We do not keep an office in Adelaide. We travel there, regularly, for building owners, strata corporations, facility managers and developers across South Australia. That is worth saying plainly rather than implying a local presence we do not have — what you get is the same team that would attend a building in Sydney or Brisbane, and we will tell you before you engage us who is coming and from where.
We travel to AdelaideWe travel to Adelaide regularly for client work, most often from our Melbourne office. We will always tell you who is attending and from where before you engage us.
What we do for Adelaide buildings
The services owners and managers ask for most often are maintenance auditing, reviewing a contract or quotation before it is signed, and advice on whether to modernise or replace. The full range:
- Maintenance auditing and mandatory inspections
- Witness testing and commissioning
- Due diligence and capital planning
- Modernisation and full replacement
- Tendering and contract negotiation
- Project management
- Insurance claim management
- Peer review
- Feasibility studies
- Portfolio management
- WHS compliance
- Reporting
What we see in South Australian buildings
A mid-rise city
Adelaide’s CBD is predominantly mid-rise, which means a great many buildings running two lifts rather than six. Low redundancy changes the whole conversation: with two cars, one unit out of service is a fifty per cent loss of capacity, and availability matters far more than raw handling capability. Maintenance agreements written to a high-rise template routinely fail to reflect that.
Adaptive reuse and change of use
A substantial amount of older Adelaide commercial stock has been converted to residential, hotel or student accommodation. Lifts retained through a change of use were specified for a different building with different traffic, and the change frequently brings compliance obligations the owner did not anticipate. Establishing what the equipment is now required to do, rather than what it was originally installed to do, is the first job.
Heritage constraints
Adelaide holds significant heritage stock in the city and inner suburbs. Where a building is listed, what may be altered shapes the achievable outcome, and those constraints belong at the start of a modernisation conversation rather than being discovered part way through.
A separate regulatory framework
South Australia has its own requirements. A portfolio managed from Melbourne or Sydney cannot assume the arrangements that apply there carry across the border, and for an owner holding buildings in more than one state that difference is precisely what an adviser is for.
Sectors we work across
Residential and strata-titled towers, commercial office buildings, hotels and short-stay accommodation, retail centres, healthcare and aged care, education, government and local council property, and industrial facilities. The equipment differs, the commercial questions rarely do.
What independence actually means
Plenty of firms describe themselves as independent. It is worth being precise about what it means here, because the word is doing real work.
We do not sell lifts. We do not install them. We do not maintain them. We hold no agency, distributorship or referral arrangement with any manufacturer or maintenance contractor, and we take no commission, rebate or finder’s fee from anyone who does. There is no version of a recommendation from us that earns us money somewhere else.
That matters most at exactly the moments it is hardest to tell — when you are handed an upgrade proposal, when a contractor says a component is beyond repair, or when a maintenance agreement is put in front of you to sign. Our answer costs us nothing either way.
Who actually does the work
Advice is only as good as the person giving it, so it is worth knowing who is behind ours. Our team holds qualifications across both the electrical and mechanical sides of vertical transportation:
- Sidney Bastos — Managing Director. BBA and Licensed Electrical Contractor.
- Tony Berry — Director. Licensed Design Practitioner (DPVT).
- Stephen McIlroy — Mechanical Engineer, RPEQ.
- David Moors — Electrical Engineer.
- Hong Liang — Chartered Engineer, CEng FCIBSE.
- Nancy Li Liang — BEng, MBA.
You can see the full team and their backgrounds.
Accreditations and memberships
The Lift Consultancy is CM3 prequalified and Australian Owned Certified, and holds membership or accreditation with:
- Australian Elevator Association
- Lift Engineering Society of Australia
- Engineers Australia
- International Association of Elevator Engineers
- Smart Strata
- PICA Group Community Select
- Rapid Global
Common questions from Adelaide owners and managers
You do not have an Adelaide office. Does that matter?
It matters that we are straight with you about it. We travel to Adelaide for client work and we will tell you who is attending and from where before you commit to anything. What you should not accept from anyone is a claimed local presence that turns out to be a mail address.
Our building has two lifts. Is that a problem?
It is not a problem, but it does change what a good maintenance agreement looks like. With two cars there is very little slack, so response times and availability obligations carry far more weight than they would in a larger building.
We are converting a commercial building to apartments. What do we need to think about?
What the lifts are now required to do, rather than what they were installed to do. Traffic changes, compliance obligations change, and the existing equipment may or may not be suitable. Establishing that early is considerably cheaper than discovering it late.
Does South Australian compliance differ from the eastern states?
Yes. The detail differs, and for a portfolio spread across states that difference needs handling deliberately rather than assumed away.
Can you review a quotation before we accept it?
Yes, and it is one of the most useful things we do. Reviewing scope and price, and obtaining comparison quotations where it helps, is a large part of our work.
Are you connected to any lift company?
No. We do not sell, install or maintain lifts, we hold no supplier arrangement, and we take no commission from anyone who does.
Choosing a consultant
If you are weighing up more than one firm, we have written a plain guide to what to look for and what to ask — including the questions that separate genuine independence from the word on a website. It applies whoever you end up engaging, including if that is not us.
How to choose a lift consultant
Talk to us
Tell us what is happening with your lifts and we will point you at the right consultant. There is no charge for the initial conversation, and if you do not need us we will say so.
(07) 5509 0100 · admin@theliftc.com · Contact us
Our officesGold Coast · Sydney · Melbourne · Canberra · Perth · Auckland
We also travel toBrisbane, Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Hobart, Darwin, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Pacific Islands — and elsewhere on request. See where we work.