Lift Replacepent WTF
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I live in a tower block. It's not an especially big tower block, only 12 stories. There are two lifts servicing it. The main one is a large lift that can be used for moving furniture, and it stops on every floor. The other lift is small, 5 people maximum and squashed in at that, and it only stops on even numbered floors. The tower block was built back in the 60s and the lifts have never been replaced.
Back in August 2016 the housing association informed us of a plan to replace the lifts in all the tower blocks they own. There are 6, and we were last on the list, meaning that our lifts were due to be replaced starting in March 2020. Part of the replacement plan is to knock through the shaft, and make it so that the second lift will stop on every floor.
Back at the end of last summer we had an exceptional amount of rain in a short space of time, and the whole area was flooded out. Not us though. Despite being close to the river we are on top of a hill, so it didn't flood around here. It did however fill up the bottom of the lift shaft with water. This managed to get into the electronics of the smaller lift, and it's not been the same since. They fix it maybe 5 times a week, and it stays fixed for an average of 5 hours before breaking down again. The only proper fix would be to replace all the electronics, which clearly isn't worth it if the lift is getting replaced soon anyway. This didn't overly bother me. I live on an odd numbered floor so never used that lift. At worst, it caused slightly longer wait times for the other lift. It did however cost the housing association a fortune fixing it nearly every day, so they brought forward our lift replacement to this March.
I think a lot of you will have spotted the WTF by now. Given all the information I've provided above, which lift do you think they decided to replace first? Yes, that's correct. They are replacing the main lift, which has only broken down a couple of times in the ten years I've lived here, leaving us to rely on the other lift. The one that doesn't stop on odd-numbered floors, so that half the building has to go up or down a flight of stairs to access a lift for three months, including several people who can't walk. And that's on the rare (increasingly so by the day) occasions that the other lift isn't broken.
Even the engineers replacing the lift know this is stupid, and they are as annoyed as us. Ever tried carrying a lift mechanism up 12 flights of stairs because there's no lift?
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How about scheduling water pipes replacement just after road renovation?
Both in the middle of winter of course.That's pretty common around here.
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My sister lived in a building for a few years which likewise had two lifts, but one only stopped on even numbered floors, the other only on odd (and both stopped in the lobby).
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@PleegWat That one almost seems reasonable, if they were too cheap to buy a proper controller that can manage multiple lifts simultaneously.
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@pie_flavor said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@Seppen said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
it only stops on even numbered floors
There was an architect, I forgot her name, who got a special reward from government for coming up with an idea to make elevators stop on every second middle-floor instead of normal floors.
Half the number of doors! The scale of savings!That was during communist times of course.
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@Unperverted-Vixen said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@PleegWat That one almost seems reasonable, if they were too cheap to buy a proper controller that can manage multiple lifts simultaneously.
It was an older building, and I'm not sure how well 'managing multiple lifts' works in practice anyway.
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@Seppen said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
Even the engineers replacing the lift know this is stupid, and they are as annoyed as us. Ever tried carrying a lift mechanism up 12 flights of stairs because there's no lift?
They should call for a lift engin... oh.
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@PleegWat said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@Unperverted-Vixen said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@PleegWat That one almost seems reasonable, if they were too cheap to buy a proper controller that can manage multiple lifts simultaneously.
It was an older building, and I'm not sure how well 'managing multiple lifts' works in practice anyway.
I lived in a 12 story apartment building with two elevators, and both worked just fine and went to every floor.
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@PJH said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@Seppen said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
it only stops on even numbered floors
Not American then...
Surely calling it a lift rather than an elevator made that obvious in the first place?
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@Seppen said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@PJH said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@Seppen said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
it only stops on even numbered floors
Not American then...
Surely calling it a lift rather than an elevator made that obvious in the first place?
Nah - the bit that stood out for me was if it was in America, it wouldn't be stopping at the ground floor.
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@PJH It's actually difficult to tell what floor it's stopped at, the electronics are so fucked up. At it's best it thinks the ground floor is the 8th, the 2nd floor is the zeroth, and the 10th floor is the 6th, and announces as such when it either stops at or passes them. When it breaks down what usually happens is it stops at some random (though obviously even numbered) floor instead of the one you're stood on. It also every now and then stops at an odd numbered floor and refuses to move again. This is usually with someone in it at the time.
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@Seppen said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
This is usually with someone in it at the time.
Man Trapped in Elevator for 41 Hours
Man went for a cigarette, then got trapped in elevator 41 hours with no water.
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@PJH That's never actually happened to me. I've been lucky so far, I think about a third of the 100 or so people who live here have got stuck in it over the last few months, although the longest time I've heard of was 5 hours. Sometimes I walk up the stairs rather than use the lift, especially if I've left my phone at home, but I live on the 9th which is a few to many stairs for someone in their 50s to take too often.
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The office building I'm working in is fairly new. There are two elevators. It's not exactly uncommon for one of them being shut down for one reason or another. Both of them are broken occasionally. We've gone through a number of different reasons, where attempting to fix them seemingly involves some dudes switching out PCBs multiple times a day with little success.
The latest problem seems to be that the doors don't manage to close fully. From what I've been able to determine, the doors kinda slow down for the final few millimeters, but then occasionally fail to fully close the gap. This triggers some sensor telling the system that the doors aren't closed, which causes them to fully open. After that they try to close again, and more often than not, the cycle repeats. (You can "fix" this by manually giving the doors a slight push together in the last moment.)
Either way, seems like humanity has become too dumb to build reliable elevators after like 2015.
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@cvi said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
Either way, seems like humanity has become too dumb to build reliable elevators after like 2015.
And we're trusting people to build reliable autonomous cars... **shudder**
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@levicki said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
When presented with a binary choice such as which lift to use out of two, they will stick with the same one if possible (be it because it is closer to their apartment door, looks or smells nicer, has a hot chick from 6th floor riding in it every day, etc), even if that means uneven load and wear for the lifts and more waiting becuase they end up using one lift more than the other.
I can't think of a situation (other than some rare cases where a cargo elevator is controlled separately) where multiple elevators (
not including cases where they're in completely different parts of the building) didn't have a single button (or all the buttons weren't integrated so that pushing one was just like pushing any other) and you just go in the first elevator that showed up going your way.
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Maybe it's one of those things which are common in one part of the world and rare/unknown in another one?
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It could be worse.
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@boomzilla said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
I can't think of a situation (other than some rare cases where a cargo elevator is controlled separately) where multiple elevators (
not including cases where they're in completely different parts of the building) didn't have a single button (or all the buttons weren't integrated so that pushing one was just like pushing any other) and you just go in the first elevator that showed up going your way.I don't know any of these configurations from experience either but at the level of development you can expect from a 1960s elevator control I bet the even/odd-floors scheme was more efficient.
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@LaoC said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@boomzilla said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
I can't think of a situation (other than some rare cases where a cargo elevator is controlled separately) where multiple elevators (
not including cases where they're in completely different parts of the building) didn't have a single button (or all the buttons weren't integrated so that pushing one was just like pushing any other) and you just go in the first elevator that showed up going your way.I don't know any of these configurations from experience either but at the level of development you can expect from a 1960s elevator control I bet the even/odd-floors scheme was more efficient.
That would not surprise me and I have seen elevators that serve only certain floors. But here your destination is determining your choice of elevator.
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@MrL said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
How about scheduling water pipes replacement just after road renovation?
I'm pretty sure the utility companies drive around looking for newly resurfaced roads in order to plan where to dig up next.
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@boomzilla I can see the even/odd system being efficient because it forces the users to partition themselves by the floor they want to go to. This way a full elevator has to stop at fewer floors, and can return to the ground floor to pick up new users sooner.
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@cvi said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
Either way, seems like humanity has become too dumb to build reliable elevators after like 2015.
It's just a connectivity problem with the cloud server that's running the controller software.
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@dkf I could see it being a safety thing, possibly caused by a few too many incidents of (leashed) dog and master being on different sides of the doors when they close.
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@levicki That's pretty rare in an appartment complex.
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@PleegWat said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
That's pretty rare in an appartment complex.
And you can always route people through the common area (the main entry level, usually at ground level).
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@loopback0 said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@Seppen said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
Even the engineers replacing the lift know this is stupid, and they are as annoyed as us. Ever tried carrying a lift mechanism up 12 flights of stairs because there's no lift?
They should call for a lift engin... oh.
That's a bit of a WTF in itself. Until 2 or 3 years ago the lifts were maintained by the company that made them, but to save money the Housing Association signed up with a third party to maintain the lifts. Coincidentally, that's about when the broken lift started breaking more often. Because of this, the engineers installing the lifts can't fix the other one. They are from the company that made it, but they aren't from the company with the contract to maintain it. So if it breaks down when they need it they have to call the maintenance company to come out and fix it. If they did it themselves they might even be able to fix it properly rather than having it break down again a few hours later.
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@levicki said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
a hot neighbour
You mean the heating doesn't work properly, either?
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@dcon said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@cvi said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
Either way, seems like humanity has become too dumb to build reliable elevators after like 2015.
And we're trusting people to build reliable autonomous cars... **shudder**
#error_bot @xkcd !airplane engineers lift engineers voting machines
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@Seppen said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
@PJH That's never actually happened to me. I've been lucky so far, I think about a third of the 100 or so people who live here have got stuck in it over the last few months, although the longest time I've heard of was 5 hours. Sometimes I walk up the stairs rather than use the lift, especially if I've left my phone at home, but I live on the 9th which is a few to many stairs for someone in their 50s to take too often.
I'm in my 50s. I'm too lazy to take the lift from the rez de chaussée ("ground floor" to you, Chuckles) to the fifth floor (counting RDC = 0) every day, but I could (and should) do it without even really thinking about it. Ninth? Sure, why not? I certainly could.
Lesson: people in their 50s aren't decrepit.
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@Zerosquare said in Lift Replacepent WTF:
You mean the heating doesn't work properly, either?
What do you mean properly? Cold water riser goes to every floor, hot riser - to every other floor.
Don't ask about the sewage pipes...
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