How do you guys do your anuall pressure tests. We figure up our working pressure mathematically. Unless it's a new install we use weights. We use 3.14 x radius squared to find the square inches of the piston. Divide that by car capacity . Then add number to empty pressure for your calculated working pressure. Example let's use a dover 2100lb car 4.35 jack and runnin 240 empty pressure. 4.35 divided by 2 is 2.175. 2.175x2.175 is 4.37. 4.37x pie 3.14 is 14.85 square inches. 2100lb divided by 14.85 is 140psi . 140psi plus 240ep is 380 working pressure. Multiply that by 1.25 ( 125%) ideal relief pressure is 475 relief pressure. Always been within 20psi of using actual weights

I suggest you visit these two sites.

eecovalves.com
Maxtonvalves.com

They both have a lot of helpful tools you can download to your laptop, smartphone or tablet.

We always use weights, because "figuring it" and seeing it are totally different. Yes you can find your objective over pressure, but did you actually see the car run at full load?

Good example, added a new elevator in an existing hospital wing. Both cars ran on the same generator, inspector required I run both cars on gen 100% capacity. Needless to say the older car could not take full capacity, even though the logs had been checked off for the over pressure setting. I imagine the tech had used existing numbers, hit the shutoff and run the car to verify he was close, and moved on....

I forgot to mention blain.de.

I also thought I would share this. We just picked up a Otis 20NICL 2 speed AC 3500# capacity traction machine. We went to perform the 5 year full load test. Now when I pick up something new on service and we are testing, we like to prove it will perform. We started with 1500#. Then we added 500#. The car stalled failed to lift the weight while leveling in. Now the fun begins...

We first found an overload tripped. The dashpot on the N-301 overload relay was low on oil. We added oil and started again. Again the car stalled when trying to to lift 2000#. We removed the weight and ran the car. What we found was that M & N relays were not picking up. The gap was too much for M to pull in. And the coil was bad on N. Now the car operates fine and passes with flying colors.

My point is, I agree with proving the elevator will perform.

Yes I agree too. I only have two years in the trade so still learning everyday. I think we should be using weights also. Not sure why my company doesn't. Just curious how many other companies don't drag weights around once a year.

I do know that I don't care for the built in pressure guages on the blain valves. Never can get a accurate reading on one.

For category 1 tests, if wp is known, we run into stop ring to check system pressure and relief. If unknown we load capacity to get it.

Hi all, I am not an elevator tech, but running maintenance on a building.
I am new to this building and don't know it 100%, to top it off i am new to elevator inspections as well.
I would not name the company we are contracted with to maintain our elevators but in the contract they are obliged to run cat I pressure test annually.
Last year or beginning of this one they updated one of the elevators and did a pressure test on it, i do not know what the upgrade was and when was the pressure test whether before or after the upgrade.
I also do not know whether the village inspector was present or not, to cut the story short, i had a village inspection couple of days a go and naturally he failed three out of the four elevators because "cat I pressure expired".
I spoke to the elevator company rep and he told me that when they would do the test the village inspector needs to be present.
I also live in a building and when they did a pressure test i did not see any village inspector.
My question is, is it required by code/law/regulation for third party inspector to be present on site when your company does the cat I Pressure test?

It all depends on where your building is located and what the code that is being enforced by the JHA(Jurisdiction having Authority). Code requirements can be very different in each state and sometimes even different within cities in the same state. If you can share what city and state you're located someone on here maybe familiar with what is required in your area.