ELEVATOR MAINTENANCE

Meaning of Maintenance
Maintenance is the work done to keep or restore a facility to currently
accepted standards of performance.

Necessity of Maintenance
1. Deterioration of parts due to operation, friction .
2. Deterioration of parts due to environmental factors (temp., moisture,
dust ..).
3. Failure of parts due to high load or incorrect use.
4. Obsolescence of parts and systems due to technological improvement.
5. The necessity of inspection of systems whose failure endangers
HUMAN LIVES.

Maintenance Safety
The safety of elevator equipment is dependent on its proper maintenance
and use.
Most people that have been in the elevator industry for many years have
developed from experience safety rules that are not written any where.
These are simply practices that they follow for their own safety of follow
workers and the public. Some of them are:
1. Never walk around a running hoist machine. Wait until it stops to
move to a new position. This greatly reduces the hazard of
following into it.

2. Never stop in the threshold, between the car and hoist way,
especially when entering, leaving on working in the pit.

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3. When working in the pit, barricade entrance to prevent some one

from walking into the pit, on vertical sliding doors, raise the
door to prevent some one from pushing a hamper or cart into the
pit.
4. Don't show off the hoist way door unlocking device so that
people can try to duplicate it.

Maintenance Control
Maintenance is required for safe, efficient, reliable operation of
elevators.
There are three broad maintenance categories commonly referred to as
break failure down maintenance, preventive maintenance and
predictive maintenance.

Break failure down maintenance:

The equipment is allowed to operate until it malfunctions,
will not operate or the operation is so poor that it can no longer be used.
Actually this term is not correct since Break down maintenance is not
maintenance the equipment is not restored to its most efficient and
reliable level.

Preventive maintenance:
The equipment is periodically examined, lubricated, adjusted
and tested to minimize break down, prolong equipment life and
maintenance safe efficient, reliable performance.

Predictive maintenance:
Testing instruments and examination are used to predict
failure of parts so that their full life can be utilized and they can be
changed before failure. Predictive maintenance is usually included as a
part of a preventive maintenance program, but it may be separate activity
performed by a specialist in a particular field.

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Designing a Maintenance Control Program

To assure proper maintenance, a maintenance control plan
must be developed for every installation. These plans may be similar and
may actually be identical for a group of identical elevators in the some
environment. How ever, there must be a unique plan applicable for each
and every unit. The plan considers the following:
1. Hours of operation of the equipment.
2. Environment of the operation.
3. Age of the equipment.
4. Inherent quality of equipment.\equipment manufactures
recommendation.

A maintenance control program for preventive maintenance

should include the following elements:
1. Description of equipment.
2. Description of maintenance activities.
3. Check list and schedule for work.
4. Manual that explains the work and provides technical data.
5. Good maintenance records including call back log good
maintenance records and helpful but poor maintenance records
will increase liability.
6. Qualified maintenance personnel and supervisors.
7. Regular checks by supervisors.
8. On going training to maintenance and improve skills.
9. Source of special tools and instruments. This should include
wrenches to reset safeties where required.
10. Technical support for field problems especially when dealing
with solid state drives and microprocessor controls. However, this is

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also necessary for relay logic controls as well as for mechanical

components.

Elevator lubrication
When elevator ropes are manufactured , each wire is
coated with a special lubricant and the fiber center is
impregnated with the lubricant. This initial lubricant may
not last the life of the rope. When the rope is in operation,
each wire is in rubbing contact with several others . An
inadequate lubricant will cause the core to dry out, abrade
and reduce in diameter. The purpose of the core is to
support the strands by giving them clearances . when
these clearances are negated the core and wires wear.
This causes a fine powder that quickly oxidizes and forms
a red dust commonly called rouge. This rouge acts as an
abrasive and accelerates the wear . since this wear is in
the interior , broken wires may not be observable even
though the strength of the rope is severely reduced .
When this happens , the hoist ropes will need frequent
inspections and more stringent replacement criteria.
Proper lubrication is perhaps the most important part of
any maintenance program . the keyword here is proper .
Proper lubrication requires:
1- Using the correct lubricant
2- Applying the lubricant in the proper manner and
quantity
3- Checking at the proper intervals

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If the wrong lubricant is used or is Incorrectly

applied , the results can be worse than doing nothing.
There are no magic lubricants that will fit all
lubrication requirements or return large unusual
savings by extending lubricant life or reducing
friction losses . As with all products, there are many
lubricant sales people that will make claims that can
not be supported by testing.
Improper lubrication maybe due to using the wrong
lubricant, method of application or frequency .
Over lubrication and/or use of the wrong lubricant or
application method may do more harm than good.
Therefore, the application procedure, frequency and
type of lubricant cannot be over stressed.

Cleaning Ropes
The ropes should be cleaned with a brush .solvent should
not be used, since it will also remove the rope lubricant.
Also water-based solvents may cause the rope to rust. A
stiff bristle nylon brush can be used to remove the dirt and
lint from the ropes . Wire brushes will be needed if the
rope is coated with heavy oil.

Making a bracket to hold a brush against the ropes as the

elevator operates can clean ropes. This can be placed in
the machine room or on the compensating rope tension
sheave. Most of the rope length can be cleaned in this
manner, the rest must be cleaned with a hand wire brush.

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A combination rope lubricator and cleaner is available ,

that is specially designed to clean and lubricate ropes

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