Elevator Consultants

These days everyone knows a consultant. There are people who consult on taxes, finances, politics, and, yes even the performance of your elevator. The job of elevator consultants is to assist building owners and managers extend the life of their elevator by helping with capital improvement decisions (typically elevator modernizations), reviewing and/or issuing maintenance agreements, and providing elevator audit reports about your elevator.

Elevator consultants for elevator modernizations

Elevator consultants are often hired for elevator modernizations. A typical elevator modernization can cost $100,000 per elevator, and should last your building 30 years. Hiring a consultant is critical in making the right decision financially and for your building tenants. Typically, owners of buildings with two or more traction elevators or three or more hydraulic elevators hire elevator consultants. They hire them to create a modernization scope of work, select an elevator vendor and inspect their work.

Can a building owner do a modernization bid themselves?

If you get multiple bids from elevator companies, why can’t you select the vendor with the best reputation and price? With small elevator upgrades it may be easier to compare apples to apples. However, with a modernization scope of work, it is easy to receive two proposals for a modernization that you think are the same thing but are very different. For example:

• Do all the proposals including replacing the machines?
• Do all proposals replace all parts of the machines?
• Do all proposals include elevator interior work?

Also, you may receive some bids that are not for full modernizations but instead for replacing only some parts of the elevator.

Furthermore, if you do select a bidder, since there was no bid specification, a vendor may artificially lower its price to win your business. Once work has begun you may be hit with change orders, or discover there is significant work that is outside the scope of the bid such as, upgrading smoke detectors in the elevator shaft to bring the elevator and building into code compliance.

By bringing in a elevator consultant from the beginning you may be able to avoid these potential hazards.

What does an elevator consultant do?

First, an elevator consultant will do a thorough examination of your elevators. They may conclude that an elevator modernization is not necessary but smaller upgrades, or better maintenance is the solution. If the modernization is required, they will then write a scope of work for your modernization. The scope of work ensures that all responders are bidding on the same work, allowing you to compare apples to apples. Furthermore, a consultant should prepare you for any additional costs. These costs may occur from building upgrades that are required to be code compliant.

Once the scope of work is out, the consultant can help select the appropriate elevator company. During the modernization, the consultant can check on the progress of the contractor. More importantly, if there are delays or change orders, you have an expert on your side to keep the elevator company honest and protect your interest.

Finally, when the project is complete the elevator consultant can confirm the work has been completed to specification. Typically, they will provide a punch list of items that the elevator company must fix before you sign off on the work.

Elevator consultants for helping with your elevator maintenance agreements

Elevator consultants are usually hired by buildings with at least 4 elevators or a portfolio of buildings with dozens or more of elevators to come up a maintenance specification agreement. Most elevator consultants have their own maintenance specification contracts that are copyrighted. In many cases, they will also help with the bidding process.

A good elevator consultant will know the elevator companies in the market and issue the maintenance specification to them, as well as any request for proposal. Some elevator consultants have relationships with the big 4 or smaller elevator companies. For example, many consultants used to work for one of the large elevator companies. This means they could have a close relationship with the employees who work there. I recommend doing your due diligence by simply asking your consultant or viewing their LinkedIn profile of where they worked. On the other hand, some elevator consultants only prefer the smaller companies. It is always good to have a mix of both small and large companies in the bidding process.

The next step is typically a walkthrough of all the elevators with the relevant bidders. Make sure to have all your building engineers ready to open the machine rooms on the day(s) of the walkthrough. There is nothing worse than the elevator vendors not being able to fully inspect the elevators and having to come back another day.

Once the elevator companies have submitted their responses, the elevator consultant should organize the bids and give their opinion on who they recommend. The final choice of course, is up to the building owner but a good consultant show make the decision easy for you.

Elevator consultants audit of your elevator

Consultants can also be hired to do a thorough review of your elevator performance and the maintenance it has been receiving. If you have had minimal problems with your elevator, trust your elevator mechanic and see your mechanic on a frequent basis there should not be a reason to hire a consultant. However, if you have multiple elevators with multiple traps and shutdowns over at least  a 6 month period of time, and can’t get a good response from your elevator maintenance company, you may want to hire an elevator consultant to review your elevators.

Typically, they will send a consultant or subcontracted consultant on site to do a thorough inspection. The consultant will check all the preventative maintenance that has (or has not) been completed. They will review standard performance of the elevator to the manufacture’s specifications. For example, they will check the door opening and door closing speeds to see if they align with what is recommended. You can require your elevator maintenance company to adjust these parameters. However, if these parameters have not been affecting your customers service I wouldn’t recommend changing them. Often times these parameters have been changed due to how your occupants travel. For example, door speed times need to be much different at a school than at an office building.

After the inspection a written report is shared with the building owner and the report is given to the elevator maintenance company. Typically, there will be low/high priority items and a window (30-90 days) for the elevator company to fix the issues. Always give the elevator company some time to give their feedback on what the consultants wrote up. If they do not respond, they should remedy the issues. It will be the building owners and/or the consultants responsibility to make sure the elevator company fixes any issues.

Sometimes this process is not a one and done. Instead a building owner will hire a consultant to do bi-annual reviews. Please remember this consultants are experts so they are not cheap.

Elevator consultant fees

Elevator consultant fees vary greatly based upon which consultant you are hiring and what you are hiring them for. Many have a base fee for using their copyrighted elevator maintenance agreement as well as charge an hourly rate.  Typically, elevator modernization specs will be the most expensive. Prices may vary but elevator consultant fees can start at $10,000 for a modernization. Consultants also charge hourly at $150 – $200 / hour for any other elevator consultant fees.

Is this amount of money worth it? In many cases the short answer is a resounding, yes! For modernizations the money you spend on elevator consultants can pale in comparison to the money you would spend from bad change orders, delays in the process resulting in tenants withholding payments, and getting a bad modernization that leads to another modernization much sooner than anticipated.

The elevator maintenance contract an elevator consultant provides you for a bid can save you tens of thousands of dollars in charges that that should be covered.

Please send me a note if you would like a referral to a reputable elevator consulting company