Questions we are asked most often by building owners, body corporates, strata and facility managers, developers and their advisers. Plain answers, no sales pitch. If the answer you need is not here, ring us and ask — an initial conversation costs nothing.
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Lift consultants and independence
What does a lift consultant actually do?
A lift consultant is a technical adviser who works for the building owner rather than the lift company. Depending on what you need, that means inspecting equipment and telling you honestly what condition it is in, writing a specification so a replacement can be tendered properly, reviewing a maintenance agreement before you sign it, running a tender, managing a project through to handover, or giving an independent opinion when there is a dispute.
What makes a consultant independent?
Independence means no financial relationship with the companies whose work is being assessed. We do not sell, install or maintain lifts. We hold no agency, distribution or referral arrangement with any manufacturer, installer or maintenance contractor, and we take no commission from any of them. Our fee comes from the client and from nobody else. It is worth asking any consultant to put that in writing.
Why not just ask the lift company?
Lift companies employ capable engineers and they are not dishonest. But their advice about your lift is also a sales conversation, and the recommendation that follows will usually involve buying something from them. That is not a criticism, it is simply the position they are in. When the decision is large or contested, you want someone whose only output is the advice.
Do we need a consultant, or can we handle this ourselves?
Plenty of buildings manage without one. A consultant earns their fee when the numbers are large, the technical position is unclear, the parties disagree, or the decision locks you in for a decade or more — a replacement, a long maintenance agreement, a dispute over performance, a claim. For a single routine service visit, you do not need us. Ask us and we will tell you which situation you are in.
Are you affiliated with a particular lift brand?
No. Our specifications are written so they can be tendered competitively, including by independent maintenance providers, rather than written around one manufacturer’s product so only that manufacturer can bid.
What is a non-proprietary lift, and why does it matter?
A non-proprietary lift uses control equipment and diagnostic tools that are available to more than one service provider. A proprietary one does not, which means that in practice only the original manufacturer can maintain it properly and only they can price the work. Over a twenty-year life that single decision has more effect on your running costs than almost anything else in the specification.
Who are your clients?
Building and asset owners, body corporates and owners corporations, strata and building managers, facility and property managers, developers, architects and project teams, insurers and legal advisers who need an independent technical opinion, and government and institutional portfolios.
Can you give evidence or act as an expert?
We are regularly engaged to provide an independent technical position where there is a dispute, an insurance claim, or a difference of opinion between an owner and a contractor. Tell us the circumstances and we will tell you whether we are the right people for it.
Maintenance contracts
Should we have our maintenance contract reviewed before signing?
Yes, and it is one of the most common things we are asked to do. A maintenance agreement is usually the longest commitment a building makes about its lifts, it is often signed under time pressure, and the terms that matter most are rarely the ones on the front page.
What should we be looking at in a maintenance agreement?
- The term, and whether it renews automatically if you do not give notice.
- How the price moves — the escalation mechanism, and whether there is a cap.
- How either party can end it, how much notice is required, and what it costs to leave.
- What is actually included, and more importantly what is excluded.
- Callback and response times, and whether they are commitments or aspirations.
- What servicing is performed, how often, and what you get in writing afterwards.
- Who carries the risk when something fails, and what insurance sits behind that.
- What happens when parts become obsolete.
- Whether the agreement transfers if the building is sold.
None of those are unreasonable things to ask about, and any provider offering you an agreement should be able to answer all of them plainly. If they cannot, that in itself is worth noting.
What is a “fully comprehensive” contract?
It is a contract intended to cover repairs and component replacement as well as routine servicing, so the owner is not exposed to a series of separate quotations. The label is not standardised, so the value of a comprehensive agreement lives entirely in its exclusions. Two agreements both described as fully comprehensive can leave very different amounts of risk with the owner.
How long should a maintenance contract run?
There is no single right answer. A longer term can buy better pricing and continuity; it also reduces your ability to respond if service quality drops. What matters more than the number of years is whether you have a workable way out if performance is poor, and whether the price mechanism is transparent for the whole term.
Our contract renews automatically. Is that a problem?
It is not automatically a problem, but it does mean the decision gets made by a calendar rather than by you. Find the notice date, diarise it well in advance, and treat each renewal as a genuine decision. If the notice window has already passed before anyone looks at it, you have effectively signed for another term without reviewing it.
Can we change maintenance providers?
Usually, subject to the terms of the existing agreement. The practical constraints are the notice provisions, any exit cost, and whether the equipment is proprietary — if the controller is closed, the field of realistic alternatives may be small. That is worth knowing before you start the conversation rather than after.
Should we go to tender for maintenance?
Tendering is useful when you want comparable pricing and a documented basis for the decision. It only produces comparable pricing if every bidder is pricing the same scope, which is the part that usually goes wrong. The value of a tender lies in the specification, not in the number of bidders.
The price went up sharply. Is that normal?
Increases happen, and some of them are justified. What you are entitled to understand is the basis: which index or formula applies, what it is being applied to, whether it was applied correctly, and whether the scope changed at the same time. If nobody can explain the increase in those terms, that is worth pursuing.
Breakdowns, callbacks and repairs
How many breakdowns are too many?
There is no universal number, because it depends on the age of the equipment, how hard it works, and what is causing the calls. What matters is the pattern. Repeat calls on the same fault, calls clustered on one lift in a bank, or a rising trend over several quarters all say something that a single month’s figure does not.
People keep getting trapped in our lift. What should we do?
Entrapments should be treated as a safety matter, not a service annoyance. Make sure the emergency communication in the car actually reaches someone who answers, that the release procedure is documented and that only competent people perform it, and that every entrapment is recorded. Then find out why it is happening. A pattern of entrapments usually has a specific cause, and it is fixable.
Should we try to get people out of a stalled lift ourselves?
No. Releasing passengers is work for a competent person, and forcing lift doors is dangerous. If you are in a stalled lift, use the emergency communication and wait. The car is a safe place to be. Almost every serious lift injury in a stalled-car situation happens during an attempted self-rescue, not during the wait.
Our lift is slow, or waiting times feel long. Is something wrong?
Sometimes it is a fault, sometimes it is the equipment doing what it was designed to do in a building whose use has changed. Those two situations call for very different responses, and telling them apart is a measurement exercise rather than an opinion. It is worth establishing which one you have before anyone quotes for a fix.
Who is responsible for lift performance — us or the maintenance contractor?
The contractor is responsible for what the agreement says they are responsible for. The owner keeps the underlying duty for the safety of the plant. Where owners come unstuck is assuming the agreement transfers more risk than it actually does. Read what has been excluded.
Should we be getting reports from our maintenance provider?
Yes, and you should be able to read them. A service report that only records that a visit happened tells you nothing. Useful reporting tells you what was checked, what was found, what was done, what remains outstanding and what is coming. If you cannot tell from the reporting whether your lifts are getting better or worse, the reporting is not doing its job.
Modernisation and replacement
How long does a lift last?
It depends on the type of equipment, how hard it works, the environment it sits in and how well it has been maintained. Rather than assume a figure, the useful exercise is a condition assessment: what is the actual state of the equipment, which components are near the end of their life, what is still supported by the manufacturer, and what is the sensible staging over the next planning period.
Should we modernise or replace?
Modernisation retains the parts of the installation that are still sound and renews the rest. Full replacement starts again. The right answer depends on the condition of the structural and mechanical elements, whether the existing arrangement still suits the building, obsolescence of the control equipment, how long you need the asset to last, and how much disruption the building can absorb. That is a study, not a rule of thumb.
How long does a lift replacement take?
It varies widely with the equipment, the building and the procurement route, and much of the elapsed time is manufacture and lead time rather than work on site. The number that matters to occupants is how long each lift is out of service, which is a programming question you can influence — particularly in a building with more than one lift, where staging can keep a service running throughout.
How do we keep the building running during the works?
By treating access as a design constraint rather than an afterthought. In a multi-lift building that usually means staging one car at a time. In a single-lift building it means being honest with occupants early, agreeing how residents with limited mobility will be supported, and holding the contractor to a programme. This is most of what project management on a lift job actually is.
Do we need a specification, or can we just get quotes?
You can always get quotes. What you cannot do is compare them, because each will describe a different scope in its own language. A specification is what makes three prices mean the same thing. It is also what you rely on if the delivered installation is not what you thought you bought.
What should a good lift specification do?
It should describe the outcome the building needs and the standards the work must meet, be capable of being priced by more than one supplier, set out how the work will be verified before handover, and deal explicitly with what you receive at the end — documentation, diagnostic access, spares and warranty terms. A specification that only one company can bid on is not a specification, it is an order.
What is witness testing, and do we need it?
Witness testing is attending the commissioning and statutory tests and verifying that what was specified is what has actually been installed and demonstrated. It is the last practical point at which a shortfall can be corrected without argument. On a project of any size it is money well spent.
Compliance and safety
What are our obligations as a building owner?
Lifts and escalators are plant, and the person with management or control of them carries duties for their safe operation, inspection and maintenance under work health and safety law, alongside the requirements of the relevant Australian Standards and any state registration or inspection regime that applies. The detail varies by jurisdiction. If you are not sure what applies to your building, that is a reasonable thing to ask about.
Are the lift machine room and pit confined spaces?
Not automatically, but they can be, and the answer has real consequences for how work is planned and who may enter. It should be assessed for the specific installation rather than assumed either way, and the outcome should be documented and known to everyone who works there.
Do we need a rescue plan?
You need to know, in advance and in writing, who releases trapped passengers, how they are contacted, how long they will take, and how they are competent to do it. Whether that sits inside your maintenance agreement or elsewhere, the gap to look for is the hours when nobody has actually agreed to attend.
What happens in a lift audit?
We inspect the equipment and the surrounding arrangements, review the maintenance and compliance records, and give you a written position on condition, compliance and performance — what is wrong, what it means, what is urgent and what is not. The point of the report is that an owner can act on it, so it is written to be read by the person who has to make the decision.
Our lift is old. Is it unsafe?
Age is not the same as danger. An older lift that has been well maintained can be entirely safe to use, while a newer one that has been neglected may not be. What changes with age is that parts get harder to obtain, faults take longer to fix, and the gap between the installation and current safety expectations widens. Those are real issues and they are best addressed with a condition assessment rather than a guess.
What are the most common problems you find?
Maintenance agreements whose exclusions leave far more with the owner than anyone realised. Reporting that records attendance rather than condition. Repeat callbacks that were never traced to a root cause. Documentation that never made it from the installer to the owner. Equipment that cannot be maintained by anyone but the original supplier, which nobody flagged at the time it was bought.
Buying, selling and due diligence
We are buying a building. Should the lifts be looked at?
If the asset is significant, yes. Vertical transportation is one of the larger capital items in a building and one of the easiest to under-assess in a transaction. What you want to know before settlement is condition, remaining life, obsolescence exposure, what the maintenance agreement commits you to, and what capital is likely to be required and when.
Does the maintenance contract come with the building?
Often, but not always, and the terms differ. Assignment on sale is one of the specific things to check in the agreement before the transaction rather than after.
What is a capital plan for lifts?
A forward view of what the lift assets will need and when — expected remaining life, the works likely to be required, sensible staging and indicative budget across a planning horizon. It is what allows a body corporate or an asset owner to fund the work in an orderly way instead of reacting to a failure.
Can you give a second opinion on someone else’s report?
Yes. Peer review is a normal part of our work — a report, a specification or a design prepared by someone else, assessed independently. We will tell you where we agree as readily as where we do not.
Planning a new building
How many lifts does a building need?
It depends on far more than floor count: what the building is used for, how many people occupy it, how that population moves through the day, the arrangement of the floors, and the speed and capacity of the equipment. Rough population bands are useful when you are sketching a scheme. They are not a substitute for a proper traffic study, and the two should not be confused when real money is being committed.
What is a traffic study?
A traffic study analyses how people will actually move through a building and tests whether a proposed lift arrangement can serve that demand to an agreed standard of service. It is a different exercise from a sizing rule of thumb, and it is what you rely on when the arrangement is unusual or the consequences of getting it wrong are expensive.
When should a lift consultant get involved in a project?
Earlier than most people expect. The decisions that constrain vertical transportation for the life of the building — core position, shaft dimensions, lobby arrangement, whether the equipment will be maintainable by more than one company — are made early and are expensive to revisit. Advice at concept stage costs a fraction of what it costs to fix later.
Can you help us tender the lift package?
Yes. That is specification, tender documentation, running the process so bids are comparable, assessing what has actually been offered, and staying involved through installation and witness testing if you want us to.
Do you have a tool we can use for early planning?
Yes, there is an indicative lift traffic calculator on the site. It is deliberately coarse and clearly labelled as a planning aid rather than a study. It will give you a sensible number to sketch with; it will not tell you what to build.
Fees and engaging us
Do you charge for an initial conversation?
No. Tell us what is happening with your lifts and we will tell you honestly whether you need a consultant. Sometimes the answer is no, and we would rather say so.
How are your fees structured?
By engagement, based on the scope of the work. You get a written fee proposal setting out what we will do, what you receive and what it costs, before anything starts. We are not paid by lift companies and we do not take commission, so there is no part of our income that depends on what you decide to buy.
How long does an audit take?
The site work is usually the short part; the analysis and reporting take longer. We will give you a date for the report in the fee proposal, and the report is written so that you can act on it rather than needing it interpreted.
What do we get at the end?
A written document you can put in front of a committee, a board or a court if it comes to that: what we found, what it means, what we recommend and why. Where a decision is finely balanced we say so rather than manufacturing certainty.
What information will you need from us?
Whatever you have — the maintenance agreement, recent service and callback reports, any registration or inspection documents, drawings and manuals if they exist, and the history as you understand it. If some of it is missing, that is common and not a barrier. Part of the job is often reconstructing a record that was never handed over.
Where we work
Where are your offices?
Our head office is on the Gold Coast in Queensland, and we have offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Perth and Auckland.
Do you travel outside those cities?
Routinely. We travel to Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin, and across the region to Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. Other locations on request. Distance is a travel line in a fee proposal, not a reason to decline work. There is more detail on where we work.
Do you work on regional and remote buildings?
Yes. Regional buildings often need independent advice more than metropolitan ones, because the local field of service providers is smaller and the cost of a bad specification is harder to correct.
Can you work with our existing consultant or engineer?
Yes. We are often brought in alongside an existing project team for the vertical transportation scope specifically, or for a peer review of one part of a larger piece of work.
How do we start?
Ring us or send an enquiry with a short description of the building and what is happening. If we are the right people for it we will say so and put a proposal in writing. If we are not, we will tell you that too.
General information. The answers on this page are general in nature. They are not advice about your building, your equipment or your agreement, and requirements differ between states and territories. If a decision matters, have your own situation looked at.
Ask us something that is not here
An initial conversation costs nothing and we will tell you honestly whether you need a consultant at all.