Panoramic Aluminium Frame Home Elevator | 1000–5000 kg Hydraulic

1. When an aluminium frame panoramic lift suits your house

Two things sell this model: the cabin is a glass box you can see through, and the frame around it is aluminium. Both are visible decisions. The decision that sets the project up or kills it is quieter: can the house give the machine a floor to stand on, a clearance above it and a supply that suits a 22 kW power unit?

Houses split into three groups on that question, and the split is worth doing honestly before a quotation is requested.

Read this page in the order it is written. The pit and the overhead come first because they are the two numbers that cost real money to change later. The load band, the speed and the motor come after, because those are usually still adjustable at the quotation stage.

2. How the aluminium frame carries the load

A framed panoramic cabin has two structures doing two different jobs, and mixing them up is the most common mistake buyers make when they read a specification sheet.

The frame is the shape, not the lifting gear

The aluminium frame holds the glazing, sets the cabin geometry and takes the cabin's own weight and the weight of whoever is inside it. It is written on this sheet as Lightweight Aluminium for the frame material, with the cabin listed as 304# stainless steel or aluminium frame. Aluminium is chosen for three reasons: it does not corrode like ordinary steel in a wet or coastal house, it keeps the visible structure slim, and it lets the cabin be carried in as parts instead of one welded box.

The lifting is done somewhere else. The drive system is hydraulic, the pump is written as GSE, the pistons are 2–3 m, and the large cylinders are 4.6–7.8 m long. On a hydraulic lift the load path runs from the cabin, through the frame and the car sling, into the cylinder head and down to the pit floor, where the hydraulic pressure finally reacts against the building. That is why the pit on this model is not decorative: it is where the force from a 5,000 kg lift ends up.

What aluminium does well here, and where it stops

Aluminium's advantages in a house lift are practical rather than decorative. It does not need painting, it tolerates humid air far better than plain carbon steel, and it keeps the profile thin, which matters on a panoramic cabin because every millimetre of frame is a millimetre of glass you lose. Its limit is stiffness: aluminium deflects more than steel of the same section, so the frame's shape and its fixings have to be designed for the load. That is a factory calculation, not something a site can tune later.

Which is why the honest questions to ask about this frame are structural, not cosmetic. What section is used on the uprights? How does the frame connect to the car sling? What is it rated for at the top of the load band? This page states the material and the load band but publishes no frame drawing. Ask for one before a 5,000 kg project is confirmed, and treat a drawing-free quotation as an open item rather than an answer.

3. Pit depth: reading this page against itself

This page contradicts itself about the pit, and it is better to say so at the top than to let a buyer discover it on site.

The product name on the page is Panoramic Pitless Home Elevator, the web address contains the word pitless, and the second table on the page describes the structure as a Self-Contained Well Shaft (No Pit Required). The first table on the same page states a pit depth of 1,500–3,000 mm and a piston length of 2–3 m. Those two positions cannot both describe the same hole in the ground.

Where a page disagrees with itself, the parameter table is the version this page stands behind, so the working assumption for planning is a pit of 1,500–3,000 mm. A 2–3 m piston set needs somewhere to stand, and a hydraulic lift that is described as self-contained usually means the shaft structure arrives complete and stands on a prepared base rather than that no excavation happens at all.

The practical reading: plan for a pit of 1,500–3,000 mm and 3,000–5,000 mm of overhead, then ask the factory in writing whether your specific configuration can be built with a shallower pit and a raised sill. The answer is model-specific, and this page does not publish it.

Why the pit is the number to settle first

A pit is the only part of a home lift that has to exist before the lift does. Once a floor slab is poured and a finished floor laid, deepening a pit means cutting structure, moving services and re-doing a floor — usually while the house is occupied. The two ways to avoid that are to form the pit during the build, or to choose a lift whose pit requirement your slab can already meet.

• New build: form the pit while the slab is open. The 1,500 mm end of the band is the cheapest version to build.
• Conversion or retrofit: survey the floor structure before ordering. A 1,500 mm pit in a ground-floor room is a different proposition from the same pit on an upper floor over a finished ceiling.
• Sealed base: a hydraulic pit collects water in a wet climate, so it needs a drained, sealed base and a visible sump. That detail belongs in the quotation, not in the maintenance schedule after the first wet season.
• Overhead, in the same breath: a 3,000–5,000 mm clearance above the top landing has to come out of the roof or the stairwell. Adding it later is more expensive than adding the pit.

4. The specification table, item by item

Everything this page publishes about the machine is in the table below. Read it before the price, because four of its lines decide whether the installation is straightforward or bespoke: the pit, the overhead, the travel height and the motor.

How to read the capacity line

A 1,000–5,000 kg band is unusually wide for a product described as a home elevator, and it is worth being clear about what it means commercially. At the bottom of the band this is a house lift that carries several people, a wheelchair with an attendant, or bulky furniture without anyone counting kilograms at the door. At the top of the band a 5000 kg home elevator is competing with small goods lifts, and the civil work, the power supply and the local approval route all change with it.

Two practical consequences follow. First, ask which capacity the quotation is actually written for, because the price band on this page (see section 11) covers a wide range of builds. Second, if your real requirement is 300 kg for two people, this is the wrong page to buy from — the narrower capsule lift range and the hydraulic home elevator range cover that job with less civil work.

Speed, and what the sheet does not settle

The speed line reads 0.3–1.0 m/s, which is a range rather than a setting. Domestic hydraulic lifts are normally configured near the lower end, where the ride is quiet and the levelling is easiest; a machine working at 1.0 m/s needs a bigger pump and a more careful start-and-stop curve. Ask for the configured speed, not the range, when the order is placed, and check it against the travel: on a short two-stop run the difference is barely noticeable, on a five-stop 14.5 m run it is not.

5. Shaft, clearances and the three checks before you order

The shaft on a framed panoramic lift is not a hole in the plan with a box in it. It is a stack of dimensions that have to hold together from the pit floor to the underside of the roof, and this page publishes three of the four numbers you need. The fourth — the internal cabin and shaft size for your chosen load — is not on the sheet.

Check 1: the pit

1,500 mm is the shallowest pit this sheet allows and 3,000 mm the deepest. Which end you build for depends on the piston set the factory puts in your machine, so the pit depth should be confirmed in writing against your order number rather than taken from the range. A pit also needs a sealed, drained base: water in a hydraulic pit is the most common cause of long-term problems in wet climates, and it is far cheaper to build a sump than to pump moisture out of a finished shaft.

Check 2: the overhead

3,000–5,000 mm of clear height above the top landing. This is the dimension buyers underestimate most often, because it is invisible in the finished house. On a stairwell installation it usually comes free. Under a flat roof it usually means raising or re-forming structure, which is a cost that arrives after the lift has been chosen. Measure it before the lift is chosen, not after.

Check 3: the route in, and the door zones

The automatic doors on this model need clear floor in front of every landing, and the shaft has to be assembled from parts that get there. The longest component on the sheet is a 4.6–7.8 m cylinder, so the route matters. A stairwell, a window opening, a roof hatch or an unfinished wall all work, and any of them beats discovering the problem on delivery day.

6. Power supply, motor and the electrical check

The sheet pairs three lines that deserve to be read together: a 22 kW motor, a 220 V 50 Hz single-phase supply, and hydraulic drive. That is a large motor for a house, and 220 V single phase is an unusual way to feed it. The honest position is that this combination needs to be confirmed with the factory and with your electrician before any cable is pulled.

Nothing here is a reason to walk away. It is a reason to settle the electrical question early, while it is still a question rather than a cable.

What the microprocessor control does, and what it does not

The control line on the sheet is microprocessor-based, which is the reason a hydraulic lift can stop level at each floor instead of drifting to a stop. Electronic levelling, call handling, door timing and fault reporting all sit in that controller. What it does not do is decide your electrical installation: the panel, the isolator, the cable and the earthing are site work, and they have to match whatever the panel expects.

Checks to give the electrician before the wall is closed

• A dedicated circuit from the distribution board to a local isolator beside the power unit, reachable without entering the car or climbing into the shaft.
• Voltage, frequency and phase as actually present on site, sent to the factory so the panel is built for your supply.
• Earthing and a residual-current device on the circuit, to local rules.
• Cable size taken from the confirmed running current, not from the 22 kW figure alone.
• A dry position for the power unit with ventilation, and a bunded or drained floor if a hydraulic leak is possible where it stands.
• One more socket for the pit light and for service tools, because it is cheaper now than later.

Sequence that avoids rework: confirm pit and overhead → choose capacity and speed → get the running current from the factory → size the circuit → build the shaft. Electrical work is the step most often rushed, and it is the one that is hardest to correct once the shaft is finished.

7. Cabin, glazing and doors

The cabin line on this sheet offers two builds: 304# stainless steel or an aluminium frame. That single line covers the difference between a lift that reads as a metal box with windows and a lift that reads as a glazed room that happens to move.

Looking at the lift itself

One honest note about images. This page carries a single product photograph in its gallery, not a multi-angle set, so the small thumbnails shown around the specification table belong to other products rather than to this one. Where a detail matters — the frame section, the sill, the control plate, the glazing joint — ask for a photograph of that detail on your configuration instead of reading it off a general image. Click any gallery photograph on this page to open it full size.

Two details are worth requesting as drawings rather than photographs, because no image answers them. The first is the section through the car sling, where the aluminium frame is fixed to it. The second is the sill detail, where the automatic door meets the finished floor at each landing.

Two terms that come up in every quotation

• Overhead clearance — the clear height above the top landing, written as 3,000–5,000 mm on this sheet. It is not the same as the shaft height, and it is the number most often measured wrongly.
• Self-contained well shaft — the phrase used in the feature table on this page. It describes how the structure is supplied, and it is why the pit conflict in section 3 is worth settling in writing.

The related glass home elevator page covers the same family at a smaller, quieter setting, and is worth reading if your project is closer to 400 kg than to 5,000 kg.

8. Installation sequence and what it disturbs

Because the machine is hydraulic and the shaft is built from parts, installation on a framed panoramic lift is spread over weeks rather than compressed into one delivery. The sequence below is the one that keeps the civil work, the electrical work and the lift work from colliding.

What the work actually disturbs

On a framed panoramic lift the disruption is not a large excavation in the middle of the plan. It is the pit in the floor, the shaft structure standing in the room or in a void, and a power unit that needs a base, a vent and a dry position. Everything else — the cabin, the glazing, the doors — arrives as finished parts that are assembled in place.

• Floor: opened once, for the pit and its base. This is the disturbance with the longest consequences.
• Roof or stairwell: affected only where the overhead clearance has to be created or checked.
• Electrical: one circuit, one isolator, one dry position for the power unit.
• Finishes: door zones and the floor around the shaft, touched last.

9. Safety devices and handover checks

One thing has to be said plainly before any safety feature is discussed: this page carries no certification line. There is no CE mark, no ISO number, no standard reference in the parameter table and no approval statement anywhere on the page. So this page claims none, and any project that needs a certification document should treat it as an open item to be resolved at quotation stage rather than assumed.

What follows is therefore written as the list of devices to require and verify on your order, not as a list of features this page certifies. Every item below can be checked at commissioning, and each one belongs in the written order confirmation.

The handover that avoids arguments later

Commissioning is where a lift becomes either a finished installation or a list of complaints. Four things are worth doing in one session, with whoever will live with the lift present.

• Level the floors with a full load. Empty lifts level easily. Ask for the levelling check to be repeated at the top of your rated load, because that is where a hydraulic machine drifts.
• Run the manual lowering with the household watching. The person who needs it in an emergency will not be the person who read the manual.
• Record the settings. Speed, door timing, levelling and any fault codes that were cleared during commissioning, written into the handover sheet.
• Name the service contact and the interval. This sheet does not state a service interval or a warranty period, so both have to be agreed and written into the order (ask our engineers).

If your project needs a certified lift, raise it at quotation stage. The correct answer is a document from the factory naming the standard the machine is built and tested to, plus the local approval route for your address. A lifting machine of 1,000–5,000 kg capacity may also be treated differently from a two-person domestic lift by your local authority, and that is a question for them rather than for a brochure.

10. Aluminium frame home elevator FAQ

11. What to send for a quotation

A quotation for a framed panoramic hydraulic lift is only as good as the site data behind it. Send the six items below and the price band on this page stops being a band and becomes a configuration you can compare against another supplier's.

What the quotation has to come back with

• The confirmed pit depth and overhead clearance for your configuration, in writing, reconciled against the conflict in section 3.
• The running current and the recommended circuit, so the electrical work is not guesswork.
• The configured speed and the rated load on the machine plate.
• The service interval, the warranty period and the spares position for the GSE pump, the cylinder seals and the controller.
• Whether any certification document is available for the machine, since this page states none.
• What is included and what is not: freight, unloading, installation, commissioning and local approval.

Related pages worth reading next

• Capsule lift for home — the same glazed idea in a compact, lower-capacity build.
• Glass home elevator, quiet hydraulic — a quieter setting of the same family, for houses that want the glass without the load.
• Hydraulic home elevators — the full hydraulic range, including pit-free models for finished houses.