An old lift is replaced when repairs no longer pay off: spare parts cannot be found, it breaks down every week, and the traction machine and the car are both worn out. We almost always match the new lift to the existing shaft, and nobody has to move out; for a while the entrance is simply left without a lift. There is some building work, but it stays within the shaft, the pit and the machine room.
What you can gain
An old shaft does not mean the car will be cramped again. At 164 Liubinska St. in Lviv we installed cantilever lifts with a gearless traction machine: the rated load went up and the doors became 900 mm wide, so a wheelchair and furniture pass through freely. The shaft itself was left untouched.
At the hospital in Rozhniativ the task was different: a stretcher trolley had to roll in without manoeuvring. The landing doors were brought out onto the landing, for which the wall was cut through, and the car gained more usable space. An Izamet hospital lift now works there.
The building work in a replacement
Sometimes an old shaft can take a new lift only after alterations. Automatic doors are wider than the old swing doors, so the openings on the floors have to be widened: we cut away part of the wall, fit a new steel lintel and restore the reveals and the landing finishes. When the car lacks depth, we bring the landing doors out of the opening onto the landing.
In the shaft we block up the openings the new lift does not need, anchor the guide rail brackets and install lighting. We clean out the pit, and if it was once filled in or concreted over, we build it anew: slab, walls, waterproofing. Sometimes the depth is still not enough; then we select the lift under DSTU EN 81-21, which describes a reduced pit and how it is compensated for.
In the machine room we lay steel beams for the new traction machine, bearing on the shaft walls, cut openings for the ropes, bring in the power supply and replace the windows if necessary. All of this is done by our construction crews on one schedule with the installers. Concealed work (slab reinforcement, anchors, welds) is handed over to technical supervision against certificates before the next layer covers it.
For a public-sector client we show the building work in the cost estimate separately from the equipment: each lift, the shaft work, the machine room and commissioning have their own sections. This makes it clear exactly what is included in the price of the replacement.
If the building has no shaft at all, that is a different job: a turnkey external lift.
Where replacement went together with building work
- Ivano-Frankivsk, Regional Children's Clinical Hospital, 2026: major repair of the lift equipment, five lifts. The hospital is in operation, so we are replacing them one at a time.
- Lviv, 56 Khotkevycha St., 2024: a building damaged by a missile strike; emergency restoration work on the structures and new lifts in two entrances.
- Lviv, Zaliznychnyi District Administration building, 2024: lift replacement with an additional stop in the shelter.
- Truskavets, sanatorium, 2024: two lifts, in the treatment building and in the dining hall, to our own design.
How the work goes
- An engineer comes for the site survey: shaft, pit, headroom, machine room, power supply. Shafts in old buildings often differ from the drawings, so we measure what is actually there.
- We select the equipment and prepare a quotation. At this point it is already clear whether the existing shaft is sufficient or the pit will have to be deepened somewhere. When the client needs a design and a cost estimate with expert review, our design team prepares them.
- Manufacturing and delivery. The old lift keeps running all this time.
- Removal of the old lift and installation of the new one.
- Commissioning, electrical measurements, final inspection and technical inspection. After that the lift is started up.
The entrance is without a lift only during removal and installation. We state the time frame for a particular building after the site survey and write it into the contract.
Who orders a replacement
A homeowners association (OSBB) signs the contract directly; the decision is taken by the general meeting of co-owners, and we prepare the documents so that the board chair can make sense of them. For city councils and hospitals we work through Prozorro: our contracts can be seen in the open register by EDRPOU code 33860532. Most of these contracts are in Lviv.
How much it costs
We name the amount after the site survey. Two neighbouring buildings can differ considerably: in one the shaft is dry, in the other it has been flooded for years. If the budget does not allow the lift to be replaced completely, we will set out modernization of individual components alongside. The site survey and the costing are free.
Request a site survey or call: +38 050 585-39-28.
Have an old lift? Descriptions and diagrams in the legacy lift guide
