Comments on: The ‘Close Doors’ Button

By: fire doors

fire doors — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 20:32:20 +0000

Its good that a lift has buttons that dont work – great for inspiring confidence.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:19:00 +0000

we had a classic case here in Poole. One particular type of cargo ship had been having problems turning round in the harbour because when the engines were reversed to try and change direction a torque-limiter was disengaging the engines. A modification was made in the form of a large red button labelled “torque limiter over-ride” which enabled the captain to dial up full astern when going forward, or vice versa, without the trip operating. This solved all the problems until one day a ship turned up which had had the modification carried out, but still tripped out when the engines were reversed, resulting in a large dent in the structure of Poole Quay. It turned out that the contractor carrying out the modification had installed the button OK but never connected it to anything.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:25:00 +0000

Wirral, UK. Our lifts: a timer controls the lift doors closing (at any point, this seems accepted wisdom). By observation (not particularly close though!’Open’ button inside (to let more people in/late comers) resets timer, but close button can now work (can’t rely on using ‘open’ button to do the test, it’s a different test/protocol Weol!). Close button may appear to work otherwise due to time/attention required to find it on the panel. Do we need the lifts from Hitch Hiker’s anyone?
Crossings: it’s fun to find one that is little used. Seem to be timers at work here as well (may be set to traffic volume?). If the crossing has not been operated recently (few minutes, nice straight road, walking, you can see), you can choose exactly which car to stop (if you know period of delay/amber duration). Might have changed now… I rarely use them, driving everywhere… bloody pedestrians… TC.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 04:55:00 +0000

This ‘close door’ button issue occurred to me years ago. I did testing and determined that the vast majority of them do not work. Perhaps the default setting is to turn them off, with some building managements preferring to turn them on.

By: Dr Tim

Dr Tim — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:57:00 +0000

I always thought that “life” was a far better name – mainly because we have Schlinder’s servicing lifts in New Zealand. They actually have a sign on the inside saying “Schlinder’s lift”

By: Le Canard Noir

Le Canard Noir — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:58:00 +0000

Both the terms ‘lift’ and ‘elevator’ and only really half descriptive as half the time their are either a ‘drop’ or a ‘descender’. I would guess marketing them as ‘drops’ might be quite difficult.

By: Jaxparrothead

Jaxparrothead — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:40:00 +0000

By your use of the term "lift" I have to assume that you do not live in America. Here in the States the close door button only has to work when a key is inserted into the control panel. Its main use is for Fire Departments to control the elevators in case of an emergency. In fact, there is a master key that the local Fire Departments have to control all elevators in their city. It keeps the paramedics from having to wait for a ride in case of an emergency. In most buldings, when a fire alarm is pulled, all elevators return to the ground level and the doors are locked open until that key is inserted.

Its often used by custodians, movers, and others who need more time to load the elevator than normal. Some of the larger buildings will use this feature during times of high elevator usage to make one elevator an "express" elevator, moving more people quickly. Another use is by bored building managers for racing purposes, something that I am quite good at.

As for the pedestrian crosswalk buttons, those, like most things in America, are installed in a totally random and illogical way and may or may not work, and usually the walk light does not give the average person enough time to cross the street before changing to do not walk and making the pedestrians sprint across the second half of the street dodging traffic. We Americans have long since given up trying to figure these types of things out.

BTW, lift does seem like a much better word than elevator. And its a helluva lot easier to type.

By: gimpyblog

gimpyblog — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 17:00:00 +0000

The lift to my apartment has no close door button but it does have an open door button. I feel this absence of an important lifting modality is a conspiracy by Big Lifta to profit by ensuring their lifts are always full.

By: Ali

Ali — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:28:00 +0000

paternostalgia (n): A happy memory of continuous lifts. I loved the paternoster lifts at uni. Three people could get in – one to step down, one straight across and to one step up. A favourite fresher induction was to go ‘over the top’ and of course the sophs would kid the freshers that you would come down the other side upside down.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:58:00 +0000

Not only do the buttons at crossings work but it’s clear (from observing the actions of others) that people have discovered that pressing them no less than 27 times makes the lights change quicker!