Vent: That old hospital elevator job taught me a hard lesson about rail alignment

I was working a modernization at St. Mary's Hospital in Cleveland back in February, and we chased a door reopening issue for two days straight. Turned out the old rails had shifted maybe 3/16 of an inch over 40 years, throwing everything off just enough to mess with the sensors. Anyone else run into hidden rail issues on older elevator retrofits and have a go-to method for catching it early?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace_gonzalez4612d ago

Wait, you're telling me three sixteenths of an inch over four decades threw the whole system into chaos? That is wild, I can't believe something so tiny would cause that much trouble. I always figured elevator rails would need to be dead on perfect, but a shift that small is basically invisible unless you're really looking for it. How did you even catch it after two days? Were the doors just barely triggering or was it something else that finally tipped you off?

val94912d ago

Yeah that's actually more common than you'd think... 3/16 inches doesn't sound like much but when you're talking about door sensors that work in millimeters it's a whole different ballgame. We finally caught it because the doors would close fine most of the time but hiccup on the last inch or so just enough to throw the safety edge.