Elevator quotes are written in a vocabulary nobody explains, and several of the words hide the largest costs in the job. Here is each one in plain terms.
Hoistway
The shaft the elevator travels in: a vertical enclosure through both floors, framed, finished and fire-rated where required.
This is the building work, and on most residential projects it is a larger line than the equipment. It also takes floor area out of two stories permanently, which is the decision people underestimate.
Pit
A recess below the lowest landing where the cab bottom and some equipment sit when the elevator is at the ground floor.
On a house with a basement this is frequently straightforward. On a house on a concrete slab it means breaking and excavating concrete, which is one of the larger hidden costs in these projects.
Some systems need only a shallow recess of a few inches, and a few need none. Ask what pit depth is required before anything else, because it can change the whole feasibility.
Overhead
The clearance required above the top landing, for the cab and the machinery at the top of travel.
In a house with standard ceilings this is the constraint that catches people, particularly where the top floor has a sloped ceiling. Measure it before falling for a machine.
Cab
The car you ride in. Its internal dimensions and its door width decide who can use it, and this is the single decision that cannot be undone without rebuilding the hoistway.
Specify for the worst case you can reasonably foresee. A cab that takes a wheelchair is bigger than one that takes a standing person; a cab that takes a wheelchair and a caregiver is bigger again.
Drive system
Hydraulic: a pump pushes fluid to raise a piston. Smooth, high capacity, quiet in the cab, and it needs a machine space for the pump and tank.
Cable drum: a motor winds cable onto a drum. Compact, frequently no separate machine room, and generally a smaller footprint.
Traction: counterweighted cables. Efficient and common in commercial work.
Pneumatic vacuum: a sealed tube, no pit, no hoistway construction, self-supporting. Striking to look at, limited capacity, and in most configurations not suitable for a wheelchair. People fall for these and then meet the capacity.
Machine space
Where the pump, motor or controller lives. It needs access for service, ventilation, and it makes noise.
Ask where it goes and what it sounds like. Putting it against a bedroom wall is the regret that comes up most often.
Landing and car doors
Two separate things. The landing door is what you see on each floor; the car door or gate travels with the cab.
Swing doors need clearance to open into the room, which costs floor space. Accordion and sliding doors take less and cost more. For a wheelchair user, door width and the space to approach it decide usability more than cab size does.
Interlocks
The safety devices ensuring a landing door cannot open unless the cab is there, and the cab cannot move unless the doors are closed. Not optional, not an upgrade, and they are the components an annual inspection is largely about.
Rated load and speed
Capacity in pounds, and travel speed in feet per minute. Residential elevators are slow by design, and a faster machine is not usually a better one in a house.
Match the capacity to a wheelchair plus occupant plus a caregiver if that is the use case, rather than to a person.
Battery lowering
On a power failure the cab lowers under battery control to a landing and the doors open. Standard on serious equipment and the feature to confirm rather than assume, because being stuck between floors is the fear everybody has.
Inspection and operating certificate
In many jurisdictions an elevator is inspected annually and carries a certificate. That is a recurring cost and a recurring piece of administration.
Budget for it at the outset. It is the item that surprises households in year two, and our service page covers what a visit involves.
The questions those words turn into
- What pit depth and what overhead does this system need?
- Where is the machine space, and how loud?
- What are the cab internal dimensions and the clear door width?
- Who rides, and does anybody ride with them?
- What inspection regime applies here, and who arranges it?
Our elevator guide covers the decision itself, and our dumbwaiter guide covers the far cheaper machine for households whose real problem is moving things rather than people.
Shaftless and through-floor lifts
Worth a section because the terminology hides how different they are.
A through-floor lift opens a hatch in the ceiling, rises through it, and closes behind itself. There is no hoistway in the conventional sense, no pit in most configurations, and the construction is an opening cut in a floor rather than a shaft built through two of them.
It is frequently the sensible retrofit in a house not designed for an elevator, and it gets overlooked because it is less familiar than the cab-in-a-shaft that people picture.
Capacity, compared across the category
Residential elevators are commonly rated in the several-hundred-pound range and upward depending on the drive and the cab. That is more than a stairlift, which typically runs 300 to 600 lb, and comparable to a platform lift, where both the Bruno VPL-3100 and the Harmar Highlander II carry 750 lb.
The figure that matters is not the headline but whether it covers a wheelchair, its occupant and a caregiver together where that is the use case.
Accessible route requirements
In a public building, an elevator forming part of an accessible route is governed by the ADA Standards, and the Access Board guide covers the technical requirements including car dimensions, door widths and control heights.
A private home is not bound by them, and they remain a sensible reference for cab sizing, because they were derived from what a wheelchair actually needs.
Reading a quote with these words in it
Now that the vocabulary means something, a quote can be checked. Look for the pit depth, the overhead, the cab internal dimensions, the clear door width, the drive type, where the machine space is, the rated load, whether battery lowering is included, and what inspection applies.
Nine items. A quote missing several of them has not been engineered against your house.
Before committing to any of it
Ask honestly whether people need to move between floors or whether things do. If it is laundry, shopping and firewood, our dumbwaiter guide covers a far cheaper machine.
If somebody can transfer onto a seat and the problem is one staircase, a stairlift does the job for a fraction of the cost with no building work at all. Smaller equipment ships free from our online shop.