A lift lobby carries the whole building’s traffic through a few square metres, and the lift car itself is usually the most expensive floor per square metre on the project. Both need protection and both have constraints that a standard corridor does not.
Why the lobby is the worst spot
Everything arrives there: materials, trolleys, rubbish, people. It is where loads get set down while someone opens a door, and it is where grit from outside stops being walked any further. The traffic per square metre is higher here than anywhere else in the building, and the finish is usually the one the client sees first.
The lift car floor
The car floor is often stone, vinyl or a specialist finish belonging to the lift contractor, and it is small, enclosed and awkward to work in. It is also the surface most often damaged during a fit-out, because materials are dragged in and out of it. Protecting it matters and it needs agreeing with the lift contractor first – some have requirements about what can go in the car and how it is fixed.
What goes in the car
A single piece cut to the car floor, laid loose, with a chamfered edge at the door. Not panels butted together, which open up under the rocking of the car, and not anything fixed, because fixing inside a lift car is usually prohibited. One piece, sized to the car, is the whole specification.
The door sill
The lift door sill is a step, it is metal, and everything is dragged across it. It scratches and it is the part that gets noticed. A ramped cover over the sill, fixed outside the car rather than inside, protects it and stops trolleys catching – and it stays in place because it is not moving with the lift.
Who is responsible
The lift is usually under a separate contract and often still under the installer’s warranty during the fit-out. Agree who protects it, with what, and who removes it – before the works start. Disputes about lift car damage are slow and expensive and they turn almost entirely on whether this was agreed in writing.
The lift during the heavy phase
Where possible, keep heavy and dirty loads out of the passenger lift and use a goods lift or a hoist for the strip-out and the heavy deliveries. It is not always available, but where it is, it removes the majority of the risk to the lift car floor and it keeps the passenger lift in service for the client. Worth asking at the start of the job.
What the client sees in a lift
People look at the lift car floor more than almost anything else, because they are standing still in a small space with nothing else to do. It is a very high-visibility surface for its area. Where a choice has to be made about where to spend protection budget, the lift car is a better candidate than most floors several times its size.
Protection during the client’s own move-in
The heaviest traffic a lift car ever sees is often after handover, when the client’s furniture and equipment go in. Leaving the car cover in place for that, or supplying a second one, is worth offering – it is the period with the highest risk and it is usually nobody’s responsibility.
Why this particular few square metres gets judged harder than most of the building is explained in what clients actually notice at floor handover.
What we can do
We cut single-piece honeycomb covers for lift car floors and ramped sill covers, sized from the car dimensions. Tell us the car size, the floor finish and who the lift contractor is, and we will supply to fit – and flag where their agreement is needed first.