A lift condition report tells you how much life is left in each major component and what it will cost, and when, to keep the lift safe and reliable. We inspect the machine, controller, drive, doors, ropes, safety gear and car, measure ride quality rather than describe it, and set the findings against the lift’s age, duty and maintenance history. The result is a staged capital plan — typically 5, 10 and 15 years — that drops straight into a sinking fund forecast, an owners corporation maintenance plan or a purchaser’s due diligence file. Building owners, bodies corporate, hotel groups and fund managers engage us across Australia and New Zealand.
The team at TLC can assist our clients by providing comprehensive appraisals on their vertical transportation systems. Whether you are purchasing, selling, or refinancing a building, having a qualified professional review the installed vertical transportation provides a neutral, unbiased perspective. Typically, a property assessment company performing a Due Diligence report will not have a qualified VT consultant, merely relying on information provided by the maintenance contractor for their report. Essentially, the maintenance contractor is requested to review their maintenance levels and to provide budgets against their products. This approach will neither inform the client about the reliability and maintenance levels nor provide impartial budgetary costs detailing the best solution for the property owner.
Applying a strategic approach, we can assess the current condition and compliance of the installed equipment. TLC will perform a complete examination of the vertical transportation system/s and review all associated documentation associated with the equipment. Upon completion of our site inspection, we will provide a comprehensive report detailing the below:
A capital plan for vertical transportation sets out what the equipment will need, when it will need it, and roughly what it will cost, across a stated planning horizon. It is the document that lets a body corporate fund lift work in an orderly way through a sinking fund, or an asset owner put it into a capital programme, instead of reacting to a failure with an emergency levy.
Ours normally covers each unit separately and includes the condition of the major components, the support position for the control equipment, expected remaining life with the reasoning behind it, the works likely to be required and when, sensible staging across the portfolio or the building, and indicative costs at a level suitable for budgeting rather than for tendering.
Not by age. A lift installed in 1998 that has been maintained properly, sits in a dry machine room and runs a light duty can have more life left than one installed in 2012 that has been neglected in a coastal car park. What we look at is the actual condition of the components that determine service life, the duty the equipment has been asked to perform, the environment, the maintenance history where records exist, and whether the manufacturer still supports the controller.
That last point often dominates the outcome. Once the control equipment is unsupported, the practical life of the installation is limited by parts availability rather than by mechanical condition, and the decision arrives whether the building is ready or not.
In a building with more than one lift, the difference between replacing them all at once and staging them across several years is significant in both cash flow and disruption. Staging keeps a service running throughout, spreads the funding, and lets the second and third units benefit from what was learned on the first. It also has a cost: mobilisation is repeated, and the building runs mixed equipment for a period.
Which way that balance falls depends on the building, the funding position and how much disruption the occupants can absorb. We set out both and say which we would recommend and why.
Where the work is being done for a purchase rather than a budget, the questions shift. What matters then is what the buyer is inheriting: the condition and remaining life, the obsolescence exposure, what the existing maintenance agreement commits them to and whether it transfers, any outstanding compliance matters, and the capital that is likely to fall due in the first five years of ownership.
Vertical transportation is one of the larger capital items in a building and one of the easiest to under-assess in a transaction, because it is behind a door most people never open.
A written report you can put in front of a committee, a board or a lender: what we found, what it means, what we recommend, what it is likely to cost and when. Where a judgement is finely balanced we say so rather than manufacturing certainty. If you want the figures in a form that drops into a sinking fund forecast, tell us and we will format it that way.
If a second lift is on the table, How buildings move people sets out the two things that usually tip a building from one lift to two, availability and traffic, with a 3D model of each.