Lift Entrapments: 9 Practical Tips to Avoid or Make the Best Of
There’s a good reason why we encourage our on-site staff to use the stairs when they are lone-working in a block of flats.
Getting stuck in a lift is not a pleasant experience for most of us, worse still if you’re claustrophobic. For those not stuck IN the lift but reliant ON the lift to get them to their upper floor flats, they may be equally upset and inconvenienced.
Like anything in life, there are no certainties, but for sure, a well-maintained lift will be less likely to break down. So, at number 1 in our list is…
01. Regular, quality maintenance
Too many landlords and managing agents rely entirely on their lift maintenance contractor and statutory lift inspection report to ensure the safe and reliable running of their lifts. In the same way as you wouldn’t conduct major works without a building surveyor, seeking the right type of independent advice on an ongoing basis for your lifts seems like a no brainer. A truly independent pair of eyes, such as those of ILECS, will ensure you spend appropriately and problems are foreseen rather than reacted to. The same trained pair of eyes can ensure that the lift maintenance contract itself is fit for purpose – e.g. that it actually caters for out of hours emergencies and it ensures the reaction time to get to site is suitably short.
02. Simple daily and weekly checks
Often, a lift running somewhat erratically is a sign that it may fail, possibly with someone trapped inside. At Cledor, our estate managers, concierges and porters are trained to run a daily check on the lift. This simply involves calling the lift, checking that the lift is level with the floor, and testing the doors’ sensors by cutting the beam with an arm or a foot. The staff encourage the residents to let them know if the lift is acting strangely.
Once a week (and at different times of the day and night), our on-site staff test the autodial unit, to ensure that the lift maintenance company answers the call. Honestly, they don’t mind! Our records – whether daily or weekly – are retained and anything out of the ordinary is reported to the managing agent immediately.
Where regular testing of the fire alarm is undertaken, and the lift is connected to the building fire alarm, it is also possible and beneficial to check that the lift returns to ground floor upon fire alarm activation.
03. Know who to call
For us, it’s important that we agree a lift entrapment procedure with each managing agent we work for, as the chances are, our on-site staff will be the first to react. Whilst the trapped person/people should be able to speak freely to the lift maintenance company through the autodial unit, this may not always be the case. So, knowing which company has the contract, their out of hours contact phone number, and their maximum reaction time, is very important for the on-site staff to know.
Lift entrapments can happen at any time, day or night. Agreeing a procedure for in-hours AND out-of-hours is important, not least as the first port of call may be an out of hours service like Adiuvo’s, rather than the lift maintenance contractor directly. As ILECS point out in their blog, note which lift you are stuck in (the lift ID should be clearly visible), particularly important if there are multiple lifts in the building.
04. Easy access for the engineer
When the lift engineer arrives, he/she needs to get into the building. Sounds simple enough but may not always be the case, particularly in the middle of the night. Again, this comes back to a lift entrapment procedure that we routinely create for our clients and on-site staff. Whilst a member of Cledor staff would always wait for the lift engineer to arrive when someone is trapped in the lift (which would be in the written procedure), if there are no site staff present at the time of the entrapment, the engineer would be extremely grateful for an external combination lock key safe containing a fob/key to access the building.
05. Stay stuck!
A robust procedure for a lift entrapment will include instructions for the on-site staff or any resident for that matter not to attempt to free the person/people from the lift car by using a lift key. Or for that matter, discouraging anyone trapped in the lift from trying to free themselves by prising open the doors. The inside of a lift is the safest place to be when the lift is stuck. It may be an unpleasant experience, but the lift car is certainly not going to plummet down the shaft.
ILECS explain in their blog that “a lift which has stopped between floors is likely to have a large gap between the car and landing sills” so leaping the gap could result in serious injury or worse.
06. Stay calm!
Our lift entrapment procedure for your block will guide our/your on-site staff to how to help those trapped remain calm and to stay in regular contact. A reassuring voice, explaining who you are and that you won’t leave them alone, works in most cases in our experience. Panic is of course to be avoided, not least as the person/people trapped may resort to calling the emergency services even though the lift engineer is on the way. The London Fire Brigade have been known to bill the freeholder for their visit and they are far more likely to damage the lift than the lift engineer.
As our friends at ILECS have pointed out on their blog, people are sometimes trapped together. “Do your best to keep others in the lift calm…reassuring them so that they know everything will be ok”.
07. Test the mobile reception
It’s worth trying to make a call from a mobile phone in a lift say halfway up the shaft with the doors closed, using different networks to ascertain if mobiles work in that confined space, and noting the findings in the written procedure. If there is no mobile reception, it’s a good idea to test if someone in the lift can communicate with someone in the common areas by raising one’s voice or banging a shoe against the lift to create a loud noise if the autodial unit is faulty or there is no answer when pressed. As anyone knows if they’ve been stuck on a train going nowhere fast, passengers tend to remain calmer for longer if they have internet access!
08. Avoid heavy loads
Some lift entrapments are as a result of overloading the lift – either with the number of people, heavy furniture or both. Our on-site staff look out for signs that a tenant or leaseholder is moving out (or in) so it’s entirely possible a heavy sofa will find its way into the lift car. Make sure that residents know that there is a weight restriction, so an impromptu house party doesn’t end before it has begun! If a lift looks close to capacity, take the stairs instead or wait for the lift to return to your floor.
09. Anti-social behaviour
It’s a depressing sight when someone has deliberately damaged a lift. If you are made aware of residents forcibly keeping the doors open or vandals have poured a liquid over the buttons, report it immediately to the staff or to the managing agent. Even leaning against the doors of a lift can render it out of action, so engaging in horseplay inside a lift car may put the lift into a safe mode that shuts it down until an engineer can reset it.