TLC Insights

Escalator inside a building

What a lift compliance certificate actually certifies, and what it excludes

It confirms the machine matches its registered design. It specifically excludes the building interface under the NCC. The data sheet in the middle is the part worth keeping for the life of the asset.

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Silver and black escalator

What a maintenance agreement should put in writing, on both sides

Most agreements set out the contractor obligations. The owner obligations are the ones that decide arguments later. Here is the full list, and what to check before you sign.

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Escalator inside a white building

Does a lift upgrade need a declared design? Usually not, and here is the test

The DBP scheme regulates the interface between the lift and the building, not the lift. If the interface does not change, there is nothing to declare. But the plant regime is a separate question.

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Lift car operating panel and buttons

When a lift modernisation becomes a new design registration

An alteration that may affect health or safety has to be registered. Here are the ten parameters that decide it, and the pre-2001 trap that catches older lifts.

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Close up of lift landing call buttons

Which of your lifts are the emergency lifts? Nobody can tell by looking

Emergency lifts are not labelled and are not required to be. In a triplex the answer is often two of them, decided by which storeys each one serves. Here is how to work it out and what to put on the wall.

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Interior of a building atrium above a lift core

Sprinklers in the lift shaft head: the clause that switches your lift off

Sprinklers in the well are allowed, but only in a sequence that shuts the lift down first. In a building over 12 metres that collides with fire service operation, and somebody has to resolve it.

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