subject: Home Elevators: Its Characteristics And Features [print this page] Home elevators are gaining a lot of popularity these days. Elevators have always been popular in commercial buildings, but now they are finding their way to residential complexes too. Installing an elevator in the house needs some thought and planning.
One of the most important factors that you must keep in your mind before setting a home elevator is the space available. There are various types of home elevators but only the available space will determine the type of elevator that you can install.
Home elevators are very useful for those people who are physically challenged, because then they do not have to depend on others to help them maneuver stairs. Another advantage of elevators is that they can be used to easily relocate goods from one floor to another.
So, if the purpose of the elevator is to help handicapped people or carry heavy goods then the space needed to install it will be larger than that required for the normal ones. Generally, not much space is required for installing normal elevators that carry only two people at a time. An area similar to that of a closet will be enough for installing normal elevators.
The two most important features of a home elevator are a pit and an overhead. To build this pit and overhead, you need to allocate separate space in addition to the area that you allocate for the actual elevator itself. For constructing a pit, a minimum space of 6 inches to 12 inches is required and for the overhead a minimum space of 8 to 10 inches is required. If the purpose of the home elevator is to serve handicapped people then it must have a height and width of 5 feet to easily accommodate a wheel chair.
A home elevator is incomplete without a machine room. A separate room needs to be constructed, as most of the hydraulic elevators are manually handled from these rooms. During the time of electricity failure, technicians lower the hydraulic lift manually from this machine room.
Some of the important features that must be part of a home elevator are backup light, telephone, alarm system, stop emergency switch, continuous power generation, interlock etc. All of these features are incorporated in the lift so that it maintains the safety of the passengers.
It is always a good idea to opt for known manufacturers when installing home elevators. Renowned companies do not make compromises in terms of quality and safety precautions.
