Industrial Automation

Elevators have always had hatches in the roof. Getting up through that hatch without a ladder is another matter entirely. Once on the roof, what could one do? Would you be able to reach a door and open it? As a matter of fact, you don't want to open an elevator door in case of fire. Elevator shafts and stairwells behave like chimneys. If fire can enter them, they can cause a fire to spread to other floors. The objective is to keep the fire contained. The solution would be to have a back-up power so the elevator can go to the main floor. This back-up should be programmed so that it can only be used one time but with the option of being reset. In the event of a fire, you might just be safer inside the elevator.

BACKUP--> "snip"

Has CR4 hired a crew of sensational writers that were fired from The National Enquirer, The Globe or some other tacky supermarket tabloid? Living so close to New York City, most people in this greater urban landscape take daily elevator rides. The last news report I heard of somebody dying from an elevator was many years ago. A fool riding on top of the cabin was crushed after defeating several safety locks. You can make things fool proof but not damned fool proof.

Maybe the next thing we'll be warned about is how space debris can kill anyone at anytime. Remember Georgia Lass was killed by the toilet seat from the MIR space station.

This Blog Entry does seem a bit ignorant of Elevators in general.

Possibly the point of these "sneak peek" blog posts is to have it pointed out that the full article may well need to be better researched.

I have been in many an elevator in Chicago, NYC, Toronto and it is right common for there to be emergency lighting, an escape door, and a telephone, not to mention speed breaks.

Maybe the addition of an interior ladder is called for, for I myself have little strength in my arthritic hands anymore for the pull up and out, but I was also under the impression that were there to be a complete electrical failure mechanical counterweights were supposed to take over and drop modern cabs to the ground floor.

I'd not say that there may well be some very old elevators that may not be as survivable as others, and I do suspect them to be in Chicago in remembrance of some scary wall banging elevator rides of my youth.

P.S. I believe that many buildings on the island of Manhattan were limited to 5 stories since at 6 they were required to have elevators. I also believe that below 3 stories the hydraulic piston elevator system is employed, whereas over that a counterweight system is employed.

A good friend of mine is an elevator inspector.

The escape hatch in an elevator is there only for maintenance and so that a rescuer can bring people up in the most remote of possible escapes. No "empty" elevator shaft is safe for un-escorted people. This is why no internal ladder exists in that moving room. One favored Hollywood myth about elevators is the elevator door that opens to reveal an empty shaft. This cannot happen for one simple reason, the motor that opens these doors is part of the moving platform. So if the platform is not there, there is no motor to open the door.

I remember having seen a Notice Board inside old Elevator reading " You are travelling in this Lift at your own Risk" put up by Landlord.

Suresh Sharma.

There's little use cutting and pasting anything out of the initial post, it is all misleading and inaccurate.

The first safety device was grandfathered from the 19th century, elevator fatalities were common when the rope pulling the horse-drawn elevator would break and the occupants could not reach the manual handbrake, Otis introduced a leaf spring type device that once unloaded by loss of tension in event the rope breaking would automatically stop the elevator , the Otis break.

As far as being trapped in the elevator in the event of a fire at least here in California elevators have been equipped with fire recall for decades, in event of a fire the elevator returns to the first floor to allow occupants to leave. At that point it no longer functions unless a override key is used.

Should the elevator malfunction in normal operation the emergency communications equipment installed in every modern elevator is there to call for help in exiting the elevator, the official policy is that it is safer to have professionals free you from the elevator, to this point they've even installed locks in the upper hatches to prevent them from being opened from the inside by occupants.

Never been one to obey official policies and always inquisitive I have escaped from elevators very easily. Barring the elevator being stuck directly between floors it's a fairly simple matter. The inner doors can be forced open whether they're powered or not, there is a release latch on the outer doors at the top. Obviously the reason they do not want people doing this is that if the elevator is positioned above the opening of the outer door sufficiently one could fall down the elevator shaft while attempting to egress the car.

So I will have to agree with the poster that said that this is tabloid sensationalism.

Thanks for some of the concrete information.

It had crossed my mind that you were supposed to wait for rescue.

I'm now wondering more and more about Elevator Stories, like what did happen to those in elevators during the NYC Blackout, and other Blackouts that have occurred?

I may well be wrong in "impressions" for though you mention return to the groundfloor in the event of fire, you do not mention trapping stops between floors implying, that yes one can be trapped in the event of power losses.

I hardly want to know the fates of some who may have been in the elevators of the World Trade Center buildings at the time of impacts and afterwards.

I'd say that while the OP did have a sensational tone, it is common journalistic practice to grab attention that way in opening, and then in the article body achieve more balance and useful information.

Some artists and writers will not let anyone see the work until it is finished as well, so I postulate some of the reasoning behind "sneak peeks" must be that thread feedback helps the Original Poster, (writer) complete an "article".

Apparently some of the more dangerous elevator events occur in college and university dorms during "Party Times".

Thankfully I have never been trapped myself in an elevator, but I have sometimes been trapped in Subways for inconvenient periods of time to the point where after losing a client once as a result of a half hour late arrival to a job, I never took the subway again from Brooklyn to the Island if headed for a job.

Gottah give the OP credit at least for introducing an interesting topic.

I look forward to reading more Elevator Stories.

Hello Transcendian:

The whole official policy is that you are supposed to wait for help. As I said I've never been much for listening to anybody. Technically the fire department or artificial elevator repair crew will respond free you by the best method. There is a special tool that these guys, use kind of like a Slim Jim to open the external elevator doors from outside.

One thing I know is I do not envy the elevator guy's job here in Southern California. Elevators not only shut off due to malfunction or power failures but also have a seismic safety feature. If the earthquake is large enough the elevator stopp where they're at and have to be manually reset.

In the 80s I was downtown on the 10th floor of a 17 story when the Whittier Narrows quake hit. Not only did the elevator shut down on the initial quake but also on several of the aftershocks, I got tired just watching the elevator guys climb up 17 stories of stairs to reset the seismic alarms, they did it at least four times in four hours.

My resolution after having fun watching the 40 story Arco towers sway in the quake, was to finish as much as I could before lunch, not trust the elevators for fear of an aftershock, walked downstairs call the shop and say I was going home.

I would like to suggest that as Engineers we should find out any further safety measures which can be incorporated in Elevator design to over come problems already discussed.

1.In case of fire power is shut off, Elevator can not be operated in such situation there should be mechanism which brings down the elevator to ground floor, either by manual or battery operared device. Normaly this is done by cranking the fly wheel in control room.

2.Manual operation of the door from inside the cabin.

3.Provision of the Emergency light inside the cabin.

And many more ideas which others can think.