Aluminium-Cabin Hydraulic Home Elevator – 14.5 m, 5 Stops, Single-Phase

Aluminium-alloy cabin or 304 stainless cabin: what actually differs

The specification block for this model gives one cabin line: 304# stainless steel or aluminium alloy. Two materials, one lift, and a decision that is usually made on appearance and then justified on structure. It is worth separating the two, because only one of them is reversible after the lift is running.

Why aluminium-alloy cabins are specified

Aluminium-alloy cabin frames are chosen for mass. For a given frame section, an aluminium profile is substantially lighter than the same profile in steel. That is why it appears so often in retrofit work: the shaft, the floor opening and the top-landing structure are already built, and the lift has to fit what is there rather than the other way round. An aluminium cabin home lift is therefore the natural answer in an infill shaft. What aluminium does not do is harden the cabin: the panel is softer than stainless, so a trolley corner leaves a mark where steel would have shrugged it off.

Why 304 stainless cabins are specified

A 304 stainless cabin is the opposite trade. It is heavier, and that weight is paid for at the structure rather than in the cabin. In return the surface is hard, the finish holds its appearance in ordinary residential use, and brushing out a scuff is standard practice for a metal fabricator. Stainless is also the conventional answer where the lift is inserted into an existing stairwell of plaster, stone or timber, because a brushed panel sits quietly beside those materials. In a glazed shaft it reads differently again: the cabin reflects rather than disappears.

One practical note sits behind that table. In retrofit work the cabin material is often decided by a structural figure that arrives late. That is why the survey sheet asks for the shaft plan and the floor construction, as well as for dimensions.

If the cabin is the deciding factor and the house has the structure for the heavier option, the 304 stainless steel cabin version of the same 14.5 m five-stop arrangement is the direct comparison. Both pages read from a specification block rather than from a brochure, so the two can be compared line by line.

How a hydraulic cabin lift actually moves, and why the cylinders are 2.9 m

A hydraulic home lift does not pull the car up. It pushes it. A power unit at the base of the shaft drives hydraulic oil into cylinders, the cylinders extend, and the car rises with them. Coming down is the same circuit in reverse: the car descends under its own weight while a valve controls how fast the oil is allowed back to the tank. That single difference from a traction drive is what makes the rest of this specification possible.

Because the lifting force is generated at the bottom of the run, the heavy parts stay at floor level. There is no machine above the shaft and no counterweight travelling beside the car, so the top of the run carries the car and its guide rails alone. In a house where the shaft passes through an existing floor and nothing above it was designed to be loaded, that is usually the decisive advantage.

Why the block records 2.9 m cylinders

The block records 2.9 m large cylinders, and that figure deserves a plain explanation because it is often read as a travel limit. It is not: cylinder length describes the hardware that carries the load, and it interacts with the pit arrangement and where the power unit can sit. This model is quoted with a 0 m pit, so the bottom of the installation cannot be sunk below floor level. The cylinder base, the load-bearing detail around it and the route for the oil line are all resolved at the level that already exists. Settled after the floor opening is formed, that constraint turns into a concrete-pouring mistake.

What the drive means in daily use

The car leaves and arrives on a hydraulic valve rather than a rotating machine, so the noise in the house comes from the power unit and the oil circuit rather than from a machine room above the top landing. Levelling at each stop is set during commissioning, and the microprocessor-based control recorded in the block handles the call sequence, the door operator and the stop positions. Where the lift passes beside a bedroom, the practical question is therefore where the power unit stands. Because the load path is vertical, the guide rails take their share of the running load along their whole length, which is why the rail fixing detail appears on the survey sheet.

Tip: hover or tap the three markers in the section drawing. The same figures are repeated in the specification table and again on the printable survey sheet.

The specification, read line by line

The table below is the specification block for this model, with metric figures and their imperial equivalents in the same cell. The switch above the comparison table changes both tables at once, and the converter below covers the two figures that decide most site surveys: the travel and the clearance above the top landing.

Three lines in that table change a quotation rather than a drawing. Pit depth 0 m means the bottom landing is not excavated, so the base detail is part of the design. Travel 14.5 m is a ceiling on the run, not an average: read as a hydraulic lift for 5 storey house projects, the two figures to check are the total travel and the clear height above the top landing. And 220 V single-phase is what makes the model usable where no three-phase supply exists, which is also why the 4.7 kW figure is worth checking against the existing board.

Two values are missing from the table, and the omission is deliberate. There is no rated load figure, because the block does not quote one; the load your lift is rated for is agreed at order and set on the nameplate of the unit that ships. There is no certification line, because the block carries none, so this page claims none. Both gaps are answered with the same sentence: Contact our engineers.

0 m pit and 3 m overhead: the two building measurements that decide the order

Most home lift projects are settled or lost on two numbers, and this model states both of them: a pit depth of 0 m and an overhead clearance of 3 m. One is a saving, the other is a demand. Read together, they describe the building this lift is designed to fit.

A 0 m pit does not mean that nothing happens under the car. It means the floor is not excavated to create a pit: the arrangement is resolved at the finished floor level, with the cylinder base and its load-bearing detail sitting where the floor already is. That is what makes the model usable in an existing house, where breaking out a floor slab is the most disruptive part of a lift installation. It also removes the drainage question a sunken pit brings with it, and what replaces the pit is a base detail designed for the floor construction actually present.

The 3 m of overhead clearance

The 3 m overhead clearance is the opposite kind of figure: a minimum clear height above the top landing, measured where the car, its guide rails and the sheave arrangement stand at the end of the run. A roof structure or landing trim that leaves less is not a detail to be trimmed on site; it changes the arrangement. This is the measurement to take first when a shaft runs up through a roof space.

The sequence matters as much as the values. Rail fixing comes before the shaft lining is closed, the base detail before the floor finish is laid, and the power unit position has to be decided while the oil line route is still open. A house that is finished before the survey is a house with a more expensive installation, which is why this page asks for measurements early rather than a deposit early.

Where the constraints do not fit, the answer is usually a different arrangement rather than a modified one. The five-stop pitless hydraulic home elevator covers the same 0 m pit principle in a different travel and stop combination, and the hydraulic home elevator range sets out the other specifications in the same family.

Cabin, door and finish: the parts a household touches

The specification block records a cabin in 304# stainless steel or aluminium alloy and a door type of automatic. Everything the household experiences day to day sits inside those two lines: the panel it sees, the surface it brushes past, and a door that opens without being pushed.

An automatic door changes the rhythm of the lift more than any other option on this page. There is no gate to lift and no panel to slide by hand, so the sequence at each landing is the same for a child, a visitor and someone carrying shopping. The door operator works with the microprocessor-based control recorded in the block, which sequences the car door and the landing door together and holds the open time while someone steps through. In a house where the lift is used by people who find stairs difficult, that is what matters in daily use; the cabin material is what matters in ten years.

Inside the cabin, the comparison table above sets out where each material is the better answer. The part usually overlooked is that a cabin interior is judged from the inside, in artificial light, at the end of a day. A brushed stainless finish reads cooler and hides handling marks better. An aluminium panel with a coated finish can be matched to the joinery in the hall, which is often what makes a lift look like part of the house rather than an addition to it.

Two details are worth fixing early because both are awkward later. The sill has to reconcile the landing floor finish with the car floor, so the finish material is chosen before the sill is made. A handrail position, where one is wanted, is a factory item on the panel rather than something added on site.

The two panels in the drawing above open on a loop, in the sequence the operator runs them: car door first, then the landing panel, with the hold time set at commissioning.

Running it on a household single-phase supply

The block records 220 V, 50 Hz, single-phase for a 4.7 kW power unit. For a house, that is the line that decides whether the lift is a small electrical job or a supply upgrade, because a single-phase lift of this size does not ask the property to be reconnected to three phases.

The practical consequence removes the objection that appears in most home lift conversations: a household that already has a single-phase service can be surveyed for this model without changing the incoming supply. What still has to be confirmed is the capacity left in the existing distribution board, the route for a dedicated circuit to the shaft, and where the power unit can stand with access left clear for servicing. None of those three is a lift decision; all three are settled by an electrician before the order.

The number to give an electrician is the one in the block: 4.7 kW at 220 V single-phase. Circuit rating, protection type, cable size and the earth-fault arrangement are theirs to size against local practice. What this page can do is state the load the lift presents and where it has to arrive.

Two further points belong with the electrical work. The power unit needs somewhere to stand that a service engineer can reach, and the oil circuit needs a protected route; both are cheaper before the room is finished than after. And a single-phase installation usually means the lift can be added to an existing house without involving the utility at all.

If the supply at the property is not the one recorded in the block, that is a question for the engineers rather than a reason to change the order quietly: Contact our engineers.

Safety devices and acceptance: what the block names, and what has to be confirmed

The specification block for this model names one safety device: an emergency stop button. That is a narrow statement, and it is written that way on purpose. A home lift's protective arrangements depend on the door type, the drive and the control circuit fitted to the unit. A page that lists devices it cannot point to in the specification is worth less than a page that says which questions to settle in writing.

So the checklist below is a list of questions rather than a list of claims. Take it to the quotation stage, get each answer in writing, and the acceptance list at handover writes itself. Two items matter more than the rest in a house. The emergency stop button has to be reachable by the people who actually use the lift. And the arrangement that governs what the lift does when the supply fails mid-run has to be known before commissioning rather than discovered in the first power cut.

Why written answers matter here

Safety arrangements are the part of a lift quotation that is easiest to leave vague and hardest to add later. A door interlock arrangement, for example, is designed into the landing door and the control cabinet together; it is not a component that can be posted out and fitted to a finished installation. The same applies to anything that governs behaviour during a power failure, because it is a control-circuit decision.

Acceptance is the other half of the same process. At handover the useful test is not a demonstration of the lift running — every lift does that — but a walk through the eight items above, with the installer showing where each arrangement sits.

The control side of the lift is covered in more detail on the control and safety arrangements page, which walks through the same questions from the point of view of the operating circuit.

From survey to handover: the sequence, and what happens in each step

A hydraulic home lift is installed in a fixed order, and the order is what protects the project. Each step below produces something the next one needs, which is why the survey answers come before the order rather than after it, and why the base detail is settled before the floor finish is laid.

1. 1. Survey and drawing set

   Measure the two figures this model is built around — clear height above the top landing and total travel. Then record the floor construction at the lowest landing, the wall material behind the guide rails, the position available for the power unit and the supply at the shaft. The output is a drawing set, not a set of notes: shaft plan, section, door positions and the base detail that replaces the pit.

2. 2. Order and confirmation

   The cabin material, the finish, the door handing and the sill detail are confirmed here, with the commercial terms. The minimum order quantity is one set, payment is by T/T or L/C, and manufacturing is quoted at 45 working days. Supply is quoted at around 20 sets per month, so a project with a fixed opening date should be placed against that figure rather than against hope.

3. 3. Manufacture and pre-assembly

   Cabin panels, guide rails, the hydraulic cylinders and the power unit are produced to the drawing set and tried together before dispatch, which is the stage where a surprise is still cheap.

4. 4. Packing and dispatch

   The lift ships in export non-fumigation wood boxes, packed so that the items arriving first are the ones needed first on site.

5. 5. Site installation

   The base detail is completed at the lowest landing, the guide rails are fixed along the run, the cylinders and the power unit are set, and the car and landing doors follow. Electrical work, the oil circuit and the door operator are then connected and checked before anything is closed up. Because there is no machine above the shaft, the heavy work stays at floor level.

6. 6. Commissioning and handover

   Stop positions, levelling at each landing and door timing are set, and the eight safety questions above are answered face to face with the household. The documents handed over should include the arrangement drawings, the commissioning records and the upkeep schedule.

Two timings to plan around

Two timings are worth planning around rather than discovering. The electrical circuit to the shaft should be run while the walls are still open. And the cabin and cylinder delivery should be timed against the state of the shaft, because a hydraulic installation that arrives before the base detail is ready simply stands in a hallway.

Where the survey produces a measurement this model cannot meet, the answer is a different arrangement in the same family, not a modified installation. That covers three cases: more than 14.5 m of travel, more than five landing positions, and less than 3 m of clear height above the top landing.

Upkeep: the short list that keeps a hydraulic lift predictable

Upkeep on this lift is not a long list, but it is a specific one, and its centre of gravity is different from a traction machine. There is no gearbox and no machine above the shaft to service; instead the items that matter are the hydraulic circuit, the door operator and the control, and all three are reached at floor level.

Two habits that keep upkeep simple

Two habits make the rest straightforward. Keep the power unit position clear of stored items, because access decides whether a service visit is half an hour or half a day. And keep the handover documents with the lift rather than in a folder of household paperwork, so the next person to work on it starts from the arrangement drawings rather than from a guess.

Questions buyers ask before ordering this model

Ten questions that come up in almost every enquiry for a cabin hydraulic home elevator, answered from this page's own specification block rather than from a brochure.

What to send, and what comes back

An enquiry for this model does not need a specification document, only the measurements the arrangement already depends on and a sentence about the house. The list below is ordered so that the drawing set can start from your reply rather than from a second round of questions.

Printable survey sheet

The same measurements, on one sheet, for the person standing in the house with a tape measure. Print it, work through it, and the answers become the enquiry rather than notes to be written up afterwards.

If a measurement cannot be taken yet, write it down as it stands. A shaft in an unusual wall or a landing shared with a staircase is better as a stated gap than as a filled-in guess, because each one changes a drawing rather than a price list.