will be a commercial lift installation company that carries out all the work necessary to take the lift from an initial idea to a fully installed working lift, you will have plenty of input too.
This will include choosing what commercial lift installation company you are going to hire for the project, deciding what style and design of lift you want, and planning around any disruption to your business that arises as a result of the lift installation.
Beyond that, you will have the regular lift cleaning and maintenance to arrange as well.
For you to have a better chance of everything you need to do happen more effectively, it will help if you have as much an understanding of each part of the process as possible, including the installation itself.
Whilst that does not mean you need to know how the lift drive works, or how the lift’s control panel is wired, it will not do any harm for you to know where they each fit into the process.
We could probably layout dozens of small individual sub-processes for a commercial lift’s installation, but that would be far more detailed than it needs to be for your benefit.
Instead, here are the 5 main stages that go into making a commercial lift installation complete.
#1 Lift Shaft: The size, height, and layout of your building will greatly influence how the lift shaft is created, or even if one is needed at all.
Some smaller commercial lifts can be installed in an existing space with the lift shaft being erected rather than created by removing parts of the building’s interior.
#2 Lift Columns: All commercial lifts require columns that will be installed within the lift shaft. The columns will need to be aligned and set up in accordance with the floors the lift will stop at.
#3: The Carriage: The lift carriage is the centrepiece of the whole project, and part of its installation will involve its wheel blocks being attached, plus all the equipment on top and underneath relating to cables, brakes, and stability.
#4: Doors And Enclosures: A lift is of little use without doors, and apart from the doors which form part of the carriage, your lift installation team will need to create the means for the doors on each floor that the lift will stop at to be installed.
#5: Electrics: Whilst many of the larger cables will have been installed during earlier parts of the process, the work of connecting all the electrics takes place once all the main installation work has occurred.
This will include the lift carriage’s control panel, communication or alarm system, lighting and the many sensors that are required for the safe operation of the lift.
