Ensure Transport Safety with an Elevator Maintenance Checklist

What is 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.

In this article, the following points are explained:

1. The importance of an elevator maintenance plan

2. How to perform effective preventive maintenance

3. Elevator Maintenance with a digital tool

The Importance of an Elevator Maintenance Plan

Maintenance schedules are a proactive way of identifying potential problems as they become serious. Without a checklist, 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.

Opting out of monthly elevator maintenance can result in inconvenient downtimes and high repair costs. Here are some of the costs incurred 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?

Here are the seven most important items your elevator preventive maintenance checklist 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. Then, you’ll be able to take corrective actions before anything serious happens.

2. Perform a daily inspection

It is a simple routine check to make sure all parts are working properly. Are the buttons still working? Is there any damage to its interior? Inspections as small as this can become a lifesaver.

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.

Is 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. 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.

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.

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 flexible form builder elevator maintenance checklist can be constantly optimized.