400 kg Hydraulic Home Elevator – 5 Stops, Space-Saving Design

What a 400 kg Hydraulic Home Elevator Is — and Who It Fits

A home elevator is a passenger lift built for a house rather than for a building with a flow of strangers. The machine described here sits at the small end of that category. It carries 400 kg, serves up to five stops over a maximum travel of 14.5 m, and travels at a published 0.25 m/s. The cabin is a naked type and the door opening is a manual one of at least 500 mm width by 2,000 mm height.

That combination is deliberate. Four hundred kilograms covers four to six people, or one person with a wheelchair, or a washing machine on a sack barrow. Five stops and 14.5 m covers a house on four or five levels. A naked cabin and a manual door are what let the whole thing fit into a stairwell that was never designed for a lift.

Where the line sits between this and other machines

Search the phrase home elevator and the results mix several different products. It is worth separating them first, because the groups below are not interchangeable and their installation rules are not the same.

The fit check: three states, decided before you ask for a price

Read the three cards below in order and stop at the first one that describes your house. The check uses only the figures this page publishes, so it runs from a tape measure, a torch and twenty minutes. Both readers of this page need the same three things before a quotation is worth reading: a footprint the house can give up, a door the household can use, and a travel distance the machine can cover.

What it replaces, and what it does not

A lift of this size replaces a set of daily negotiations with a staircase and gives back the upper floor of a house. It is not a firefighting lift, a goods lift for pallets, or a public lift, which are different products with different design rules. The wider family in this drive type is on the hydraulic home elevator range page.

What the Space-Saving Arrangement Costs You

The specification on this page reads like a list of savings. A naked cabin, a manual door of 500 mm minimum width, a 400 kg load and a hydraulic cylinder add up to a lift that asks the building for less than a panelled cabin with automatic doors would. Each saving is real, and each is paid for somewhere, which is the half brochures leave out.

Two decisions carry most of the trade: the door and the cabin. They look cosmetic, and they are not. Together they decide how much landing space the household gives up, how much of the daily job moves to the people using the lift, and how much finish work goes to the builder rather than the factory.

The door: manual opening against automatic doors

A manual door is the reason a 500 mm opening is enough. Nothing slides or swings under power, so no operator sits at each landing, no landing-side supply is required, and no pocket has to be built beside the opening. In a stairwell where every 50 mm matters, that is the difference between an opening that fits and one that does not.

What it asks in return is attention. Someone has to open the door and close it again, and the cabin cannot be left with an unclosed door and still be safe to travel. Households adapt quickly. It becomes a compromise when the lift is used by someone whose hands are full or whose grip is the reason the lift is being bought; then an automatic door is worth the landing space it costs.

The cabin: naked against panelled

The cabin type published for this machine is naked, and the flooring is published as marble or PVC. Those two entries are the whole of what the parameter table states about the inside of the lift, so this part is about the difference the cabin type makes in use.

A naked cabin is a cabin whose enclosure is not carried by the cabin itself, so it takes less of the travel volume, which in a stairwell is often the only way the cabin fits. Sound behaves differently, because a decorative panel is also an acoustic one and there is none here to absorb the drive noise. Privacy depends on what the building puts around the cabin, and the trim, the visible surface and the final paint become building works agreed on site.

What the small footprint does not save

A space-saving brochure is easy to read as a promise that nothing much is needed. This configuration claims no such thing. Four items stay on the list whatever the cabin and door type.

• The vertical volume. A clear path from the lowest stop to the highest, with nothing crossing it.
• The door openings. One opening at each landing, at a published minimum of 500 mm by 2,000 mm.
• The structure. Guide fixings and the base that carries the cylinder, described in section 5.
• The supply. A circuit, a protective device and a cable route, often the slowest part of the job.

Key Specifications of This 400 kg Home Elevator

Eleven rows carry what a project needs at layout stage. Nine come from the parameter table published with this page; door operation comes from the page's own descriptive text and is marked as such in the table, because the parameter table does not carry it.

The table is short on purpose. A domestic lift is configured for a house, so a list of every dimension that could exist is less useful than a list of the ones your house has to satisfy.

Values above are taken from this page's parameter table and reproduced without change. The five-stop layout is published in the page title, and door operation comes from the page's original description of the machine.

The figures this table does not contain

Four quantities decide a lift layout and none of them appears above. The pit or floor build-up at the lowest landing, the clear size of the volume the cabin travels in, the headroom above the top landing and the electrical supply characteristics are all drawing items. The page's original description gives the supply as 220 V, 50 Hz, single-phase, which is the figure a household electrician wants first, and it should still be confirmed against the quotation drawing before a cable is ordered.

Everything else in that list is measured on site. Section 5 turns the list into a survey, and the printable version sits with it so it can be taken to each landing.

Converting the published figures

Drawings and site measurements arrive in both systems, and the two conversion mistakes that cost money are a load taken as pounds when it was kilograms and a height taken as feet when it was metres.

The Door Opening and the Route to It

The parameter table publishes two door figures and both are minimums: 500 mm of clear width and 2,000 mm of clear height. They are the narrowest part of the whole design, because every other dimension on the page is about the machine and these two are about the people and objects that pass through it.

Clear means clear. An opening with a protruding handle, a door stop, a pipe run or a section of architrave inside it is narrower than 500 mm in use, and the measurement that counts is the one taken with everything in place. The same applies to the height: 2,000 mm to the underside of the finished lintel, not to the rough opening before plasterboard.

Three measurements worth taking before anything else

A doorway is checked in three places. Each can be closed with a tape measure in a few minutes, and each has ended a project on the day it was finally taken.

What the opening has to open onto

A manual door is opened by a person standing on the landing, so the landing has to give that person somewhere to stand and somewhere to put a hand. A door that opens against a wall is easy. A door that opens into the swing of a staircase, or against a radiator, or across the top of a flight, is a design problem that appears the day the lift is used for the first time.

What the door opens onto also decides the traffic: a lift landing in a hallway used by everyone needs to be visible rather than hidden behind a cupboard door, and one landing in a bedroom has to suit that room. None of this is published by the manufacturer. Where the layout is not yet clear, Contact our engineers. with the plan.

Civil Work and Structural Checks Before You Order

The page's original description calls this drive shaft-free and describes the machine as a retrofit fit that does not need a deep pit. Those sentences sell this configuration, and they are also the two most often read as "nothing structural is required". That reading is wrong.

Shaft-free describes the machine rather than the building. A hydraulic lift does not need a conventional hoistway wrapped around it, and the drive pushes from below, so the forces go down into a base rather than up into a structure overhead. What does not disappear is the need for that base to be designed, for a clear vertical path with something solid to fix the guides to, and for the top of the travel to have room to finish.

Where the load goes

A hydraulic cylinder carries its load in compression, standing on the floor at the lowest level, so the reaction is delivered to the base of the travel volume rather than to the roof above it. That is the most useful structural consequence of this drive type in a renovation, and the reason the base detail is the first drawing a project needs.

That base has to take a concentrated load where the cylinder stands, keep the cylinder plumb, and stay dry.

The vertical volume and its fixings

The cabin has to travel from the lowest stop to the highest without meeting anything. A beam, a soil pipe, a duct run, a stair stringer or the underside of a landing all count. Site photographs catch this faster than drawings, because a ceiling that looks clear from underneath often has a service crossing it.

Around that path the machine needs fixing points. Guides hold the cabin in line with the door openings and have to be attached to something that does not move: in a house, usually the wall beside the travel path, or a frame added for the purpose. Headroom above the top landing is the other half of the question and depends on the layout rather than on a published figure. Contact our engineers. with the measured height and a photograph.

Power, protection and the cable route

The page's original description gives the supply as 220 V, 50 Hz, single-phase, which a domestic property already has. That sentence does not settle the circuit, the protective device, the isolator position or the cable route, and the route is usually the slowest item on the programme. The supply is needed where the power unit stands rather than where the lift travels, so it belongs in the electrical first fix.

What the building has to provide

These eight items are what a builder, a surveyor and an installer each need to have seen before the order is placed. Work through them on site rather than on screen: most can only be answered in the house.

The works that sit outside the lift

A machine that turns inside a smaller volume, or one that avoids the travel path problem altogether, is worth comparing before you settle: see the five-floor naked cabin model.

The Naked Cabin and the Floor Finish

The parameter table says two things about the inside of this lift and nothing more: the cabin type is naked, and the flooring is marble or PVC. The cabin's own published dimension is not in the table, so this section is about the two surfaces the machine does supply and the choices they open up, rather than about a size that has to come from the drawing.

The flooring is the part that matters most in daily use, because it is the one surface in the lift that a household notices every single time. Marble and PVC behave very differently and the choice is not about price alone.

One point applies to both. The floor of the lift is a threshold as well as a surface, so it has to meet the landing floor without a lip that catches a wheel. That junction is agreed on site when the landing floor is laid.

The published cabin of this model

The first card below is the published image of this 400 kg model, and it can be enlarged. Read it for the proportions of the cabin against the landing around it rather than for a finish schedule, because a naked cabin arrives without its enclosure.

This model, as published Enclosure wall Handrail and light Door and control

The first card is the published image of this model. The three drawings after it are reference illustrations of the parts a naked cabin leaves to the house: the enclosure wall, the handrail and ceiling light, and the manual door with its push-button control. They are drawings rather than photographs of a specific installation, and the surfaces should be chosen from a physical sample rather than from a screen.

What the description says about operating it

The page's original description adds three details the parameter table does not carry: a push-button control, an LED ceiling light, and a cabin available in stainless steel or aluminium with a range of colours. Treat those as the description's account of the fit-out and confirm them against the quotation drawing. Operationally the sequence is plain: call from the landing, open the manual door, step in, close it, press the destination, and reverse the process at the other end.

The cabin size question

The internal size of the cabin, the clear size of the volume it travels in and the position of the handrail are drawing items. The published 400 kg describes what the machine can carry, not how the floor area is arranged to carry it. Where a wheelchair has to turn inside the cabin, or the lift has to take a specific object, put the dimension in the enquiry: Contact our engineers.

Safety Devices and the Checks at Handover

The page's original description lists two safety devices: an emergency stop and an overload sensor. Those two lines are the whole of what this page publishes about safety, which makes this the section where precision matters most.

An emergency stop halts the machine and keeps it halted. An overload sensor prevents travel when the load in the cabin is above the rated 400 kg. Both are protective functions rather than conveniences, and both are described as fitted to this model in its original description.

What this page does and does not say about safety

What it says is above. What it does not say is worth stating with equal care. This page publishes no safety standard number, no certificate reference and no conformity document, and the parameter table carries no certification line either. A certification is not something a product page can invent for itself.

That does not mean the machine is unsafe. It means the paperwork belongs with the supplier and with whoever approves the installation in your country, and it should be settled before the order rather than after delivery. Ask for any document your project needs by name at enquiry stage: a reply that names the file and offers to send it is worth more than a page that claims compliance and cannot produce it.

The questions worth asking before you order

Six questions cover the safety conversation for a domestic lift, and all six can be put in writing in a single message. They are ordered the way they tend to matter on site.

• How does the machine behave when the power fails? What the cabin does, where it stops, and how anyone inside is brought out.
• Is the door interlocked with travel? Ask in those words, because a manual door that can be opened while the cabin moves is a different product.
• What does the overload device do? Whether it prevents the trip or only reports it, and at what load it acts.
• What happens between two landings? Who is called, and how the cabin is recovered.
• What documentation comes with the machine? Operating instructions, the maintenance schedule, and any declaration that applies in your market.
• Who inspects the installation, and against what? The local requirements, in writing, so builder and supplier work to one list.

None of the six has a universal answer, because each depends on the market. All six have one, and a supplier who deals with this configuration regularly will have them ready.

Seven checks at handover

Handover is when everything the drawings assumed can be seen working. The checks below are written to be done in a single visit, with the lift in normal service.

How This Home Elevator Is Installed

Installation runs in five stages, and only two of them belong to the lift. The other three belong to the building, which is why a programme for this machine is really a programme for the openings, the base and the supply that have to exist before the cabin can be hung on its guides.

That division has a practical consequence worth stating at the start. The lift will not arrive until the site is ready for it, and the site is ready when the civil items in section 5 are finished rather than when the order is placed. Planning the two together is what keeps a domestic lift from sitting in a crate beside an unfinished stairwell.

1. Drawings confirmed against the site

   The survey answers become a layout: stops, travel, cabin position, door position at each landing and the position of the power unit. Anything still open at this point is closed with a measurement rather than an assumption, and the quotation is reissued against the confirmed layout.

2. Civil work and power

   The openings are formed at each landing to the published 500 mm by 2,000 mm minimum, the base for the cylinder is built and kept dry, the guide fixings are prepared, and the single-phase supply reaches the machine position with an isolator. This is the longest stage in most houses, and it is the stage the lift cannot compress.

3. Delivery and positioning

   The machine arrives in an export non-fumigation wood box, as the parameter table publishes for this model. The crate has to reach the lift position rather than a front garden, so the access route is worth walking with a tape before the day. A crate that cannot be carried to the stairwell is a problem that costs a crane to solve.

4. Mechanical installation

   The cylinder is set on its base and plumbed, the guides are fixed at each level, the cabin is mounted and aligned with the door openings, the manual door is hung, and the power unit is connected. Alignment is the part that decides how the lift feels in service, because a cabin that is not square in its guides will remind every passenger of it.

5. Commissioning and handover

   The controller is set up, the landings are levelled, the emergency stop and the overload device are tested, the power-failure behaviour is demonstrated, and the operating instructions and maintenance schedule are handed over in writing. The seven checks in section 7 are the list for this visit.

Three decisions to make before the lift is ordered

All three affect the civil work rather than the lift: which side the door opens on at each landing, where the power unit stands, and how the enclosure around a naked cabin will be finished. The lining and the trim meet the lift at the opening, which is why those answers come first. Where one is still moving, pause the order rather than the site: changing the door side or the power unit position after the base is built costs far more than waiting a week.

Service, Maintenance and the Warranty Line

Two service facts come from the page's original description. Preventive maintenance is described as semi-annual, which is a six-month interval, and the warranty is described as one year and extendable. Both are description figures rather than parameter-table entries, so they are written here as the description's account of the service arrangement and should be confirmed on the quotation.

Everything else here is about holding a service arrangement to account. A lift is a machine with oil in it, and the difference between one that runs quietly for fifteen years and one that is repaired repeatedly is usually the routine rather than the equipment.

Questions that decide what the warranty is worth

A one-year warranty is a common line and a vague one. Three questions turn it into something that can be relied on, and all three fit in the same message as the quotation.

• What does the cover include? Ask specifically about the power unit, the cylinder and its seals, the controller and the door arrangement, because a warranty covering the structure but not the drive covers the part least likely to fail.
• Who performs the work? Whether service is carried out by the supplier, by a partner in your country, or by a third party you appoint, and what the response looks like in each case.
• What ends the cover, and how is it extended? Whether the warranty depends on the semi-annual visits being carried out and by whom, and what an extension costs and includes.

Where the service arrangement for your market, or the documents your household needs, are not yet clear, ask before the order: Contact our engineers. with your location and the machine you are considering, and the answer can name the service route rather than leave it to be agreed later.

Frequently Asked Questions About This Home Elevator

The questions that come up first on this model, answered with the figures this page publishes and a straight statement wherever the answer has to come from your own survey.

Quotation and What to Send With the Enquiry

A home elevator of this kind is configured for a house rather than picked from a shelf, so the first enquiry decides how close the first quotation lands. An enquiry that carries the ten items below produces a layout, and a layout is something a builder can price and a household can picture.

The commercial frame — minimum order quantity, price band, payment terms, supply ability, delivery time and packaging — is published in the parameter table beside this body. What it cannot carry is your house, which is what the survey below is for. It is written to be printed and carried to each landing.

Nine answers that turn an enquiry into a layout

The survey gives the measurements. The nine points below say what has to be decided alongside them, and each one changes the drawing rather than the paperwork.

Send the survey with a plan and a photograph of each landing, and the first reply can carry a layout with the door positions, the cabin and the travel confirmed for your house. Where the survey leaves something open, say so rather than filling it in: an open item is a question with an answer, and an invented figure is a defect waiting to be built.