Several months ago I moved into the seventh floor of an apartment building that was built in 1908. The elevator was poorly maintained and had many safety hazards despite the fact that an elevator repair company had a contract and was being paid to repair it. It was usually not working.

Not wishing to walk up seven flights of stairs, I arranged with the building superintendant to obtain a key to the machine room and repair the elevator myself. It is an "Elektron Electric Elevator". Although I have encountered many different elevators over the years, I had never seen this particular type before. The machine is in the basement with cables winding around a large drum, then returning back up the shaft over a pully and back down to some of the counterweights. Other counterweights are attatched directly to the car via a separate pair of cables.

Despite it's age, this is a self-service elevator. There is a very simple controller that uses only one relay for each of the eight landings and a ninth "exclusion" relay that allows only one call to be selected at a time. A chain drive connected to the machine moves a location switch that stops the car when it approaches the selected floor.

At this time, I have corrected various problems so that the elevator now works reliably and has no known hazards, but I would like to find out more about it including what preventive maintenance should be done. Have you ever heard of this make? What is the history of the company, etc? Or, where can I find out more about this "Elektron Electric Elevator"?

Thank you!

ElmerCat

-- Elmer J. Canfield (jcanfie1@nycap.rr.com), March 09, 1998

Answers

Dear Sir: Elektron was a local NYC installer of basement drum type elevators from c.1900-c.1934. They were associated with another firm known as Chelsea Elevator. To my knowledge Elektron were not manufacturers but component installers of equipment manufactured by others. If you wish you may contact me at 1-800-221-9553 to arrange to forward samples of parts you need, we should have them in stock.

-- Patrick A. Carrajat (patrick.partsman@mci2000.com), March 16, 1998.