English
Español
Hydraulic Home Elevators Gain Popularity for Mobility Solutions
October 09, 2026
A hydraulic home elevator is pushed from underneath, not pulled from above — and that single difference answers the question most buyers are really asking
Search for a hydraulic elevator working principle and most of what comes back is written for engineers: cylinder bore, pump curves, pressure ratings. That is useful if you are designing the machine. It is less useful if you are deciding whether to put one in a house and what you actually want to know is why it will not drop.
This guide stays at the level a household needs. It sets out what supports the car, which parts do the supporting, what happens on the way up and on the way down, and what the machine does when something goes wrong. By the end you should be able to ask four specific questions and tell from the answers whether the person quoting knows the product or is reading from a brochure.
The short version
- Hydraulic lifts support rather than suspend. The car rests on fluid held in a cylinder. Nothing is hanging above it, so there is no rope, belt or cable whose failure could let the car drop.
- Five parts do the work. A pump, a cylinder, a reservoir, a valve block and a safety valve. Knowing what each one does turns a vague safety claim into questions a supplier can answer.
- Going up and going down are not mirror images. The pump drives the car up against gravity; gravity brings it back down through a valve that meters how fast the fluid returns.
- Failure is slow by design. A leak lets the car settle rather than fall, and a power cut does not empty the cylinder. Both still need a written procedure, not a verbal promise.
- The trade-offs are real and locatable. A power unit and an oil tank need a home at the lowest level, and where that home sits decides how much of the house hears the machine.
One point stated plainly before the detail: what follows describes the general operating principle of hydraulic lifting, not a specification for any particular model. Where a figure cannot be verified for a specific unit, this page says so instead of repeating it.
01 · What “hydraulic” actually changes
It changes what holds the car up. Nearly everything else that follows — the parts list, the feel of the ride, the safety story, the maintenance year — is a consequence of that one fact.
Two ways to hold a car in the air
A lift car has to be held at a height, and there are only two families of ways to do it. Something can hang the car from above, using ropes, belts or a cable running over a machine at the top of the shaft. Or something can push it from below, and the thing doing the pushing is a fluid held inside a cylinder.
Almost every lift you can buy for a house belongs to one of those two families. The choice between them decides where the equipment sits, what the top of the shaft is used for, what happens underneath the car, and what the lift does when the power goes off.
Hydraulic units sit in the second family. The car rests on a piston, the piston rests on oil, and the oil is held under pressure by a pump. Nothing is hanging. That is the whole principle, and the rest of this page is what follows from it.
The principle in four lines
- Supported, not suspended. The load is carried by hydraulic fluid in compression inside a cylinder, so there is no rope, belt or cable above the car whose failure could release it.
- Fluid does the holding, not the motor. The pump creates the pressure, and the valve block keeps it where it is. Switch the pump off and the car stays put, because the fluid has nowhere to go until something opens a path for it.
- Up and down use different forces. Pressure raises the car. The car's own weight lowers it, with a valve controlling how quickly the fluid is allowed back to the reservoir.
- The failure mode is set by the fluid. If the circuit leaks, the car settles onto its support instead of dropping, which is the outcome the entire arrangement is organised around.
Why this is the sentence every supplier repeats
Ask why a hydraulic home elevator is safe and you will hear the same answer in one form or another: the car cannot fall because it is not hanging. That is not a slogan. It is a description of the mechanism, and it is the reason this drive kept its place in low-rise housing while other arrangements came and went.
What the sentence leaves out is where the limits sit. A hydraulic unit still has moving parts, still relies on a valve closing properly, still needs a defined response to a power failure, and still has to be serviced. The rest of this page separates the part of the safety case that is built into the structure from the part that depends on maintenance.
Four words that are not interchangeable
Support means the load is carried from below. Suspension means it is carried from above. Working principle is the chain of cause and effect that connects the machine to the car — not a specification. Rated load is how much the unit is approved to carry, which is a property of the model on offer and a different question from how the car is held up.
When a brochure slides those four together, ask which one it is answering. The mechanism is fixed by the type of drive. The load rating, the dimensions and the travel belong to the unit in front of you and should come with a data sheet.
02 · Support against suspension, drawn side by side
The fastest way to understand hydraulic lifting is to put the two arrangements next to each other and look at which parts are under tension and which are under compression.
In a suspended arrangement the machine at the top of the shaft pays out rope, the car hangs from that rope, and a counterweight on the other side of the same rope balances part of the load. In a supported arrangement there is no rope between the machine and the car at all. A pump moves fluid into a cylinder, and the cylinder moves the car.
Schematic only. Proportions, cylinder position and the choice between a rope and a flat belt differ between units, and this drawing shows which member carries the load rather than what any particular product looks like.
What support means in practice
- The load path runs from the car, through the piston, into the fluid, into the cylinder base and into the structure under the shaft.
- No member above the car is in tension, so a parted hoisting rope is not a failure mode the design has to answer.
- Holding position costs nothing: a closed valve keeps the pressure, and the pump works only when the car moves.
- The bottom of the travel becomes the important end of the shaft, because the cylinder and the fluid live there.
What suspension means in practice
- The load path runs from the car, up through ropes or belts, over the machine and down to the counterweight, which is why the shaft head is the busy end.
- Because the car hangs, rope condition, end terminations and an overspeed device all move onto the service schedule.
- A counterweight needs space beside the car for the whole height of the travel, which changes how the shaft is arranged.
- Holding position depends on the machine brake, which is why brake checks appear in the maintenance list.
What changes for the household
For the person travelling, the difference is not theoretical. A supported car does not swing or shudder on a rope, and with no counterweight beside it the shaft can be arranged around the car itself. That is one reason hydraulic units suit houses where the available footprint is tight.
The trade is equipment at the bottom rather than the top. A hydraulic design relocates the drive; it does not remove it from the building. Buyers who skim the phrase and expect no machinery anywhere are surprised at the survey, which is why the next section names the parts first.
Hydraulic support
Carrying the car's weight from underneath with fluid held under pressure in a cylinder, rather than from above with a rope or belt.
Hydraulic fluid
The oil in the circuit, chosen because it barely changes volume under pressure, so pushing on one end moves the other predictably.
Cylinder and piston
The pair that converts pressure into movement. Fluid enters the cylinder, the piston extends, and the car rises by that distance.
Valve block
The valves that decide where the fluid goes, how fast, and how quickly the car accelerates, runs and stops.
Counterweight
A mass used in suspended designs to balance part of the car's weight. A hydraulic unit needs none, because the cylinder carries the load.
The drives you will meet in a house
Four arrangements turn up repeatedly in domestic projects, and they differ mainly in what holds the car and where the plant sits. Traction units suspend the car and put the machine in the shaft head. Hydraulic units support the car and put a power unit at the lowest level. Pneumatic or vacuum units lift with air pressure and hold position with a braking arrangement. Screw-driven units raise a platform along a turning nut and screw.
Each has a legitimate place, and the honest comparison is about which matches the house rather than which is best. Section 7 puts the four drives side by side on the questions that actually differ. For the buying-side version of the first two, the published guide to hydraulic against traction home elevators is the place to start.
03 · The five parts that do the work
A hydraulic lift is often called simple, and in outline it is: five components, one of which does the lifting and four of which make that lifting possible.
Suppliers use much the same vocabulary, which is useful: a company that cannot explain the five in plain language is either new to the product or hoping you will not ask. The names shift a little between catalogues. The functions do not.
They are the pump, the cylinder, the reservoir, the valve block and the safety valve. The table further down is worth printing.
Part 01
Pump: the only part that does work
Draws oil from the reservoir and pushes it into the cylinder under pressure. Domestic units are commonly described as using a piston pump, for efficiency and working life.
Part 02
Cylinder: turning pressure into movement
Converts fluid pressure into travel. Oil entering the cylinder extends the piston, and because the piston is joined to the car, the car rises by exactly that distance. This part carries the load every day.
Part 03
Reservoir: storage, cooling and settling
Holds the oil the circuit is not using, lets it cool, and gives contamination somewhere to settle. A reservoir with room to spare is part of why these units tolerate long service intervals.
Part 04
Valve block: the part that decides how the ride feels
Directs the oil, sets how fast it moves, and controls how gently the car starts and stops. Modern units are described as using proportional or servo valves.
Part 05
Safety valve: the part that only works once
Opens when the circuit is asked to hold more than its design allows, releasing the excess before anything is damaged. It is meant to act rarely, which is why it belongs on the service checklist.
Part by part, and what a household would notice
The table below is written from inside the house rather than the workshop. Each row names a component, what it does, what failure looks like to the people living with the lift, and the question that puts the answer on the record.
| Component | What it does in the circuit | How failure shows up in the house | What to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| PumpThe only powered part | Draws oil from the tank and pushes it into the cylinder whenever the car is called. | A slow, noisy or unwilling car, and trips that stop short. | Pump type, working life, and whether a replacement is held locally. |
| CylinderCarries the load | Converts pressure into straight-line travel and holds the car's weight while it stands. | An oil film at the base of the shaft, or a car that drifts off level. | Cylinder and seal type, and how a weep would be detected. |
| ReservoirStorage and cooling | Holds the oil not in the cylinder, lets it cool, and gives contamination somewhere to settle. | A falling oil level, rising running temperature, or visible contamination. | Oil volume, oil grade, and the oil change interval. |
| Valve blockControls the ride | Directs the oil, meters its flow, and shapes acceleration and stopping. | A jolt at start or stop, uneven speed, or a car that will not settle level. | Valve type, whether it is adjustable on site, and what was set at commissioning. |
| Safety valvePressure relief | Releases pressure when the circuit is asked to hold more than its design allows. | Nothing visible in daily use; repeated releases show up in the service record. | Its set pressure, and proof that it is checked rather than merely present. |
The functions above follow the general arrangement of a hydraulic lift circuit as published for this class of unit. The detail behind each row belongs to the model offered and should be confirmed against its documentation.
Reading a parts list the way a buyer should
Three of the five decide how the unit ages: the pump, the cylinder and the oil. The pump wears from working, the cylinder has to seal for years without attention, and the oil carries both duties. A quotation that names only the pump has described a third of the maintenance story.
Size and load converter: read a figure back in the units you think in
Drawings and quotations arrive in whichever units the supplier works in. Type into either box in a row and the other one updates as you go. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is stored.
Cylinder stroke
Travel
Rated load
Conversions use 25.4 mm to the inch, 3.28084 feet to the metre and 2.20462 pounds to the kilogram, rounded to four significant figures. A reading aid, not a specification.
Where the five parts end up in a house
Four of the five travel with the shaft package, and one does not. The cylinder sits inside the shaft, beside the car or beneath it, with the valve block normally mounted alongside. The reservoir and the pump form the power unit, which stands somewhere at the lowest level with a defined route for the hose to the cylinder.
That is the practical heart of the topic. It explains why a hydraulic home elevator asks different questions of a floor plan than a suspended one, and why the room the power unit lives in is worth choosing deliberately.
The question that replaces five brochures
Instead of asking whether the unit is safe, ask what happens to the car when the pump stops, when a seal weeps, and when the circuit is asked to hold more than it is designed for. Those three answers describe the pump, the cylinder and the safety valve at once, and they are the three parts that will cost the household money over the life of the lift.
04 · One trip up and one trip down
The most useful thing to understand about a hydraulic lift is that going up and going down are handled by different forces. The pump raises the car; gravity lowers it.
That asymmetry surprises people who assume the motor drives the car in both directions. It does not. On the way up the machine is doing all the work; on the way down the machine is only holding back, metering the fluid so the car descends at a controlled speed instead of dropping.
Schematic only. The cylinder may sit beside the car rather than beneath it, and the circuit may include further valves, but the two forces at work are the same in either arrangement.
On the way up
The call arrives, the controller starts the pump, and oil leaves the reservoir. It passes through the valve block into the cylinder under pressure, the pressure acts on the piston, and the car rises. The effort is obvious from the sound the unit makes.
Two things are worth noticing. The car rises by the distance the piston travels, so cylinder length and travel height are the same story told twice. And the valve controls acceleration as well as speed, which is why a well set unit starts and finishes without a jolt.
On the way down
The descent reverses the energy but not the layout. Nothing pushes the car down. The valve opens a path from the cylinder back to the reservoir, and the car's own weight presses the fluid out. The valve sets how quickly that happens: a wide opening for a faster descent, a narrow one for a gentler trip.
Because the descent is metered rather than powered, the movement is inherently unhurried and the valves work with gravity rather than against it. That is also why a hydraulic car feels different from a suspended one: the ride is soft in both directions, and there is no brake release to feel as a downward trip begins.
-
Moment 01
The call reaches the controller
A landing call tells the controller which way the car must move and how far. The doors are checked first, because the circuit cannot move a car with an open landing door.
-
Moment 02
The pump starts and the valves set the path
Oil begins to move. Direction is decided here, not at the pump: one machine feeds one cylinder, and the valves choose which way the fluid travels and how freely.
-
Moment 03
The car travels at a controlled rate
Acceleration, running speed and deceleration are set by valve openings rather than by pump speed alone. This is the part a household feels, and the part commissioning is meant to tune.
-
Moment 04
The car levels with the landing
Flow is cut off as the car reaches the floor line, and the closed valve holds it there. Levelling is what stops a trip ending in a step up or down, and it is one of the first things to drift.
-
Moment 05
The car waits, and the pump rests
Between trips the car is held by fluid pressure and a closed valve, not by a running motor. That is why these units are quiet when they are idle and announce themselves only when someone is travelling.
Why the descent is the half worth understanding
Published explanations of hydraulic lifts spend most of their time on the ascent, because that is where the energy goes in. For a household, the descent answers the real questions: why the car cannot gather speed on the way down, why the movement stops when the control is released, and why the unit behaves as it does in a power failure.
It also explains the maintenance habit that matters most. Because the descent depends on fluid returning through a valve, anything that restricts or releases that path changes how the car behaves. A household that notices a car settling slowly, or a landing that stops lining up, has seen a hydraulic problem early rather than late.
The one-sentence version
The pump lifts the car and gravity lowers it, and a valve decides how fast either can happen. Once that is clear, the machine's other behaviour — the smooth start, the soft stop, the quiet idle, the slow settle during a fault — reads as a consequence rather than a claim.
05 · What happens when something fails
A safety claim is only worth as much as the behaviour behind it. Here are the three failures a hydraulic lift is normally designed around, and what each one actually does to the car.
The reason the hydraulic principle keeps coming back in domestic designs is that the fluid changes the shape of the failure. Pressure that leaks away is not the same event as a rope that parts, and the difference is measured in seconds.
Three failures, three different outcomes
Choose the one you want described. Nothing is sent anywhere, and the panel below changes in place.
What has gone wrong?
A leak: the car settles, it does not fall
- Pressure escapes through the leak instead of being released at once, so the car loses height gradually rather than dropping. Suppliers describe this as a slow descent, and it follows directly from supporting the car with fluid.
- What the household notices first is usually a landing that no longer lines up, or a car that drifts after being left standing. Both are early signals rather than emergencies, and both belong in a service call.
- The uncomfortable version is a person inside the car while it settles. That is why the emergency arrangements matter as much as the mechanism: bring the car to a landing, open the doors, and take the lift out of use until a competent person has inspected it.
A power cut: nothing moves until something is opened
- Cutting the supply stops the pump, and stopping the pump does not empty the cylinder. The valves close, the fluid stays put, and the car holds its position. A suspended lift behaves differently, because the car then depends on a brake.
- The question is therefore not whether the car falls, but how the household gets out. Published material describes arrangements such as lowering the car to a landing on a controlled descent, holding it until power returns, or using a manual release operated by a competent person.
- Whichever arrangement the model uses, the household needs it written down: what the person in the car does, what the person outside does, and who is allowed to operate a manual release.
Overload: the relief valve acts before anything else does
- If the circuit is asked to hold more than it is designed for, the relief valve opens and lets pressure escape, protecting the pump, the cylinder and the structure from a load they were not built to carry.
- The visible outcome is normally nothing at all, which is the point. A valve that has acted shows up in the machine's record rather than in daily use, and a unit that repeats the event is telling you its duty has changed.
- The household-side protection is separate: overload detection that refuses the trip, and a rated load the unit is approved to carry. Ask for that figure for the specific model.
These descriptions follow the general behaviour of hydraulic lift circuits as published for this class of unit. The response plan for an actual model is set by its supplier, and the household should hold it in writing.
Why “it cannot fall” is the wrong way to say it
The phrase is repeated so often that it has stopped carrying information. What is true is narrower: no member above the car is in tension, so a parted hoisting rope is not part of the design. What is equally true is that the unit still depends on valves closing correctly, on a cylinder sealing, and on a controller that keeps doors and travel interlocked.
Restating the claim as behaviours does not weaken it. It turns it into something a household can verify. What does the car do when the pump stops, when a seal weeps, when someone tries to travel with the doors open? And how is a person recovered from a car that is not at a landing?
Leak and power-cut response: the card to keep by the lift
Print that card and keep it somewhere the household can find without a phone. The value of a response plan is that it exists before the event.
What a household should be told, in writing
Three sentences belong in the handover pack of every hydraulic home elevator. What does the car do if the circuit leaks? What does it do if the power fails? And how do you reach a person inside the car while the lift is out of service? A supplier who cannot put those on paper has not finished the installation.
06 · What the mechanism gives a house
Supporting the car instead of hanging it produces three practical benefits that households notice, and two trade-offs that are easier to live with once they are named in advance.
Supplier pages tend to list the benefits as features and leave the trade-offs to the survey. The honest order is the other way round: understand what the arrangement asks of your floor plan first, then decide whether the benefits are worth it for your house.
Gain 01
A simpler machine is an easier machine to keep
There are no ropes to inspect and no counterweight to balance, so part of the maintenance a suspended lift needs does not exist here. What remains is a pump, a cylinder, oil and valves, and published descriptions present that shorter list as an advantage.
Gain 02
The ride is smooth in both directions
Fluid absorbs shock in a way a rope and a machine brake do not. Because the movement is metered rather than pulled, a hydraulic car starts, runs and stops without the small jolts familiar from suspended lifts.
Gain 03
The shaft can be smaller and the structure lighter
Without a counterweight beside the car and without a machine above it, the enclosure can be arranged around the car itself. Published material describes a compact footprint and less structural modification, which is what makes these units viable where a plant room or a deep shaft head is not available.
Two trade-offs to name in the same breath
The first is the power unit. A pump, a motor and an oil tank have to stand somewhere at the lowest level, inside the house rather than in a plant room at the roof. For most houses that is a manageable corner near the bottom landing, but it is real equipment with a real footprint that a technician has to reach.
The second is the length of the travel. The car can only rise as far as the piston extends, so the cylinder has to be long enough for the journey. That is not a problem in the low-rise settings these units are designed for, and it becomes one when the same drive is asked to serve a much taller building.
Where the power unit sits decides how the house feels
The pump is the only part that makes a continuous sound while it works, and it stands at the lowest level rather than at the top. That fact decides whether the lift is heard from the kitchen or from a bedroom, and it is settled with a floor plan rather than a decibel figure in a brochure.
Ask where the unit will stand, what separates it from the rooms that matter, and what isolation is proposed between the equipment and the structure. Those three answers, taken together, tell you more about living with the lift than any specification sheet does. If the only position available is behind a bedroom wall, raise it before the order rather than after the installation.
A fair summary of the trade
You give up a plant room at the top and a counterweight beside the car, and you take on a power unit at the bottom and a travel length the cylinder has to match. For a low-rise house with an awkward roof and a tight footprint, that exchange usually favours the hydraulic arrangement. For a tall building with plant space already designed in, it usually does not.
07 · How hydraulic compares with the other drives
Four drives appear again and again in residential projects. They differ less in quality than in what holds the car, where the plant goes, and what the house has to provide.
Read the table as a set of questions rather than a ranking. Each row tells you what the arrangement is good at and what it asks of the building, and the right answer for a particular house is the row whose requirements match what that house can give.
| Drive | How the car is held | Where the plant sits | What it asks of the house |
|---|---|---|---|
| HydraulicThis page | Supported from below by fluid in a cylinder; a valve holds the position when the machine stops. | A power unit and oil tank at the lowest level, with the cylinder inside the shaft. | Space at the bottom for the power unit, a travel the cylinder can match, and a pump whose position decides how audible the lift is. |
| TractionSuspended | Suspended from ropes or belts over a machine, balanced by a counterweight travelling beside the car. | The machine at the shaft head, or in a plant room above it. | Headroom for the machine, room beside the car for the counterweight, and rope or belt inspection in the service schedule. |
| Pneumatic or vacuumAir pressure | Raised by air pressure in a tube or cylinder, and held in position by a braking arrangement rather than by the fluid. | Compression and control equipment, usually compact and often near the top of the travel. | Airtight construction at the top and bottom of the tube, and a maintenance routine around seals and air handling. |
| Screw drivenMechanical | Raised by a platform travelling along a turning screw inside a nut, with a mechanical nut carrying the load. | Motor and gearbox at the base or against a wall, with the screw running the height of the travel. | A self-supporting structure rather than a shaft, and a check that the load-bearing nut is serviced as the maker requires. |
Descriptions follow the general published behaviour of each drive type. The column that matters most is the last one, because it describes the item your house has to supply rather than the item the supplier ships.
Two questions this table settles
The first is where the machine lives, which usually decides the shortlist. No usable plant space above the shaft pushes the suspended options down the list. No room at the bottom for a power unit does the same to the hydraulic arrangement. Neither is a defect in a product; both are facts about a building.
The second is what happens to the car when the drive stops. Support keeps the car where it is until something opens a path for the fluid. Suspension depends on a brake, air pressure on the hold the arrangement produces, and a screw drive on the nut carrying the load. Ask each supplier, then compare the four answers.
Two pages are worth reading alongside this one. The published comparison of hydraulic and traction home elevators follows the first two rows through the buying decision, and the hydraulic home elevator category sets out the hardware described here. The product overview shows the wider range.
A question that separates suppliers quickly
Ask what holds the car in place while it is standing at a landing. A supplier who answers with a component, a position and a maintenance interval is describing a real machine. A supplier who answers with a promise has told you how the next conversation will go.
08 · Questions buyers ask
These are the questions that arrive most often, answered from the mechanism rather than from a brochure. Read them as a rehearsal for the conversation with a supplier.
A pump pushes oil into a cylinder, and the extending piston raises the car. Nothing hangs it from above, so the load is carried in compression rather than tension. To descend, a valve lets the oil return to the tank and the car's own weight does the rest.
A lift in which the car is supported from underneath by fluid held under pressure in a cylinder, with a power unit holding the pump and tank at the lowest level. It is the opposite arrangement to a traction lift, which suspends the car from ropes or belts.
Pressure applied to fluid in a closed circuit produces movement at the other end, and because the fluid barely changes volume the movement is predictable. The pump supplies the pressure, the cylinder converts it into travel, and the valves decide how much reaches the cylinder and how quickly it is released.
Three carry most of the weight here. Fluid transmits pressure rather than losing it, so a small force at the pump becomes a large force at the cylinder. Fluid is close to incompressible, so the car moves when the pump moves instead of springing. And pressure in a closed circuit stays put, which is why a car can stand at a landing with the motor off.
Yes, two. Section 2 draws a supported and a suspended car side by side, so you can see which member carries the load. Section 4 shows the two halves of a trip: the pump raising the car, and the valve metering it back down. Both are schematic, because cylinder position varies between models.
The building-side requirements change more than the principle does. A house has to give the power unit a place at the lowest level, keep it reachable for maintenance, and accept that the pump is the part the household hears. In exchange, the car needs no counterweight beside it or machine above it, which is what makes the arrangement work in tight existing houses.
The circuit is easy to describe and hard to make safe. A home lift carries passengers, and the parts that keep it safe are the ones a home-built project cannot supply. That list includes interlocked landing doors, obstruction detection, an overspeed arrangement, a declared rated load, and a recovery procedure for a person inside a stopped car.
Not the plant room above the shaft that a traction lift traditionally uses. It needs somewhere for the power unit: a pump, a motor and an oil tank rather than a room. In practice that is a position at the lowest level, reachable by whoever services it.
Because the oil that raises the car has to come from somewhere and go back somewhere. At the bottom almost all of it sits in the tank; at the top most of it sits in the cylinder. The tank is also where the fluid cools and contamination settles, so its volume is a functional choice.
The pump stops and the car holds its position, because the fluid has nowhere to go until a valve opens a path. How the person is brought to a landing depends on the model: some units lower the car on a controlled descent, some hold it until power returns, and some use a manual release. Ask which applies to your unit and see it written into the handover pack.
A leaking circuit loses pressure gradually, so the car settles rather than drops. That is a materially different event from the one buyers imagine, and it is why “supported rather than suspended” is worth understanding. It is still a fault: take the lift out of service and have it inspected before it is used again.
Published material describes one professional service a year as the normal arrangement, covering the pump, the cylinder, the valves, the oil and the safety functions. Whether the unit fits your house comes down to three facts: a workable position for the power unit at the lowest level, the travel the cylinder must cover, and where the machine will be heard from.
09 · What to settle before you ask for a figure
A quotation is only as good as the facts behind it. These are the items to have ready, and the ones any competent supplier will ask for in the first conversation.
Work through the list and print or copy it. A supplier who receives these answers can give you something comparable across companies; a supplier who receives none will give you a range that describes a product rather than your house.
Pre-survey list: what to have ready before a supplier visits
What a useful first reply looks like
A reply is useful when it contains things your house can be measured against. Where will the power unit stand? How much travel will the cylinder cover? What does the unit do when the supply is interrupted, and what does the annual service include? A reply with only a number and a photograph is a starting point, not the end of a conversation.
Ask for the same four items from every supplier, in the same words. Comparable answers make comparison possible; differently framed answers make it easy to choose on the strength of a brochure. The testing and control page describes how units are checked before dispatch.
The habit that changes the outcome
Ask for positions and behaviours instead of adjectives. Where does the power unit go? How is the car held at a landing, and what happens to that hold when the supply stops? How is a person recovered from a stopped car? Four answers tell you more than any description of quality.
If an answer cannot be given for the specific model, treat that as information. A supplier who says plainly that a figure depends on the model and will be confirmed in writing is easier to work with than one who supplies a confident number for a question with no single answer.
Send the travel, the position and who will be travelling.
Tell us the floors to be served, where the power unit could stand, who the lift has to carry, and what is under the position. We will come back with which hydraulic arrangement suits the space and which questions the survey still has to answer.
latest company news
Mail Us
