Yesterday morning I enjoyed a lift induction from two of our lift engineers at a client’s site in Manchester. It was all very exciting, informative and to be honest a wee bit scary too.
I’ve been wanting to get out and about since Christmas so it was great to be able to do just that today and meet Alex and Dylan on site and be shown the ropes, literally! That’s my first lift pun of the day. I’ve picked up quite a bit since I began here as Marketing Manager in September 2018 but there’s nothing quite like getting your hands dirty (so to speak) and learning from the guys who look after lifts on a daily basis.
I was given the full PPE kit to prepare myself for this trip and future site visits. So here I was adorned with hard hat, gloves, goggles, ear defenders – the full works! Thankfully I didn’t need all of them for a simple lift induction but at least I have them at my disposal for next time.
First up I was invited to ascend some ladders to the motor room, and when I arrived it all seemed quite familiar.
I realised I’d written about this place before on our blog. We carried out a lift modernisation project here last year so I was seeing first hand some of the images I’d re-sized and placed on Word Press.
Our engineers talked me through what stringent checks they go through as well as me showing me the functions of the various parts of the lift. As this lift was a traction lift, there were sheaves and a winding unit on display. I daren’t touch anything but here’s a shot of Dylan explaining the process to me.
Once I’d descended the stairs (there was a comment about my tentative technique on the ladders, well sorry lads but we aren’t all used to being on ladders, ok?!) it was time to visit the lift car and shaft of a nearby hydraulic lift, and with the lift safely in test mode I got on top of the lift car with the engineer as he drive the lift slowly up and down, explaining the various functions on display.
It was fascinating to hear what the guys had to say about the various safety procedures that are in place to protect the lift itself and the public and themselves, sometimes you think that a lift is just a box going up and down, but really they are so much more complex than that. The importance of the overspeed governor was also highlighted within hydraulic lifts, and I took a picture of the ‘brains’ and of the pistons below.
The motor room for the hydraulic lift contained much smaller equipment. No massive sheaves required! I felt slightly more at home although there seemed to be lots of buttons and levers that I definitely wasn’t going anywhere near!
The whole experience today certainly gave me a great insight into the world of the lift engineer. They showed me their job sheets too and I realised just how meticulous they have to be in regards to reporting faults or discrepancies that they see. Hats off to them, but not if they’re hard hats in a restricted area!
Thank you to both engineers for their time and training today, I left them to carry on the excellent work that they are clearly doing for our clients.