Residential elevators were once considered a luxury for high end homes but today home elevators are more common place. Western Carolina personal elevators can be installed in just about any home regardless of the year it was built. Installing your client's new home elevator is just a question of adequate space. Fortunately our hydraulic elevators only need space about the size of a small walk in closet. Another option for some homes is to install the elevator in place of the stairs. Learn more about our stair removal process here.
The machine room for you hydraulic home elevator takes up very little space and is installed at the lowest level. The cabin area is about 12 to 15 feet at the most with 6″ between the wall of the shaft that the elevator travels within. As you can see a new elevator can be installed in most homes and is much easier than you might think.
Hydraulic elevators are ideal for two and three story homes because of the low cost to build and install, the machine room is small and is at the lowest level.
The General Installation Process
Simply put, the Western Carolina Hydraulic Home Elevator is like a sophisticated forklift.
The first step is to form an 8" pit in your concrete slab.
The following assembly shows the 8” pit being formed in your concrete slab.
Some customers have a crawl space and their crawl space can act as a pit as well with a 6” concrete slab poured at the bottom of the crawl space. The elevator pit allows the elevator floor to be even with the first floor level.
The next step of your installation process is to have your carpenter or framer prepare your elevator shaft.
We strongly recommend framing your elevator shaft out of two by fours, not two by sixes or concrete block. Some customers think that by over-framing, or blocking the elevator shaft, your elevator will be stronger, keep in mind that most of the loads on the elevator are on the concrete slab below and not on the rails. It might sound confusing, but you will create a 3” by 5” rule safety violation if you have your framer use 2 by 6’s or concrete block. This can be a safety violation and prohibit the installation of your Remi home Elevator. A description of the 3 x 5 rule can be found by clicking here. This is the single most important safety issue when building your elevator shaft.
The next step is to have your carpenter install wood blocking material. These are double two by 12 headers turned on their face and running plate-to-plate on one wall inside the elevator shaft. This is the wall that our rail brackets are mounted to. The animation shows the two by 12’s slide into the shaft and then your elevator rail brackets being lag-bolted onto the 2 x 12’s. Some customers are required to fire rate their elevator shaft. Please check with your local inspector to find out what is required. Now the balance of the Remi Home Elevator is the elevator guide rails, the hydraulic jack installation, the elevator cars link and then the elevator cap.
Please consult a Western Carolina sales rep for futher details.