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Elevator maintenance: A practical guide

Elevator maintenance: A practical guide

Author NameBy Ima Ocon
•
February 7th, 2025
• 8 min read
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Table of contents

  • Types of elevator maintenance
  • Why elevator maintenance is important
  • How to have an effective preventive maintenance program for elevators
  • Using an elevator maintenance checklist
  • Effective elevator maintenance with a digital tool
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Summary

This guide covers key best practices, different types of maintenance, and how to keep your elevators running safely and efficiently—all with practical tips you can apply right away.

Elevators are easy to take for granted, but behind every smooth ride is a complex system of mechanical and electrical components that need regular care. Without proper elevator maintenance, sudden breakdowns can happen, leading to expensive repairs and safety risks.

This guide will explain what you need to know about elevator maintenance, including the different types and best practices for keeping your elevator in good condition. Whether you manage a single building or oversee multiple facilities, you’ll be able to stay ahead of potential issues and help your elevator perform at its best.

Types of elevator maintenance

Maintenance schedules are a proactive way of identifying potential problems as they become serious. Unless you have a regular elevator maintenance schedule, you can easily overlook a malfunctioning part. Before you know it, it might be too late.

There are four types of maintenance:

  1. Corrective maintenance – Done after detecting an issue. It aims to restore the equipment to its normal operating conditions.
  2. Preventive maintenance – Aims to reduce performance degradation or failure risk of the elevator. It has a maintenance cycle that shows what parts need servicing.
  3. Risk-based maintenance – Combines analysis, measurement, and periodic evaluation to perform a risk assessment and create the appropriate maintenance program.
  4. Condition-based maintenance – Based on the equipment performance monitoring and the corrective actions taken. It reduces maintenance costs and mitigates the occurrence of serious problems.

Why elevator maintenance is important

Opting out of monthly elevator maintenance can result in inconvenient downtimes and high repair costs. Here are some of the costs when the elevator is not serviced:

Code violations

Commercial elevators must undergo an annual checkup to make sure they are up to code. In some states, there’s a $100/day fine for each day an elevator is running without undergoing the yearly inspection.

High repair and service call cost

Elevators are complicated machines so it requires an expert if something goes wrong with them.

On average, elevator maintenance and repair cost between $170 and $2000, depending on the problem. A service call costs around $80/hour, while a full replacement can cost $21,000.

Those who want to avoid costly repairs should establish a regular elevator maintenance schedule, which averages only about $250.

Full modernization

An elevator that does not undergo routine maintenance might need a total makeover. A full modernization costs between $150,000 and $1,000,000. This does not include the price of replacement parts.

How to have an effective preventive maintenance program for elevators

Here are the seven most important items your elevator preventive maintenance program should address to keep elevators operating optimally throughout.

1. Keep a repair logbook

Keeping an up-to-date logbook that contains all the elevator service maintenance and repairs helps identify any issues and damages in your equipment. It should include the date, type of maintenance performed, any parts replaced, the technician’s name, and any observations or recommendations.

You can also jot down environmental factors like unusual weather conditions or building renovations since these might affect elevator performance.

2. Perform a daily inspection

It is a simple routine check to make sure all parts are working properly. You’ll check for the basics, such as:

  • Are the buttons and floor indicators still working?
  • Are there any unusual noises?
  • Is there any damage to its interior, like cracked panels or flickering lights?
  • Do the emergency communication systems and alarms work?

Inspections as small as this can become a lifesaver, especially since you’ll be able to catch small issues early.

3. Check elevator doors regularly

Statistics show that more than 70 percent of elevator emergency maintenance calls are caused by doors. Avoid this problem by checking the elevator doors regularly.

Are there any debris on the door lining? Are the doors aligned correctly? If there are scratches along the outside of the door, that’s a sign of misalignment.

These inspections can have a significant effect on how your elevator runs. Misaligned doors can cause breakdowns and entrapment.

4. Never attempt to clean the elevator

Unless you have knowledge on how to clean elevators, leave it to the professionals. Industrial cleaners can damage the interiors and corrode the machine’s sensitive parts. Even using too much liquid around sensitive components like call buttons can cause electrical issues. Ask a professional first to avoid damaging any components.

5. Always contact a repair company

Just as you need professionals to clean the elevator, all the more, you need experts to fix it. No matter how big or small the damage is, never attempt to repair DIY. You might do more harm than good to the machine.

What you can do instead is to record any unusual behavior–like strange noises–then inform the repair company note. This helps technicians figure out the problem faster and reduces downtime.

6. Record all the issues

This should go hand in hand with your repair logbook. Recording all the issues you encountered with your elevator helps you keep track of everything. It will also give insight to the repair company what else needs to be done.

Write down even the smallest issue you observe, whether it is slower or faster transit or strange noise. You can create an elevator maintenance checklist using data from this record. 

7. Never make random changes

Whether you replace a button or switch up the elevator finish, let a repair company do it. Your job is to record any anomalies and call the technician if something’s wrong.

This is because elevators have very precise engineering, and even making small changes to a button can end up interfering with the control panel’s wiring or sensor system and cause malfunctions. If you make bigger changes, such as to the interior materials, this can even affect the elevator’s weight balance or fire safety compliance.

Using an elevator maintenance checklist

An elevator maintenance checklist is an itemized list of individual maintenance tasks prepared by the elevator manufacturer or by experts, such as engineers or technicians. Use this template to identify, diagnose, and fix errors in the machine.

There are four different types of checklists:

  1. Manufacturer checklist – a checklist created by the product manufacturer. It contains tasks based on risk management principles like avoiding warranty claims.
  2. Contractor checklist – committed maintenance tasks created by a service contractor. It contains the tasks he will perform based on the contract price.
  3. Consultant checklist – recommended maintenance tasks developed by an expert. They are unbiased compared to the manufacturer and contractor checklists.
  4. Digital checklists – these are the digitized versions that combine maintenance tasks from the other three checklists. The Lumiform elevator maintenance checklist is an example of this type.

To get you started, Lumiform offers several more elevator maintenance checklists that you can easily download and customize. 

Effective elevator maintenance with a digital tool

An elevator management software is a powerful tool that can help streamline the inspections of elevator technicians and improve the quality of their work. Digital solutions help maintenance staff keep an eye on elevator safety through a combined preventive and predictive maintenance strategy. Time-consuming data collection and labor-intensive information sharing are a thing of the past with Lumiform’s technology.

To keep up with increasing customer demands, elevator inspection services must keep up with the times. Utilizing a mobile app for inspections and audits is the first step and gives them the following benefits:

  • Generate real-time data on elevator maintenance. This makes the quality and reliability of maintenance work measurable and constantly optimizes processes based on the data.
  • Easily document any issues by taking pictures and writing comments.
  • Assign and track corrective and preventive actions to staff in real time.
  • After maintenance, generate reports automatically – this saves complete follow-up.
  • Increase efficiency of internal processes: more efficient communication within the team, with third-party vendors, and with house owners, as well as faster incident reporting, means that any damage that occurs is resolved up to 4x faster.
  • Continuously improve quality and safety: Through the AI form builder, you can constantly optimize the elevator maintenance checklist.

Try Lumiform for free and streamline maintenance to keep your elevators running safely and efficiently!

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Choose from our 10,000+ free, customizable templates.
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Frequently asked questions

What are the most common causes of elevator breakdowns?

The most common causes of elevator breakdowns are door-related issues, worn-out components, electrical malfunctions, and lack of regular maintenance. Doors often cause problems when sensors get misaligned or debris blocks the tracks. Over time, parts like cables, motors, and control panels wear down, especially in high-traffic elevators.

How can I tell if my elevator needs urgent maintenance?

Signs that an elevator needs urgent maintenance include unusual noises like grinding or squeaking, jerky movements, slow response times, or doors that don’t open and close smoothly. If the elevator stops between floors, doesn’t level correctly when reaching a floor, or buttons are unresponsive, these might indicate mechanical or electrical failures that require immediate attention.

What’s the lifespan of an elevator?

An elevator’s lifespan usually ranges from 20 to 30 years, depending on usage and its level of maintenance. While the core structure can last decades, key components like control systems, motors, and cables may need replacement or upgrades every 10 to 15 years.

Author
Ima Ocon
Ima is a writer and editor who specializes in technology, with experience crafting content for companies like Canva and FluentU. She's passionate about startups, remote work, and language learning, as well as the applications of AI in marketing. Currently, she is based in Asia, and she previously studied in Taiwan and Singapore.
Lumiform offers innovative software to streamline frontline workflows. With over 12,000 ready-to-use templates or custom digital forms, organizations can increase efficiency and automate key business processes. The platform is particularly user-friendly, offering advanced reporting capabilities and powerful logic functions that enable automated solutions for standardized workflows. Discover the transformative potential of Lumiform to optimize your frontline workflows. Learn more about the product

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