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Special Purpose Personnel Elevators (SPPE) Explained
October 06, 2026
Special purpose personnel elevators: what they are, and the four conditions that decide whether your site needs one
A special purpose personnel elevator exists because some buildings have to move people vertically in places where an ordinary passenger lift cannot be installed, maintained or accepted. Grain silos, radio transmission towers, underground facilities, dams and power stations are the standard examples, and they share the same problem: the space is restricted, the atmosphere is hostile, or the station is normally empty.
This page works through that problem in order. It explains what the equipment class is, how the car, the drive and the stopping devices work, what the published specifications of the units described here actually say, and which questions have to be answered before anyone specifies one. Every figure below carries its source, and the figures that come from a third-party manufacturer are labelled as such rather than presented as our own.
The short version
- The category is defined by the site, not by the product. A special purpose personnel elevator is the answer to a location where a standard passenger lift cannot be justified, installed or maintained.
- Four conditions do the deciding. Restricted hoistway space, a dusty or wet environment, an unwatched station, and a duty cycle that does not match a domestic machine.
- The drive is the familiar part. The units described in the published specifications on this page use a VVVF (variable voltage variable frequency) drive with steel T-section guide rails, a geared machine and a down-speed governor.
- The safety devices are where the class earns its name. Emergency exits, anti-skid flooring, full-fold landing doors with safety switches, self-cleaning door tracks and interlocked controls are not accessories here; they are the reason the machine can be used at all.
- A quoted standard is not a certification. The source material states compliance with ASME Code A17.1 for the units it describes. That is the manufacturer's statement about their equipment, and it is not a claim about our products.
- The published figures are imperial and third-party. Capacities from 500 lb to 1000 lb, hoistways from 48" wide, travel speeds around 100 fpm and minimum pit depths from 5'0" are reproduced from the original specification tables, with the source stated.
- Planning dimensions are not construction drawings. The original tables say so explicitly, and any real project has to have the hoistway, pit and overhead verified during engineering design.
- Our own range is domestic, and this page says so. The equipment described here is industrial third-party material; the lifts we build are home lifts, so the article ends by showing where that boundary is rather than pretending it is not there.
01 · Why this equipment class exists
An ordinary passenger lift assumes four things. There is a hoistway to put it in, the machine room or shaft head is clean and dry, somebody notices when it stops working, and the people riding it know how to behave in a lift. A personnel elevator for industrial sites exists for the buildings where at least one of those assumptions is false.
That is the whole reason the category is separate. Nothing about the engineering is exotic: the published specifications describe a geared traction machine, steel guide rails, a counterweighted car and an electrical panel that most lift engineers would recognise immediately. What changes is the environment the equipment has to survive and the fact that the passengers are workers doing a job rather than visitors going up two floors.
Three assumptions a standard lift makes, and what happens when they fail
- There is room for a conventional hoistway. Where the structure is already built, or where the shaft has to thread between existing equipment, the plan gives way to the building rather than the other way round. Narrow cars, rear or side counterweights and unusual landing positions become the normal answer.
- The atmosphere is kind. Grain dust, process moisture, salt air and outdoor weather all reach the parts of a lift that a passenger machine expects to keep clean: door tracks, guides, brake surfaces and electrical enclosures.
- Somebody is watching. A lift in a lobby is noticed within minutes. A lift in an unstaffed tower may not be used for days, so the machine has to be designed for a duty cycle measured in occasional trips rather than hundreds of movements a day.
The phrase that matters in the name is therefore not "elevator". It is "special purpose". The equipment is specified backwards from the site: the condition comes first, the machine is chosen to suit it, and the safety devices are selected for the failure modes that the condition creates. That is why a personnel elevator for silos, towers or underground works is described by the place it serves long before it is described by its capacity.
What "personnel" changes compared with a freight lift
A freight lift carries goods and may, under strict conditions, carry an operator. A personnel elevator is designed from the start to move people, which pulls three requirements into the specification immediately.
- The car has to be survivable, not just strong. Anti-skid flooring, an emergency exit and a lighting and alarm circuit are part of the equipment rather than optional extras.
- The landing doors have to be controlled. Electromechanical locks that prevent a door opening when the car is not at that floor, plus interlocked controls that stop the lift running when a door is not secured, are the first line of defence on an unattended station.
- Overspeed protection is not shared with the load. Synchronised down-speed governors and car safeties act on the car itself, so the protection does not depend on the condition of the suspension or the load in the cabin.
The rest of this page works through the same list in the order a project actually meets it: site conditions, then structure, then safety devices, then compliance, and only then the commercial question of who supplies it.
02 · Four site conditions that rule out a standard lift
Most projects do not arrive asking for a special purpose personnel elevator. They arrive asking for a lift, and the category is decided by four conditions that appear during the survey. If two or more of them are true, the specification stops being a domestic or commercial standard product.
The four conditions are independent of each other, which is why they are worth treating separately. A dusty grain silo with generous space is a different problem from a clean tower with no space, and a machine that solves one of them does not automatically solve the other.
Condition 01
Restricted hoistway space
The shaft has to pass through a structure that already exists, or alongside equipment that cannot move. Conventional car sizes do not fit, and the counterweight has to be repositioned to the rear or the side. The published tables on this page show how much the required hoistway changes between those two arrangements for the same capacity.
Condition 02
Dust, moisture or outdoor exposure
Process dust settles on door tracks and guide surfaces; moisture and washdown attack the same parts from the other direction. Where the run is partly outdoors, rain and temperature swing are added to the list. This is what drives self-cleaning door tracks, sealed enclosures and rated electrical components.
Condition 03
An unattended or infrequently used station
A tower, a penstock gallery or a plant level may be visited occasionally rather than continuously. The equipment has to start reliably after long idle periods, give a trapped passenger a way out, and allow a rescue procedure that does not depend on a lift attendant standing by.
Condition 04
A duty cycle a domestic machine was never sized for
Inspection work can mean several trips in an hour followed by a week of nothing. That pattern is harder on a drive than steady traffic, because the machine spends most of its life at rest in an environment that corrodes or contaminates it while it waits.
- Two conditions is usually the tipping point. Once a second one applies, the standard product stops being the reference point and the specification starts from the site instead.
- All four together change the brief. That project is not looking for a smaller passenger lift; it is looking for equipment designed around the place it has to work in.
The conditions also explain why the safety list on this page is longer than a domestic one. Each device answers a specific failure that one of the four conditions creates.
03 · What the term actually covers
The phrase "special purpose personnel elevator" is used loosely in search results, sometimes for any lift that is not in a house. It is worth pinning down, because the definition decides which standards apply and therefore what has to be documented at handover.
In the material published by the manufacturers who build these units, the term covers a counterweighted, guided lift with a car that is enclosed or partially enclosed, installed in a structure where a conventional passenger lift is impractical. It is not a hoist, not a materials-only lift, and not a platform that happens to have a railing. The definition is also what turns general interest in industrial personnel elevator equipment into a personnel elevator safety case that somebody can be held to.
Special purpose personnel elevator (SPPE)
A guided lift intended to carry people in a specific location that a standard passenger lift does not serve: silos, towers, underground works, dams and power stations. The specification is written around the site.
VVVF drive
Variable voltage variable frequency control. It varies the voltage and frequency supplied to the motor so the car accelerates, travels and levels smoothly instead of starting and stopping abruptly. The units described on this page use it.
Down-speed governor
A device that monitors the speed of the car in the downward direction and triggers the car safeties if the car exceeds the set speed. It acts mechanically, so it works even when the electrical control system does not.
Car safeties
The braking blocks that grip the guide rails and stop the car when the governor trips. They are the reason a personnel elevator can be used at a station where nobody is standing by to notice a fault.
T-section guide rails
The steel rails that guide the car and carry the safety gear. The original material on this page specifies 8 lb steel T-rails, which is a heavier section than a light-duty machine would use.
NEMA 4 and hazardous location ratings
Enclosure ratings for the electrical equipment: NEMA 4 for indoor or outdoor use where water and dust must be kept out, and a separate hazardous location rating where the atmosphere itself is the risk. Which one applies is decided by the site, not by preference.
What the term does not cover
Three neighbouring categories get confused with it, and the difference matters at the point where a project is priced.
- A materials lift. Goods-only equipment may share the same shaft dimensions and drive, but it is not cleared to carry people, and the absence of car safeties, emergency exits and interlocked landing doors is exactly what makes it cheaper.
- A domestic home lift. Our own range belongs here. It is built for houses and villas, specified with the household in mind, and it is not the same product as an industrial personnel elevator. The last section of this page sets out that boundary honestly.
- Work platforms and manlifts. Portable access equipment is covered by different rules again and is generally used for maintenance tasks rather than for regular vertical transport between fixed levels.
The practical test is simple enough: if the machine is expected to carry people between fixed floors as part of normal work, in a place a normal lift cannot serve, the site is in the special purpose personnel category. Everything after that is documentation.
04 · Inside the machine: drive, rails and stopping
Once the site conditions are accepted, the equipment itself is easier to read than the category. The published material describes a drive train, a guiding system and a stopping system, in that order, and each part has a job that the next one depends on.
The sequence below follows the power from the electrical supply to the point where the car is brought to a stop. It is worth reading in that order, because it shows where the safety functions sit: two of the seven stages exist only to stop the machine when something else has already failed.
-
Stage 1
The drive decides how the machine moves
A VVVF elevator drive varies voltage and frequency together, so the car accelerates and levels without the jolt of a direct-on-line start. The published units accept a 240–480 V input and the panel includes the components that make that supply usable: fused circuit breakers, a control circuit transformer, phase reversal relays, anti-welding relays and reversing starters.
-
Stage 2
The motor turns electrical energy into torque
The original specification lists a 3 HP, 60 Hz, 240–480 V motor mounted on a structural steel channel frame. It can be arranged for vertical or horizontal mounting, which gives the installer a way to work around the space that is actually available.
-
Stage 3
The gear reducer and brake hold the load
A gear reducer brings the motor speed down to a speed the car can use, and an electrically released disc brake holds the machine when it is not running. The brake releases to allow movement and applies when power is removed, which is why the car stays where it is during a power failure.
-
Stage 4
The traction sheave moves the ropes
The published figures specify a 22 inch diameter traction sheave with a sheave liner. The liner protects the rope surface and can be replaced, which is one of the maintenance points worth writing into a service schedule before handover rather than after the first inspection.
-
Stage 5
The guide rails keep the car on its line
The source material specifies 8 lb steel T-section guide rails. Heavier rail sections matter in this class of equipment because the rails carry both the normal guiding loads and the loads applied when the car safeties grip them.
-
Stage 6
The car and counterweight share the work
A counterweighted arrangement means the machine lifts the difference between the car load and the counterweight rather than the whole car. Rear and side counterweight positions are both published, and the choice changes the hoistway footprint required at each capacity.
-
Stage 7
The governor and safeties stop the car if it runs away
A down-speed governor monitors the car as it travels downward; if the speed exceeds the set limit it trips the car safeties, which grip the guide rails and bring the car to a stop. Because the chain is mechanical, it does not depend on the drive, the controller or the power supply still working.
Where the parts sit in a counterweighted shaft
Schematic of the arrangement described in the published material: a counterweighted car on T-section rails, a geared machine and controller above, landing doors with interlocks, and a governor acting on the car safeties.
What the drive actually does for the person in the car
Smooth acceleration is not a comfort feature in this class of equipment. It changes what the ride feels like at the two moments that matter most, and it changes how hard the mechanical parts work over the life of the machine.
- Levelling is repeatable. The drive adjusts the machine as the car arrives, so the car floor meets the landing rather than stopping short or overshooting.
- Starting current is controlled. A controlled start is gentler on the electrical supply, which matters in plants where the lift is fed from a shared distribution board.
- Mechanical wear is spread out. Reducing shock loads at start and stop reduces the load on the gear reducer, the sheave liner and the rails.
- Faults are visible. A drive with an integrated panel can report what stopped the machine, which shortens the diagnosis on a site that may be hours from a service centre.
The published material describes the electrical and mechanical composition of these units. It does not publish cycle ratings, duty classes or expected overhaul intervals, so those numbers have to come from the manufacturer for the specific machine being considered.
05 · The safety devices, one by one
This is the part of the specification that separates a personnel elevator from a goods lift, and it is also the part most likely to be summarised as a list of features. Read as a table, each device answers a specific failure instead.
The devices below are the ones named in the published material for the units described on this page. They are grouped here by the problem each one is aimed at, which is the order in which a risk assessment would look at them.
| Device | What it does | Failure it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency exitPublished as standard equipment on the units described | Provides a way out of the car other than the landing door in normal use. | A car stopped away from a landing while someone is inside, at a station where nobody is standing by. |
| Anti-skid steel flooringPublished as standard equipment | Gives a grip surface that does not rely on a floor covering staying dry or clean. | Slips inside the car where water, oil or process dust is tracked in. |
| Full-fold landing doorsPublished as standard equipment | Close the landing opening and fold clear of the doorway when open. | An open landing edge, which is the exposure a passenger lift normally closes with a solid door. |
| Door safety switchesPublished as standard equipment | Report whether the door is actually closed before the machine is allowed to run. | A door left part-open by a draught, by debris in the track, or by a hurried user. |
| Self-cleaning door tracksPublished as standard equipment | Shape the track so that dust and grit fall out of it rather than accumulating. | Contamination that would otherwise stop the door closing and eventually defeat the safety switch. |
| Electromechanical door locksPublished as standard equipment | Prevent a landing door opening when the car is not at that floor. | A fall into the shaft at a landing where the car is not present. |
| Interlocked controlsPublished as standard equipment | Stop the machine operating while any door is unsecured. | Movement with an opening in the enclosure, which is the failure mode that turns a minor fault into an incident. |
| Down-speed governor and car safetiesPublished as standard equipment | Detect an overspeed in the downward direction and grip the guide rails to stop the car. | A loss of control that the normal brake and drive cannot stop. |
Three details worth asking about in writing
The table describes a well-equipped list rather than a complete safety case, because several of these devices have variants and the difference is only visible in the documents.
- Which replacement parts are kept non-proprietary. The published material states that these units use non-proprietary components to simplify maintenance, and it also states that replacement doors are available with or without locking mechanisms. Both statements matter on a remote site, because they decide whether a local contractor can keep the lift running.
- Which optional devices are fitted and why. Constant pressure operation, stainless steel cars, counterweight down-speed protection, hazardous location housings and rear exit doors on the 1000 lb model are all listed as available configurations. An available option is not a fitted option, so the schedule has to name what is included.
- How the rescue procedure works. Emergency exits and alarms only help if the site knows what to do with them. Ask for the procedure, the training and the contact chain at the same time as the quotation.
Where this list comes from
Every device in the table above is named in the specification published by the third-party manufacturer whose equipment this page describes. The list is reproduced from that source, including the note that the units are supplied with pre-wired cars and control panels, interior lighting and alarm switches. It is not a list of devices we supply, and it is not a description of our own product range.
06 · Power, controls and installation conditions
The electrical side of a personnel elevator is where site conditions turn into cost. A panel that suits a plant room is not the same panel that suits an outdoor tower, and the difference appears in the enclosure rating, the supply arrangement and the way the machine can be orientated.
The published figures give a usable picture of what has to be provided at the site. The list is short, which is itself informative: this class of equipment is designed to be installed by a contractor working from a drawing rather than by a specialist crew with unusual tooling.
Supply and protection
The control panel accepts 240–480 V and includes fused circuit breakers, a control circuit transformer, phase reversal relays, anti-welding relays and reversing starters. For the site, that means a supply of the right voltage, a disconnecting means, and an earth arrangement agreed with the electrical contractor.
Enclosures and atmosphere
NEMA 4 rating covers indoor and outdoor locations where water and dust have to be kept out. Where the atmosphere is classified as hazardous, a separate rating and housing apply. The classification belongs to the site, and the equipment has to match the classification rather than the other way round.
Wiring and commissioning
Pre-wired numbered terminal blocks mean the connections are made to identified points rather than to a bundle of loose conductors. That shortens commissioning and makes later fault-finding practical on a site where the original installer may not return.
Installation conditions that decide the layout
Personnel elevator installation on an existing site is mostly a question of what can be built around the machine. Most of the layout decisions are made before any equipment arrives.
- Machine orientation. The motor is published as suitable for vertical or horizontal mounting, which allows the machine position to follow the structure instead of the structure being modified to suit the machine.
- Pit and overhead. Minimum pit depth and overhead clearances are tabulated against speed and capacity in the source material, and they are the two figures most likely to force a redesign if they are discovered late.
- Landing door handing. Landing doors are published as standard equipment with left-hand or right-hand operation, so the handing has to be decided per landing rather than assumed from the plan.
- Access for maintenance. Whatever the machine arrangement, the person servicing it needs a safe place to stand and a way to reach the controller, the brake and the governor without improvising.
One sentence worth taking from the original tables
Published dimensions, says the manufacturer's own note, should be used for planning purposes only, and final measurements require verification during engineering design. That is the correct posture for any lift project, and it is repeated on this page because it is the single most useful sentence in the source material.
07 · The published specifications, with the source
The figures below are reproduced from the personnel elevator specifications published by the third-party manufacturer whose equipment this page describes. They are included because they are the most concrete information available on the subject, and they are labelled because they are not our figures, our models or our dimensions.
Read them as an example of how the class is sized rather than as a quotation for any installation. The relationships are what matter: how much hoistway the same capacity needs when the counterweight moves from the rear to the side, and how the minimum pit and overhead change as travel speed rises.
Source of the two tables below
Third-party brand original specification, published on this page before this revision and reproduced here unchanged in content. Capacities are quoted in pounds, dimensions in inches and feet, speed in feet per minute. The manufacturer's own note applies to both tables: the dimensions are for planning purposes only, and final measurements require verification during engineering design.
| Capacity (lb) | Counterweight | Hoistway (W × D) | Door frame (W × H) | Interior (W × D) | Height | Speed (fpm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | Rear | 48" × 45.5" | 43.5" × 91" | 31.75" × 31.75" | 82" | 100 |
| 500 | Side | 54" × 40.5" | 43.5" × 91" | 31.75" × 31.75" | 82" | 100 |
| 650 | Rear | 52" × 48.5" | 47.5" × 91" | 35.25" × 35.25" | 82" | 100 |
| 650 | Side | 58" × 40.5" | 47.5" × 91" | 35.25" × 35.25" | 82" | 100 |
| 1000 | Rear | 58" × 54.5" | 53.5" × 91" | 41.75" × 40.75" | 82" | 100 |
| 1000 | Side | 64" × 46.5" | 53.5" × 91" | 41.75" × 40.75" | 82" | 100 |
The same source text also lists 750 lb as an available capacity band, alongside 500 lb, 650 lb and 1000 lb, while the dimensional table above sets out rows for 500 lb, 650 lb and 1000 lb. Where the two disagree, the table is the dimensional record and the text is the range; confirm which bands are currently offered before working to a number.
| Speed (fpm) | Minimum pit depth | Minimum overhead | Capacity (lb) | Car height |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0–200 | 5'0" | 15'6" | 2000–4000 | 8'0" |
| 0–200 | 5'2" | 15'6" | 4500–5000 | 8'0" |
| –350 | 5'9" | 16'0" | 2000–5000 | 8'0" |
| –400 | 5'9" | 16'4" | 2000–5000 | 8'0" |
| –500 | 6'4" | 16'10" | 2000–5000 | 8'0" |
One qualification on table 2
The speed column in the original table prints the lower rows as –350, –400 and –500 fpm rather than as closed ranges. Those entries are reproduced here exactly as published, without silently completing them, because guessing the missing digits would be worse than showing the gap. Treat them as upper speed limits pending confirmation from the manufacturer.
Two patterns are worth taking from the tables even before the numbers are confirmed. First, moving the counterweight from the rear to the side changes the hoistway footprint while the car interior stays the same, which means the decision is a planning decision rather than a capacity decision. Second, pit depth moves from 5'0" to 6'4" and overhead from 15'6" to 16'10" across the published speed steps, so a site with restricted depth below the lowest landing may be limiting the speed rather than the load.
08 · Compliance: what is claimed and what is not
In this equipment class, the paperwork decides whether a machine can be used at all. The published material states that the units described meet or exceed the requirements of ASME Code A17.1 for special purpose personnel elevators. That statement belongs to the manufacturer, about their equipment, and it is repeated here as a quotation rather than adopted as our own.
The distinction is not a technicality. A standard quoted in a product description tells you what the supplier designs to. It does not tell you what the local authority will accept, who will witness the acceptance test, or what documentation the owner will be asked for at handover.
Four things a project still has to settle
- Which rules apply at the site. Industrial lift installations are governed by the jurisdiction, and the personnel elevator requirements set out in a national or state code can differ from the general lift code. That question is answered by the authority having jurisdiction, not by a supplier's brochure.
- Who performs the acceptance test. The installation has to be examined and tested before it carries people. Agree in advance who attends, what is measured, and what the passing result looks like.
- What documentation travels with the equipment. Drawings, wiring diagrams, the maintenance schedule, the rescue procedure and the component list should be handed over as a package rather than assembled later.
- How ongoing inspection is arranged. A machine in an unstaffed tower needs a planned inspection interval that somebody actually owns, together with a record that survives changes of contractor.
Documents to request before signing anything
- Engineering drawing for the specific machine, showing hoistway, pit, overhead, landing openings and machine position, not a generic catalogue page.
- Electrical schematic for the panel as supplied, including the protection devices and the terminal numbering.
- Safety component list, naming the governor, the safeties, the door locks and the switches, with the standard each one is designed to.
- Maintenance and rescue procedures, written for the site rather than for the workshop.
- A statement of what is not included, since the items left out of a quotation are usually the ones that delay commissioning.
None of this replaces the manufacturer's own compliance statement, and the manufacturer's statement does not replace any of it. Both halves have to exist before an industrial personnel elevator can be handed over in a usable condition.
09 · Three answers that tell you which case you are in
Before a specification is written, three answers usually decide which conversation the project is having: how much space is available, what the atmosphere is like, and who will be at the station. The check below reads those three answers together and tells you which of three situations you are closest to.
It is a reading of fit, not an approval. Nothing here replaces an engineering survey, and nothing here is a quotation or a specification. Change one answer and the reading changes, which is the point: most disagreements about equipment class are really disagreements about one of these three inputs.
Site class check
Three questions, no typing. The panel below updates as you answer.
1. Space for the shaft
2. The atmosphere around the run
3. Who is at the station
These answers point to a special purpose personnel elevator
What to settle next
The three states are a reading of the answers only, and they describe the kind of problem rather than the kind of product. A project that reads as a conventional lift case can still need extra safety devices; a project that reads as special purpose still has to be engineered for its own site.
10 · Reading imperial figures on an industrial drawing
The specifications on this page are published in pounds, inches, feet and feet per minute, while most site drawings outside the United States are metric. Converting by hand is where small errors enter a design, so the tool below does the arithmetic and nothing else.
It converts the four quantities that appear in the tables above: car capacity, a dimension given in feet and inches, and travel speed. Type a value and the conversion updates immediately. The defaults are the published figures, so the tool is already showing the numbers from table 1 and table 2 when the page loads.
Imperial to metric, for the figures on this page
Conversions use 1 lb = 0.45359237 kg, 1 inch = 0.0254 m and 1 fpm = 0.00508 m/s. Results are rounded for reading, not for design.
Car capacity (lb)
226.8 kg
Dimension (ft + in)
1.524 m
Speed (fpm)
0.508 m/s
Rounded readings: 500 lb is about 227 kg, 650 lb about 295 kg and 1000 lb about 454 kg. The published 100 fpm travel speed is about 0.51 m/s. Use the original figures in the tables above, not these rounded readings, when you pass anything on to an engineer.
Three habits make those conversions safer in practice. Confirm whether a dimension is inside or outside the finished surface, since hoistway and car dimensions are quoted differently and the difference is often the whole clearance. Keep the original imperial figure next to the converted one in the schedule, so a discrepancy can be traced back to its source. And treat any converted pit depth or overhead as a planning value until the engineering drawing confirms it, exactly as the manufacturer's note on the original tables requires.
11 · Questions buyers ask about personnel elevators
The questions below come from the way this subject is searched and from what buyers ask once the category has been explained. Where an answer depends on a published figure, the figure is attributed; where it depends on the site or on the manufacturer, the answer says so.
It is a guided, counterweighted lift designed to carry people in a location that a standard passenger lift does not serve: a grain silo, a transmission tower, an underground facility, a dam or a power station. The machine is specified around the site conditions rather than around a standard car size.
When the hoistway cannot take a conventional car, when the atmosphere would damage a passenger machine, when the station is normally unattended, or when the duty cycle falls outside what a domestic or standard commercial machine is built for. Two of those conditions together usually settle the question.
Capacities published for the third-party equipment described on this page are 500 lb, 650 lb, 750 lb and 1000 lb, with dimensional rows given for 500 lb, 650 lb and 1000 lb. That is the source's range, not ours, and it should be confirmed for the specific machine offered.
Speed is quoted as 100 fpm in the published dimensional table, which is about 0.51 m/s. The performance table sets out speed steps against pit depth and overhead, so the attainable speed depends on how much room there is below the lowest landing and above the top one.
The published figures run from 5'0" to 6'4" of pit depth and from 15'6" to 16'10" of overhead across the speed steps, with the car height given as 8'0". The original note applies: these are planning values, and final measurements have to be verified during engineering design.
No, and the difference is not just marketing. A home lift is built for a house, specified with the household in mind and sold with domestic documentation and support. A personnel elevator is industrial equipment with a different safety case, a different acceptance route and a different buyer. Our own range is the domestic one.
Variable voltage variable frequency. The drive changes the supply to the motor so the car accelerates, travels and levels smoothly rather than starting and stopping abruptly. It reduces shock loads on the gear reducer, the sheave liner and the rails, and it makes levelling repeatable at each landing.
Through devices that do not depend on someone being present: interlocked controls, landing door locks, a car emergency exit, interior lighting and an alarm circuit, plus down-speed governor and car safeties that act mechanically on the rails. The site also needs a written rescue procedure that somebody owns.
The published units use self-cleaning door tracks, shaped so dust and grit fall clear instead of packing into the track. That protects the two functions that contamination would otherwise defeat: the door closing fully, and the safety switch reporting that it has.
The authority having jurisdiction sets the rules for the site, and an acceptance examination has to take place before the machine carries people. Who attends, what is measured and what counts as a pass should be agreed before the equipment is ordered rather than after it is installed.
Converting a goods-only machine is not a matter of adding a handrail. The car enclosure, the door interlocks, the governor and safeties, and the electrical protection all form part of the safety case, and a machine that was never designed for passengers is normally replaced rather than upgraded.
The purpose and the environment first, then the physical facts: number of stops, travel height, available hoistway, what lies below the lowest landing and above the top one, and whether the atmosphere is classified. Photographs of the space save more time than a page of description.
12 · Where this sits next to our own range
This page exists because the subject is searched, not because the equipment is ours. The honest position is that the units described here are industrial third-party products, and our own business is domestic lifts for houses and villas. Saying so is more useful to a reader than implying a range we do not build.
What we can offer instead is the part of the topic nearest to our own work, together with the pages that show how we build and test what we do supply.
Closest to this subject
Special application lifts
The nearest thing in our own catalogue to a non-standard installation: lifts configured for a particular building rather than a standard shaft. Useful if your project is unusual but still residential in scale. See the special application range.
Heavy-duty reference
Hydraulic cargo lifts
Where a site needs to move heavy loads rather than people, a cargo platform is the honest comparison. Same guiding question, different safety case, and a different standard applies. Compare the hydraulic cargo range.
How we work
Testing and quality control
The procedures that sit behind anything we ship: incoming checks, assembly inspection, load and function testing, and the records that go with each unit. Read the quality process.
- For a house, an apartment or a villa: if the constraint is space rather than load, start from the whole catalogue rather than from this article. The product overview sets out the ranges, shaft requirements and finishes in one place.
- For an industrial site: this page gives you the vocabulary to brief a specialist properly, which is the most useful thing an article about someone else's equipment can do.
13 · What to have ready before you specify
Almost every delay in this class of project traces back to one of eight items that were not settled early. The list below is the one worth taking to a site visit, and the copy button will put it on your clipboard as plain text.
Pre-specification checklist
Two of those items are worth more attention than the rest. The question of who accepts the installation decides the documents you will need, and the question of what lies below the lowest landing decides the pit depth, which in turn decides the attainable speed. Both are cheap to answer at the start and expensive to discover at commissioning.
If you are working on a residential project, the constraint is usually the space inside a house rather than the demands of an industrial site. In that case the equipment on this page is not the answer, and we will say so rather than quote for it. Where the building is a home and a lift is the right tool, the rest of this site covers what we build and how it is installed.
Working out whether your project is industrial or domestic?
Send us the site facts and we will tell you which side of the line it falls on, including when the answer is that this class of equipment is not what you need.
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