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Types of Home Elevators: Which System Fits Your Building?
September 22, 2026
On this page (16 sections)
Home elevator types are usually presented as a menu of five or six options. The useful version is a filter: four measurements of your building decide which of those types can be quoted at all.
Almost every guide to home elevator types opens with the same taxonomy — pneumatic, hydraulic, traction, screw-driven, winding drum, machine-room-less. The taxonomy is correct and also the least useful part of the guide, because a buyer cannot act on it. What a buyer can act on is a short list of numbers: travel height, load, pit depth and the shaft or footprint that is actually free.
Once those four numbers are on the table, the type question usually answers itself, and the argument moves to what each type demands from the building around it — which is where the money is. This guide covers the drive families our own factory builds, using the figures published on our own product pages, and it says so where a figure is not published.
- Travel height — published ceilings are 15 m for the screw-driven range, 14.5 m for the largest pitless hydraulic cylinder and 30 m for the gearless traction model.
- Building conditions — pit, overhead clearance and shaft footprint, where most projects are won or lost.
- Load and cabin — published from 250 kg on the compact screw-driven model to 5000 kg on the heavy screw range.
- Power, control and the safety chain — single-phase or three-phase, AC or DC, and which safety items are standard.
01 · Why the type list is the wrong first question
Type names describe the mechanism inside the machine. Buyers do not buy mechanisms; they buy a shaft, a landing pattern and a load. Two projects with the same drive can have very different installed costs because one already has a usable shaft and the other needs one formed, so a guide that ranks types by unit price can still point you at the wrong answer.
The sequence that works runs the other way round. Fix the four building inputs, use them to eliminate drive families, then compare models and quotations inside the surviving family. A screw-driven lift and a hydraulic lift can both serve a two-storey house; the deciding evidence is whether the floor build-up allows a recess, how many times a day the lift will run, and where the machine can sit.
Notice what the four tiles avoid. None of them is a market statistic, because forecasts do not help a dealer specify a shaft or a contractor price a villa. A published travel limit, a pit depth and a noise ceiling do help, because they can be checked against a drawing and a quotation line by line. Three of the four checks are physical constraints; the fourth is commercial, and all four are gates rather than preferences.
One habit that saves a quotation round: before comparing prices across types, ask each supplier to quote against the same four inputs — travel, load, pit and overhead clearance — and to state which of them are assumptions rather than measurements. Two quotations on the same drawing become comparable; two quotations on different assumptions never do.
02 · Reading type names without getting lost
Half of the confusion around home elevator types comes from words that look like alternatives but sit on different axes: a drive is not a shaft, and a shaft is not a cabin. Separating the layers makes the "which type" question much smaller.
The mechanism that lifts the car: screw and nut, hydraulic cylinder, or traction machine with ropes or belts. Type names refer to this layer, and it is the one that sets travel, speed and maintenance.
The vertical space the car travels in. Some designs need a self-supporting shaft, others go into a structural opening the builder forms. The shaft is a building item first and an equipment item second.
The depth below the lowest landing. Published figures vary by model: 0 m on the five-stop pitless hydraulic model, 150–200 mm on the compact screw-driven YST-18. Neither is a category rule — take the figure for the model you are pricing.
The clear height above the top landing. It is a measured input rather than a brochure number, and it is the constraint most often discovered late — after quotations have already been compared.
A layout where the machine sits inside the shaft envelope rather than in a separate plant room. It is a space statement, not a drive type: the same family can be offered with or without a plant room.
The load the model is published to carry. Published figures in our range run from 250–450 kg on the compact screw-driven model, 400 kg on the 3 ft × 3 ft cabin model, 450–1000 lbs on the compact hydraulic platform and up to 5000 kg on the heavy screw range.
A screw-and-nut drive whose thread geometry stops the load driving the nut backwards when the motor stops. It is the property that lets a screw-driven lift hold a car with no holding brake, which is why the mechanism is popular in retrofits.
An enclosure and styling decision, not a drive. A panoramic capsule can be carried by different drives, so it belongs on the cabin list rather than the type list — a distinction many comparison articles blur.
Two conventions make the confusion worse. "Shaftless" is used both for lifts that need no hoistway at all and for lifts whose guides bolt to the structure, and those are different products with different structural demands. "Traction" is sometimes used for anything that is not hydraulic, which merges modern gearless permanent-magnet machines with older winding-drum equipment that behaves very differently on wear and stopping accuracy.
So the test of a serious recommendation is whether it starts with a measurement. An answer that begins with the building — travel, load, pit, overhead clearance — is worth pricing. An answer that begins with a favourite drive is a sales preference wearing technical clothes.
03 · The four mainstream options, and how each one moves
Filter the drive names down to what you can actually buy for a residential or light commercial project and four practical families remain: screw-driven, hydraulic, gearless traction, and the compact platform lifts that use screw or hydraulic hardware in a smaller envelope. Each moves a car differently, and that difference produces the published limits and the maintenance profile.
Screw-driven (screw and nut)
A motor turns a nut that climbs a threaded screw, so the load rests on a thread flank rather than on ropes or fluid. Our screw-driven pages publish 500–5000 kg, travel up to 15 m, 2–10 stops, 0.15 m/s on the standard models and indoor or outdoor installation, with no machine room required. The thread is self-locking, so the car holds position with the motor off.
Hydraulic (cylinder and power unit)
A pump pushes a piston inside a cylinder. Travel and load follow the cylinder: our five-stop pitless model uses 2.9 m cylinders for a maximum height of 14.5 m, a 4.7 kW motor and single-phase supply, and publishes a pit depth of 0 m. Hydraulic movement starts and stops smoothly, which suits accessibility projects and buildings that cannot take a plant room.
Gearless traction
A permanent-magnet machine drives ropes or belts, with a counterweight balancing the car. Our traction page publishes the widest figures in the range — travel up to 30 m, automatic sliding doors, 220 V or 380 V at 50 or 60 Hz, and noise below 60 dB. It needs a shaft envelope rather than a plant room, so it is usually the answer above 15 m of travel.
Compact platform lifts
The same two families in a smaller envelope: our compact hydraulic platform is published at 450–1000 lbs over 2–6 stops with a 7 ft ceiling, and the 3 ft × 3 ft screw-driven cabin is published at 400 kg with travel up to 50 ft. These models trade cabin size, not safety hardware, and they suit projects where the free footprint is the binding constraint.
Two of those descriptions contradict the folklore in many type guides. "Hydraulic" does not automatically mean a pit and a plant room: our pitless hydraulic model publishes a pit depth of 0 m. "Screw-driven" does not automatically mean slow in every model: the standard screw pages publish 0.15 m/s, while the compact YST-18 screw model publishes 0.4–1.0 m/s. Speeds and limits belong to models, not families.
What every family shares is a structural demand. No drive lifts a car in isolation: the load travels through the machine into the building — through the screw and its guide rails, through the cylinder and its footing, or through the machine, ropes and counterweight. The type you choose decides where that load arrives in your structure, which is why the next two checks are about the building rather than the machine.
04 · Check one: travel height decides the family
Travel height is the distance between the lowest and the highest landing, measured floor to floor and added up across every stop. It goes first because it eliminates families on physics rather than price, and because it can be measured from a drawing before anyone visits the site.
The published figures across our range span a factor of two, and that span is the point of the check. The five-stop pitless hydraulic model is published up to 14.5 m with 2.9 m cylinders; the screw-driven range is published up to 15 m; the gearless traction model is published up to 30 m. If a building needs 22 m of travel, the first two families are not "more expensive" — they are outside the published range, and an offer that includes them deserves a question about which model the figure came from.
Why the ceilings exist
The limits are not marketing decisions. A screw in compression or tension has a length at which it starts to deflect and vibrate. A hydraulic cylinder has to be built from stages to reach a given height — the 14.5 m figure comes with 2.9 m cylinders — and each stage adds seal surfaces and service points. A traction machine instead turns travel into rope or belt length and a counterweight path, so it scales further before physics argues.
That is also why "taller building, bigger machine" is a poor rule of thumb. A three-storey travel of 8–9 m sits inside all three published ranges, and there the building conditions decide rather than the travel. The travel check earns its place at the edges: below about 6 m the compact models come into play, and above about 15 m the choice narrows to traction.
- Measure finished floor to finished floor at each stop and add the storey gaps — do not measure one storey and multiply, because floor build-ups differ.
- State the number of stops separately from the travel. Our screw-driven pages are published from 2 up to 10 stops; the pitless hydraulic model is published at five stops.
- Mark any intermediate landing or split level on the drawing before quoting, because it changes both the stop count and the door positions.
The travel figure earns its keep when quotations arrive. If one supplier quotes a 15 m travel ceiling and another quotes 20 m for the same building, the useful question is not which number is bigger but which model the second figure belongs to, and whether that model's pit and overhead demands still fit the same shaft. A larger published travel only helps if the building conditions travel with it.
05 · Check two: pit, overhead clearance and shaft footprint
This is the check that decides most projects. Two lifts with the same drive can have completely different civil requirements, and the civil work is usually the largest variable item in an installed cost. The table below puts figures from our own product pages side by side, with an explicit "not published" where a model does not state one — an empty cell you can check is more useful than a filled cell nobody can trace.
| Model family | Published pit depth | Published travel / stops | Published load | Space demand to confirm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screw-driven, standard range | 150–200 mm on the compact YST-18; no machine room published | Up to 15 m; 2–10 stops | 500–5000 kg | Shaft or structural opening for the car and screw, plus a shallow floor recess on the models that publish 150–200 mm |
| Screw-driven, 3 ft × 3 ft cabin | Not published — confirm with the model datasheet | Up to 50 ft | 400 kg | A very small footprint is the point of the model; the structure still has to take the load |
| Hydraulic, five-stop pitless | 0 m | Max height 14.5 m; 5 stops; 2.9 m cylinders | Not published on that page — confirm | Cylinder position and service access for the power unit; single-phase supply published |
| Hydraulic, compact platform | Not published — confirm with the model datasheet | 2–6 stops; 7 ft ceiling height | 450–1000 lbs | Platform travel and ceiling height are the binding constraints; published with a 2-year warranty |
| Gearless traction | Not published — confirm with the model datasheet | Up to 30 m | Not published on that page — confirm | A shaft envelope for the car, counterweight and machine; 220 V or 380 V published at 50/60 Hz |
What the pit is actually for
A pit is not a hole for its own sake. It gives the car somewhere to sit below the lowest landing, houses buffers and often the return arrangements, and on traction equipment it provides the clearance the machine geometry needs. Where the drive and buffers can be arranged differently, the pit shrinks or disappears — which is what the 0 m figure reports on our pitless hydraulic model, and why that model appears so often in retrofit conversations.
Overhead clearance belongs in the same conversation and is easier to miss, because it sits above the top landing where nobody looks. It is a measured figure for the model you are pricing and it has to include the machine, the car and the safety gear. A renovation that can form a 150 mm recess but cannot raise the top-floor ceiling is in a very different position from one that can do the opposite.
Ask the pit and headroom question in writing, per model. "How much pit and how much overhead clearance does this exact model need, and which of those figures is an assumption?" The answer belongs in the quotation, not in a phone call, because it is the item that most often changes the price after the order.
The shaft footprint closes the trio. Published cabin footprints range from the 3 ft × 3 ft screw-driven cabin to full residential cars, and the structure has to accept the cabin and the guide arrangement. When the free footprint is the binding constraint, state it first and choose the model inside it: the compact screw-driven model is published at 250–450 kg with a shaft area of about 1.5 square metres.
06 · Check three: load, cabin and who rides
Load is the least ambiguous input and still gets misunderstood, because "capacity" in a quotation can mean the rated load, the cabin area, or the number of people the sales drawing happens to show. The rated load is the number that belongs in the specification, and the published figures across our range run from 250 kg to 5000 kg.
Load is not the same as people
Converting load into passenger count is where quotations quietly diverge, because the conversion depends on cabin area and on the rule set the supplier applies. A 400 kg published capacity and a 250 kg published capacity can both be described as a "three-person lift" in sales material. The specification has to carry the number, and the cabin dimensions have to be checked against it.
Three consequences follow. For accessibility work the binding requirement is usually wheelchair space plus an attendant, which pushes cabin size rather than load. Where the lift doubles as a goods lift, the published load band matters more than the finish — and the 500–5000 kg band shows that a heavy low-rise duty does not force a different drive family. Third, the load travels into the structure, so a heavier car changes what the shaft or floor opening has to accept.
Accessibility projects
Specify by cabin clear area and door type first, then confirm the published load band. Our compact models publish the smallest cabins, and the compact hydraulic platform publishes 450–1000 lbs over 2–6 stops.
Residential duty with goods
Use the published band as the first filter. The screw-driven range spans 500–5000 kg on one drive family, which keeps heavy low-rise duties away from a plant room.
Light commercial duty
Check the duty cycle before the load. A hotel pantry or clinic service lift runs far more cycles a day than a villa lift, and that question belongs in the specification, not the warranty small print.
07 · Check four: power, control and the safety chain
The last gate is electrical, and it is the one most often discovered after the price is agreed. The published supply requirements differ by model: single-phase AC on the pitless hydraulic model, AC or DC on the screw-driven models, 220 V or 380 V at 50 or 60 Hz on the gearless traction model, and 220 V single-phase at 50 Hz on the 3 ft × 3 ft cabin model.
Those differences matter in two directions. On a retrofit the available supply may decide the model before any drive preference does, because a building with only single-phase power is a different starting point. On an export project the frequency matters as much as the voltage, and a specification that names a voltage without a frequency is unfinished.
Supply type
Screw-driven models publish AC or DC; the pitless hydraulic model publishes single-phase AC; the gearless traction model publishes 220 V/380 V at 50/60 Hz. Confirm the figure for the exact model quoted.
Control system
Our screw-driven and compact models are published with microprocessor-based control, and the compact hydraulic platform offers touch-screen controls and remote monitoring as published options.
Safety chain
Published safety items include emergency stop, overload protection and safety gear on the screw-driven range; emergency stop with overload protection and safety sensors on the traction model; door interlocks on the compact models.
Door arrangement
Automatic doors are published across the range, with centre or side opening on the screw-driven models and automatic sliding doors on the traction model. Settle the door type before the shaft is formed.
The safety list is where a buyer should slow down, because the items above are the ones our pages publish as part of the configuration, while anything beyond them — additional monitoring or a specific rescue sequence — belongs in the quotation per project rather than in an assumption. The useful question is not "is it safe" but "which functions are standard on this model and which are options", because that answer can be compared across two quotations and the first one cannot.
There is another reason to settle the electrical check early: supply, control and doors all interact with the building works. The supply dictates the cable run, the control panel needs somewhere to live, and the doors dictate the landing openings — each far cheaper to fix on a drawing than after the shaft is closed in.
08 · Noise and ride comfort: what can be specified, and what cannot
Noise is the specification item most often written as an adjective and least often written as a number, which matters because "quiet" cannot be compared, tested or refused. In our own range one page publishes a figure: the gearless traction model is published at a noise level below 60 dB. The other model pages publish low maintenance, indoor or outdoor installation and optional remote monitoring, but no dB figure.
That asymmetry is useful rather than embarrassing, because it tells you exactly what to request on the models where a figure is missing. A supplier can always answer "quiet"; the useful version of the question is "what is the measured level, at what distance, and at which of three moments — starting, running and stopping".
What is published today
- Gearless traction: noise level published below 60 dB, with automatic sliding doors and 220 V/380 V at 50/60 Hz.
- Screw-driven range: published as low maintenance, indoor or outdoor installation, 0.15 m/s on the standard models.
- Compact hydraulic platform: published with a 7 ft ceiling height, 2–6 stops and options such as touch-screen control and remote monitoring.
- Compact screw-driven cabin: published at 0.15 m/s on the 3 ft × 3 ft model.
What to ask for per model
- A measured level rather than a category: value, distance and measurement condition.
- The level at three moments — start, steady run and stop — because the character of the sound differs at each.
- Where the machine sits relative to bedrooms, since position changes the answer more than machine tuning does.
- Whether the drive or the door is the dominant source, because that decides which side of the specification to attack.
Ride comfort is a separate question
Noise gets the attention, but ride comfort is what residents notice daily. It has three components: the feel of acceleration and deceleration, stopping accuracy at the landing, and lateral movement in the car. Hydraulic drives are typically praised for smooth starts; traction machines for stopping accuracy and quiet running over longer travel. Screw-driven movement follows the published speed of the model — 0.15 m/s on the standard models, 0.4–1.0 m/s on the compact YST-18 — so the feel of the ride follows a published figure rather than a family reputation.
Passengers also register vibration, which in a residential retrofit usually comes from the interface between equipment and building rather than from the drive itself. Guides rarely mention it because it cannot be sold as a feature, but on a timber-framed floor a rigid connection can transmit more disturbance than a slower drive would have created. That is why the answer to a noise complaint is often a mounting detail rather than a different drive.
Write the requirement as: measured or published level in dB, at a stated distance, for starting, running and stopping, with the measurement condition identified. A supplier who answers that in writing has done the engineering; a supplier who answers with one word has not.
09 · Where the money goes: reading a home elevator price
Price is where the type decision becomes visible, and it is also where most guides retreat into "it depends". The honest version is that a home elevator price is a stack of items, and the drive family changes only some of them. Our product pages publish per-set bands, which makes the stack easier to see: the standard screw-driven models at USD 20,000–30,000 per set, the compact screw-driven YST-18 at USD 10,000–20,000, the compact hydraulic platform at USD 10,000–20,000, the five-stop pitless hydraulic model at USD 4,000–10,000 and the gearless traction model at USD 10,000–20,000.
The items inside and outside the published band
An equipment band is not an installed cost, and the gap between the two is where surprise appears. The stack usually contains the drive and machine, the cabin and doors, the shaft or structural works, the control panel and wiring, the installation and commissioning labour, and then the commercial items — packing, freight, duty and documentation. Our pages publish the packing and delivery terms: export non-fumigation wood box packing, and delivery times between 40 and 50 working days depending on model.
Read the bands together rather than separately. The pitless hydraulic model holds the lowest published band and the compact screw-driven model sits a step above it, while the heavy screw range and the smallest-cabin model sit at the top. The pattern is not "screw is expensive and hydraulic is cheap": the band tracks the travel, the load and the cabin the model is built for.
Compare quotations line by line, not total by total. Ask each supplier which of these the price includes: equipment and cabin, doors, control panel and wiring, shaft or civil interface, installation and commissioning, packing, freight, duty, and the documents you need for local acceptance. Two totals that differ by 20% often differ because one is missing a line.
One further item deserves its own line in a dealer's calculation: the site visit and drawing work that has to happen before a firm price is possible. Published bands such as USD 4,000–10,000 or USD 20,000–30,000 per set are equipment ranges, while the survey, the shaft drawing and the landing layout are project work. A supplier who charges for that work has priced it honestly.
10 · The commercial terms that change the real cost
For a distributor, contractor or project buyer the commercial terms are part of the specification: they decide whether a project can be sampled, how long the programme has to be, and whether the supplier can support a second order to the same standard. Our product pages publish these terms per model, and they read better as a table than as small print.
| Published item | Screw-driven (standard) | Compact screw YST-18 | Pitless hydraulic | Gearless traction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum order | 1 set | 1 set | 1 set | 1 set |
| Delivery time | 45 days | 40 working days | 45 working days | 45 working days |
| Supply ability | 5 sets | 20 sets per month | 20 sets per month | 10 sets |
| Payment terms | T/T or L/C at sight | T/T, L/C | T/T, L/C | T/T, L/C |
| Packing | Export non-fumigation wood box | Export non-fumigation wood box | Export non-fumigation wood box | Export non-fumigation wood box |
Two rows repay a closer look. A published minimum order of one set lets a distributor buy a single machine as a reference installation before committing to a programme — useful in a market where the first home lift in a neighbourhood sells better than any brochure. A published supply ability of 5, 10 or 20 sets per month, depending on the model, is the figure to compare against a pipeline: it says which families can carry a batch order.
Published delivery times are production and packing times, so they start from the confirmed order and the approved drawing rather than from the first email. The lead time a project experiences is the sum of survey, drawing confirmation, production, shipping and the installation window — and the two items in that list a buyer controls are the drawing confirmation and site readiness.
- What is the published delivery time for this model, and from which event does it run?
- Which packing and shipping terms apply, and who arranges freight and unloading?
- What documents come with the shipment — certificates, drawings, manuals and test records for local acceptance?
11 · Maintenance, service life and who does the work
Maintenance is the part of the type decision that arrives five years after the quotation, so it is worth pricing as a schedule rather than as an adjective. The published maintenance statement across our screw-driven range is low maintenance; the compact hydraulic platform publishes a 2-year warranty; the screw-driven and gearless traction models publish a 1-year warranty. Those statements describe the equipment — the schedule is what the building experiences.
Commissioning and the baseline record
Commissioning sets the reference for everything after it: door timing, levelling at each landing, the safety chain test and the noise baseline. Ask for the test record in writing, because it is the document that later turns "it seems noisier" into a measurable comparison.
Settling-in checks
Door alignment, levelling and fastener checks after the first period of use are classic settling-in items. On a screw-driven lift the thread and its lubrication are part of that inspection; on hydraulic equipment the oil level and pipework; on a traction machine the rope or belt condition and the counterweight path.
Scheduled service
An annual service covers the safety chain, the door system, stopping accuracy and the machine items specific to the drive family. The question at quotation stage is not whether servicing is needed — every drive needs it — but what the interval is for this model and what the service includes.
Parts and service access
The long-term risk on an imported lift is parts availability and who attends the site. Ask for the consumable list, the expected replacement interval for wearing items, and the local service arrangement before the lift is ordered rather than after the first fault.
Service access matters more than a datasheet for most overseas buyers, because it decides what happens on the first fault. Our company profile lists partners in the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Thailand who support installation, commissioning and maintenance, alongside the factory's own after-sales team.
The drive family also shifts the maintenance emphasis rather than removing it. Screw-driven equipment is published as low maintenance and uses no hydraulic oil; hydraulic equipment concentrates service attention on the power unit and cylinder; gearless traction concentrates it on the machine, the ropes or belts and the counterweight path. None of the three is maintenance-free.
12 · Type filter: three inputs, one starting point
The checks above reduce to three questions a buyer can usually answer from a drawing. Use the filter to narrow the field before requesting prices, and treat its output as a starting point to investigate rather than a specification. The logic behind it is published data: 15 m of travel for the screw-driven range against 30 m for gearless traction, a 0 m pit on the five-stop pitless hydraulic model, and a published load band from 250 kg to 5000 kg.
If the filter returns traction and the quotation arrives with a screw-driven model, that is not automatically wrong — it means the supplier has a reason to overrule a published limit, and the reason belongs in writing. The same applies in reverse: a hydraulic offer for a project that cannot form a pit is a question, not a bargain.
13 · When not to choose a type
Type guides sell every option. The more useful list is the reverse: conditions under which a family should be dropped before any price is compared. Filter the situations below, or read them as a checklist against your drawings.
Drop the screw-driven family above 15 m
Our screw-driven models publish travel up to 15 m and the pitless hydraulic model publishes a maximum height of 14.5 m. Above 15 m, price the gearless traction model — published up to 30 m — instead of asking a shorter-travel family to stretch.
Do not choose on "no pit" alone
A published 0 m pit removes one constraint, not all of them. Overhead clearance, the car envelope and the machine position still have to be measured for the model you are pricing, and those are the items that turn a retrofit into a structural project.
Do not accept a passenger count as a load
"Three-person lift" is not a load figure. Our published bands run from 250 kg on the compact screw model to 5000 kg on the heavy screw range, and a specification that names people instead of kilograms cannot be checked against the cabin.
Do not fix the drive before the survey
On a retrofit the floor build-up, the available footprint and the overhead clearance decide more than drive preference does. Choosing a family first and measuring afterwards is a reliable way to lose a week and a quotation round.
Do not assume an outdoor position is free
Screw-driven models publish indoor or outdoor installation, a genuine advantage where an exterior wall is available. It is still a structural and weather-exposure decision, and finish, drainage and the access route belong in the quotation.
Do not confuse a heavy duty with a new family
The screw-driven range is published from 500 kg to 5000 kg, so a heavy low-rise duty does not automatically require a plant room or a different drive. Confirm cabin size and the structural load path instead of changing family reflexively.
14 · From drawing to handover: the six steps that decide the programme
Once the family is settled, the project follows a sequence that is similar whichever drive you choose. Each step below produces a document the next one depends on, which is why the schedule usually slips here rather than in the factory.
Measure the building
Travel, stop count, pit build-up, overhead clearance and free footprint on one drawing. This is the step that eliminates families, and it is worth more than any brochure comparison.
Fix drive and cabin
Choose the family that survives the measurements, then the cabin, door arrangement and finishes inside it. Published cabin sizes range from the 3 ft × 3 ft model to full residential cars.
Confirm the quotation scope
Equipment, cabin and doors, control and wiring, civil interface, installation, packing, freight and documents. Published delivery times for our models run between 40 and 50 working days.
Approve the drawing
The approved drawing is what production is built to, and it is normally the event the lead time runs from. Changes after this point are the expensive kind.
Prepare the site
Shaft or opening ready, supply terminated, landing openings formed and the access route clear for the packed equipment. Export non-fumigation wood box packing is published for our models.
Install, commission and record
Installation closes with the safety chain test and the baseline record: levelling, door timing, noise baseline and the test documents for local acceptance.
Programme risk concentrates in two places. The first is the gap between measurement and approved drawing, because every week there delays production. The second is site readiness, because equipment arriving before the openings are formed sits in a crate and generates cost without progress. Both are schedule items controlled by the buyer rather than by the factory.
15 · Frequently asked questions
These answers follow the same rule as the rest of this guide: published model figures where they exist, and an explicit "confirm for the model" where they do not.
What are the main types of home elevator?
For a residential project the practical families are screw-driven, hydraulic, gearless traction and the compact platform lifts that use the same screw or hydraulic hardware in a smaller envelope. Capsule or glass-shaft designs belong to the cabin and enclosure list, because the same enclosure can be carried by different drives.
Which type is best for a home?
The one that survives the four checks. Published travel up to 15 m, a 0 m pit on the pitless hydraulic model and noise below 60 dB on the gearless traction model eliminate families quickly. Most low-rise residential projects end up comparing screw-driven and hydraulic on the same drawing, and longer travel narrows the field to traction.
What is the cheapest type of home elevator?
Within our published bands the five-stop pitless hydraulic model carries the lowest price, at USD 4,000–10,000 per set, with the compact screw-driven YST-18 and the compact hydraulic platform published at USD 10,000–20,000. Equipment bands are not installed costs, so compare civil work, installation scope and freight before deciding which project is actually cheaper.
How much pit does a home elevator need?
It depends on the model rather than the category. In our range the five-stop pitless hydraulic model publishes a pit depth of 0 m and the compact screw-driven YST-18 publishes 150–200 mm. Several other models on this site do not publish a pit figure, so treat that as an item to confirm in writing against the datasheet.
How far can each type travel?
Published travel in our range runs up to 15 m on the screw-driven models, 14.5 m maximum height on the five-stop pitless hydraulic model, up to 50 ft (about 15 m) on the 3 ft × 3 ft screw-driven cabin, and up to 30 m on the gearless traction model. Where families overlap, the building conditions usually decide rather than the ceiling.
Can a home elevator be installed in an existing house?
Yes, and retrofits are where published pit and machine-room figures matter most. A model that publishes 0 m pit and no machine room removes two of the largest structural interventions, and screw-driven models additionally publish indoor or outdoor installation. What remains is the measured overhead clearance, the footprint and the structural load path.
How long does delivery take?
Published delivery times for our models run between 40 and 50 working days depending on the family, and production normally starts from the approved drawing rather than the first enquiry. Add survey, drawing confirmation, shipping and the installation window to get the programme a project actually experiences.
16 · Before you ask for a price: the input checklist
Most quotation rounds stall on missing inputs rather than on price. The list below is the minimum a supplier needs to answer with a configuration instead of a range — work through it, then send the drawing with it.
With those eight items a supplier can usually propose one or two families rather than five, and can quote against measurements instead of assumptions. That is the difference between comparing prices on one specification and comparing two sets of guesses.
Every number above is taken from our own published product pages in September 2026: travel, load, speed, pit depth, power supply, noise level, price bands, order terms and delivery times. Where a model page does not publish a figure, this guide says so rather than filling the gap with a category average.
Send the measurements, get a type answer back
We build screw-driven, hydraulic and gearless traction home elevators, and we publish the travel, load, pit and lead-time figures for each model. Send your travel height, stops, load and the pit or overhead clearance you can provide, and we will tell you which family fits — including when the answer is not one of ours.
Where to read next
The pages below take the same subject from other angles: the drive comparison, the mechanism behind the screw-driven models, and the product families these figures come from.
- Hydraulic vs traction home elevators: options compared
- Guide to screwnut lifting systems: principles and applications
- Choosing between traction, hydraulic and screw-driven home elevators
- How screw driven elevators work
- Screw driven elevator range
- Hydraulic residential lift range
- Residential traction elevator range
- Custom screw-drive elevator, 2–10 stops and up to 15 m
- Pitless hydraulic home elevator, pit depth 0 m
- Gearless traction home elevator, up to 30 m and below 60 dB
- Compact screw-driven home elevator, 250–450 kg
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