An occasional friend bought a <5 year old vertical single storey wheelchair lift via a charity shop on their condition he removed it from the deceased's house. He carefully dismantled it and did the necessary structural work to create the open space adjacent to his hall and landing. His "preferred" electrician had problems re-commissioning it so I was invited for "tea". It turned out to be one of the many limit switches. I commented that he was lucky that it wasn't a PLC panel but a good old fashioned pcb with relays. He agreed saying: "Just as well, as when he rang the manufacturer/supplier, they wouldn't deal with him as they didn't do the re-install and wouldn't sell any parts to keep it working." He also had the same response from the local company who sell lifts and associated equipment.

Is this common practice in this "caring" industry?

Regards

BOD

PS Not ignoring any replies, but off line for the next few days

Caring industry - if you ever want to dip into a pool full of sharks - get involved in the lift industry - if you want to meet the real deal, associate with the "home lift" sector - those boys take the biscuit (and usually your fingers as well)

Regards

OMS

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Failure is always an option

Remember Gremlins !!

i was involved in the supply to a brand new one of these in a theatre. Concrete floors were cut, steels installed, toilets demolished and relocated to make the room.
£30k later (just the lift), did it work, did it %%%%!

Lots and lots of bits changed later (remember this is a brand new commercial grade one by a very well known company) it eventually worked. Add a service charged raised for the engineer to fix the thing they installed and didnt work and it was a royal mess.

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Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine....

Every man has to know his limitations- Dirty Harry

I am not going to defend the actions of lift companies in this post.

Please note regarding fire safety. (As one of the web sites below will show)

http://www.wessexlifts.co.uk/p...rtical_lift_range.htm


http://www.wessexlifts.co.uk/p...rtical_lift_range.htm

http://www.terrylifts.co.uk/la...629-bs-5900-2012.html

The new British Standard BS 5900:2012 was published with effect from 30th April 2012

I'm not sure I like this bit:

so the lift can't be used to exit a burning building? so trapping a non-ambulant person upstairs in a fire?

- Andy.

The only building in the uk permitted to use a lift as a fire exit is the BT tower. It has an amendment to law to permit it.
It has no stairs, so no choice! Its only just wider than the lift shaft in the middle so not much room there.

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Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine....

Every man has to know his limitations- Dirty Harry

so what happens to those that can't use the stairs? Surly using the lift, even with the risk that it might loose power etc. is far better than the alternative?
- Andy.

That would be to much like common sense Andy!.............

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Those who make no mistakes do very little work!!......

Not true Pete - many buildings have evacuation lifts that permit the lift to be used in the event of a fire condition - many more buildings have lifts that are designed also for fire fighting purposes - ie getting FRS up to high floors (usually over 18.5m above ground) in a fire fighting shaft in order to mount a bridghead attack on the fire - fire fighting lifts may also be used as evac lifts.

Getting disabled people off upper floors may simply be a strategy of "wait" - they move horizontally to protected refuges with comms to the fire point and await rescue - in other cases there are such things as evac chairs etc that allow disabled persons to be transported safely.

Hospitals often use bog standard bed lifts for evac - whilst the initial strategy is one of progressive horizontal evacuation, it may well be the case that you reach the limits of horizontal and need to go vertical - whilst not specifically designed to evac or fire fighting standards, the robustness of teh local infrastructure would ensure the lift kept working (up to the point wher the strairwell compartment and adjacent compartment had been breached - and at that point, all bets are off.

basically it's just down to evaluating what the required safe evacuation time is - and contrasting that with the vaialble safe evacuation time.

I think it's true to say that the whole issue of using lifts as MoE has been under significant scrutinity since 9/11 - I think it was Doctors Barney and Peters who showed that a substantial number of people would have made it out, if even the basic lifts in the towers could have been "driven" from the car - it is true to say that most of the lifts below the crash floors were operating almost up to the point of collapse, just inhibited by the fire relays that were programmed to effectively create a situation of "Do not use the lifts in a fire" - but people were still trying to slog down staircases whilst first responders were trying to go up - lugging BA kit up thirty or more floors is no joke - the conjestion was awful and the time taken was hours not minutes.

I know of a number of UK sites where a robust assessment of the lifts and the fire alarms and compartments has resulted in basic 3 or 4 floor passenger lifts being used for emergency evacuation of disabled people.

I guess the trouble is we are trained not to use the lifts - in many cases that's not a rational response though

regards

OMS

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Failure is always an option

OMS, i must admit i didnt know it was permitted elsewhere.

As for power loss, thats just not possible in that building or its similar operational buildings.. Its an old school 'ministry of works' era construction

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Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine....

Every man has to know his limitations- Dirty Harry

This was in today's Daily Express

http://www.express.co.uk/posts...apped-by-safety-fears

It is getting worse; just don't grow old or infirm.

don't quote me, but I think the "dispensation" was a lack of stairs rather than using the lift - subtle difference i know - one for JP I guess, wasn't it one of his old haunts.

regards

OMS

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Failure is always an option

From one of the links posted above:

"Yes, one of our engineers will respond to a breakdown, even if you don't have a service contract. In this event charges will be advised on site."

Only if they supplied and installed it apparently.

What does that make any secondhand ones worth?

Regards

BOD

Well it certainly gives you a bargaining edge, but parts are available for them, so your friend should be ok for future repairs.

"but parts are available for them,"

If you install a secondhand one, they won't even do a call out or sell you replacement parts apparently.

See OMS's comments above.........

Regards

BOD

Yes I read it . I have had dealings with them too with no success ,but I did manage to get parts from elsewhere.

Hope this will help you in the future.

http://www.stairlift-spares.co.uk/

Thanks for the link patt2

Unfortunately the particular brand (old name for south west of England) isn't listed but hopefully items such as microswitches are fairly common to all or available from RS/Maplin.

I'll suggest that he makes an effort to locate spare relays whilst there is no panic.

Regards

BOD

Thank you. They still may be able to help though . I think a lot of the parts will be common to a few of them. It's the circuit boards that may be the problem I think.

I agree with you that he should find a source while the sun shines.