Home Forums General Discussion Technical Questions 1960s Lexan / my grouchy old Otis

ill try to answer some of the issues but without seeing the equipment its hard to say for sure. not knowing where these elevators are at makes it difficult also. I'm sure the original install was otis due to the car sill stamp. the park line cab and lexan might be a company that put a new cab interior panels in at some point. if these were installed in the 60's that was before the ADA. small cabs were very normal back then and just depended on the owner/architect . people were smaller and not in as much of a rush so wait times didn't matter as much. elevators of that age will have lots of problems and keeping up with them take more time and more parts just like a car from the 60's. how many of them do you see on the road without major modernization? a lot of those problems sound like normal functions of elevators of the era, again like a car, everything was mechanical and no computers were involved so the more functions the more complicated the controls become and codes were different also for the function of fire service and stop buttons(which shouldn't be used by the public except in a emergency). humidity and heat effect mechanical equipment and in turn the function of that era of elevator, and every other elevator for that matter, even new ones. some of the problems like noises and floor levels do sound like it needs some TLC but anything of that age does. as a building tenant you probably don't know the business climate of the elevator industry but ill share a little info. most building owners pick low bid maintenance contracts for everything in the building including elevator maintenance. as mechanics we do our best to maintain safe elevators but sometimes light bulbs and intermittent problems get put on the back burner to keep the elevator safe and in service. elevators are the safest mode of public transportation there is. movies and gossip cause unwarranted fear and some people do stupid stuff and get hurt we can't fix that. the industry standard for the life of an elevator is about 25 years then it should be modernized. modernization is extremely expensive so owners push it further than that. hope that helps.