Be careful of who tells you what and for whose interests they tell you. Ask if anybody is receiving non-disclosed payments when a lift consultant shows up and the reasons for that lift consultant recommending a company that is no better than what you already have.
Not all, but most Lift consultants in the past have no formal qualifications to be acting in the position that they are. The standard trade for a lift mechanic is an electrician, a lift designer: a qualified engineer (with a University Degree).
An interesting situation has arisen with Fair Trading requirements of Design Consultants having an Engineering Degree (electrical or mechanical) for Vertical transportation Practioners Licence for class 2 buildings. Ask for proof of qualifications and not acronyms of memberships to "Lift engineer" societies. If a lift consultant has no formal qualifications, they can't get insurance or the type they have is not valid. A lot of electrical licenses were held through third parties in the past and revoked. They are personally liable for anything they say or recommend to you. You might not have any recourse for mistakes they say or suggest. Most solicitors will not take on certain types of law because their Professional Indemnity insurance does not cover other types of law. People hire lift consultants to contract negotiate. Is the lift consultant using a qualified solicitor or directly consulting one?
Most Lift Consultants will claim their qualifications come from the fact they have been in the lift industry for a number of years, does this qualify the receptionist the accountant, the laborer or the trades assistant to be a Lift consultant?
In the last 10-15 years lift companies have been removing employees that have no electrical qualifications to work in the positions they are in, a lot of those people have joined the lift consulting industry.
Sometimes there is no other option but for replacement of lifts, we've heard stories of consultants charging 20% commissions on $1m full lift removal and replacement jobs, when the lift could have been modernized for less than the consultants fee. The modernized lift would have had less down time, no engineering or building structural issues and no patching or rework of lobbies.
Structural changes to buildings should be made by Licensed builders under the instructions of engineers. Full lift replacement jobs in old brick lift shafts should be given directly to builders and engineers. One consultant threatened that we would never work for a strata again if we didn't quote a job that structurally changed the load forces on a brick building. His associate previously used my electrical license without permission to contract to a multinational lift company- while contracting to that company his employees complained that he was garnishing their wages for child support payments and their children never received the money. Glad to never deal with them again.
We see consultants engaged by strata who will not act in their client's best interest to engage a builder or an engineer: they want to be the middleman.
We performed a lift job in the Sydney CBD for a well-known very professional builder who spent 12 months due diligence with council, engineers, applicable standards/rules, the owners, the tenants and consulted multiple lift companies about what was possible. We were given the job to install a customized lift suspended 12 floors up and after successfully completed, the tenant very publicly went broke and did not want to pay the rent on their office, so they made up stories about the lift. A third-party building management contractor hired an unqualified lift consultant and with no valid basis suggested that the owner should remove and replace the entire lift with a motor room less counterweighted lift that was not possible for the structural engineer to integrate into the building and that he as the lift consultant should be tasked with overseeing the process and the commission. Another lift company took on the maintenance (The warranty period was not requested) The problem was that the lift installed was the only option. It would have to be replaced with the same lift. Why would anyone put their name to a suggestion like this? Greed? Desperation? A gamble? A few years later the lift is still there, and the maintenance company has abandoned the job with a note left on the floor, "If you have problems call them"
Recently we have seen numerous LinkedIn posts from a lift consultancy firm about unsafe lifts- Rouging and rusted ropes- No switches on access doors to secondary pits etc. We've recommended these consultants on various jobs due to their previous reputation of knowledge and integrity. We suggested them for a job where we serviced lifts in a group of Nursing homes for 7 years that on one of the elevators the lift was water damaged, the lifting ropes were shredded, the motor directly welded to an overhead beam, the original installing lift company changed the cabin size during installation but not the mechanical package where the motor/drive/controller was 1750kg on a 2000kg lift that after 5 days the VVVF drive would shut down because the motor had a fault. Instead of suggesting fixing the lift, that consultant suggested giving the job directly to one "up and coming contractor" who offers cases of beer on Facebook to other lift company employees for information on other jobs and who are suddenly suggested for all of that consultant's jobs who stated that none of the issues were fixed they installed a $25 relay on it and run it. Not exactly fitting with the consultants LinkedIn posts of safety being a priority. The consultant wiped out all of the knowledge of the previous issues that were possible to fix. Now the client is onto their fifth lift maintenance provider that obviously has no clue what has happened.
It's interesting the seemingly large ratio of lift consultants to lift companies and their employees. There are at least 3 lift consultancy firms in Sydney that have 15-30 employees and possibly 50 independents that mostly only suggest multinational lift companies. There are 4 multinationals there could be only 3 small lift companies that have 15-30 employees and 5-10 independents.
Because of the scarcity of lifts, the way that the majority of the industry operates where a lot of people do one small job, maybe they've never actually done the job and never understand the full picture, the safety factors, the fears instilled in people around lifts and the types of people that own and control lifts. Comprehensive lift knowledge is rare (even for self-proclaimed seasoned professionals)
So many small lift companies some with extensive knowledge and experience are driven out (maybe some deserve it) by the practices of consultants and undercutting of some multinationals on price to keep out competition.
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