jessec39•12d agoMost Upvoted

That 36 hour old door reversal job that should've been 4 hours

Last Tuesday I got called to an old Otis in a downtown Cleveland building, like a 1980s unit, and the doors just would not sync right no matter what I did. The customer said it was acting up for weeks but they waited until it fully jammed on a Tuesday morning during move-in traffic. I spent the whole first day chasing down a bad door switch that tested fine on the meter but freaked out under load, turns out the contacts were just barely kissing when the car was level but not when it settled. Ended up camping on that job for 36 hours total, sleeping in my truck for a few hours between trips, and the fix was a $12 limit switch and a 20 minute adjustment after I finally figured out the car was sitting 3/8 inch low on the rails. Has anyone else spent way too long on a simple sounding problem just because the actual condition is hiding behind a flaky component?

2 comments

2 Comments

charlie_allen12d ago

That 3/8 inch low on the rails is the exact kind of ghost that drives you nuts, I've seen a leveling issue cause a door lock to act possessed for two days in a hospital elevator. The thing that catches people is the car leveling itself at rest can shift slightly depending on load and guide shoe wear, making the lock alignment change by just enough to cause intermittent failures. If you ever run into that again, try checking the roller guides for slop before you tear into the door operator, it saved me an unnecessary controller replacement once.

-1

terry_barnes12d ago

Ha, I feel that! I once spent three hours chasing a phantom door issue on a freight elevator only to find I had my own tool bag sitting on the floor shifting the weight just enough to mess with the lock.