Most people buy an elevator once. They compare three quotes, pick the middle one, and discover the real cost eighteen months later — in waiting times, breakdown calls, and a shaft that never quite fit the car they wanted. The machine is fine. The specification was wrong. This guide walks you through the same eight-step sequence our engineers use when we size a lift for a new building: traffic first, drive system second, civil work third, and price last. By the end, you will be able to read a lift quotation and spot what it leaves out.
Why the Elevator Decision Is Harder Than It Looks
A lift is not a product you buy off a shelf. It is a system built into your building’s structure, and the structure gets poured before the lift arrives. That order of events is what traps first-time buyers.
Here is the pattern we see: a builder finalises the shaft with the architect, then invites lift vendors. By then the pit depth is fixed, the headroom is fixed, and the shaft is 100 mm narrower than the car the client actually wanted. Every option after that is a compromise.
Bring the lift vendor in at the drawing stage. It costs nothing and it decides everything.
Step 1 — Define the Building and the Traffic
Start with people, not machines. Two questions settle most of the specification.
- How many floors will the lift serve? Count stops, not storeys. A lift serving stilt + 7 has eight stops.
- How many people live or work above the ground floor? This drives capacity and speed together.
A rough handling-capacity check
Peak demand in a residential building runs roughly 5–7% of the resident population in five minutes. For an office, plan for 11–15%. So a 60-flat building with about 240 residents needs to move around 14 people in five minutes at peak.
Now compare that with one round trip. A lift serving eight floors takes roughly 100–120 seconds for a full round trip with a few stops. That gives you two to three trips in five minutes — around 12 to 18 people with a 6-passenger car. One lift is marginal. Two smaller lifts beat one large one, because two cars halve the waiting time even when the total capacity is the same.
That last point is worth pausing on. Buyers instinctively upsize to one big lift. Residents experience waiting time, not car size.
Step 2 — Pick the Drive System
Three families cover almost everything sold in India.
Gearless traction (MRL)
A permanent-magnet motor sits inside the shaft, so no machine room is needed. It draws the least power, runs quietly, and handles high travel. It suits most residential and commercial buildings above four floors.
Geared traction
An older, sturdier arrangement with a gearbox and a machine room on top. Lower purchase cost, higher running cost, more noise. Still sensible for industrial buildings and goods lifts.
Hydraulic
A piston pushes the car up; gravity brings it down. Excellent for low-rise — up to about five or six stops — and for buildings where the roof cannot take the load. Slower, and the oil temperature matters in Indian summers.
For a detailed comparison, see our guide on MRL versus hydraulic systems.
Step 3 — Size the Car, Capacity and Speed
Capacity is quoted in persons and kilograms. Use kilograms. The “persons” figure assumes 68 kg per person, which is optimistic in practice.
Practical sizing for Indian residential buildings:
- 4 persons / 272 kg — small villas, two to three stops
- 6 persons / 408 kg — typical apartment block up to eight floors
- 8 persons / 544 kg — larger buildings, or where a stretcher matters
- 13 persons / 884 kg — commercial lobbies and hospitals
Speed follows travel height. Up to G+6, 1.0 m/s is enough. From G+7 to G+15, move to 1.5 m/s. Above that, 1.75 m/s and higher. Buying more speed than the travel justifies wastes money and increases wear.
One specification worth insisting on
If your building may ever need to move a patient, ask for a stretcher-compatible car — usually a 1100 × 2000 mm internal platform. Retrofitting that later means breaking the shaft.
Step 4 — Check the Civil Work
This is where projects lose money. Get these five numbers agreed in writing before the shaft is cast.
- Shaft internal dimensions, with plumb tolerance of ±25 mm across the full travel
- Pit depth — typically 1200–1600 mm for traction lifts, less for hydraulic
- Headroom above the top floor — usually 3800–4500 mm for MRL
- Machine room size and access, if applicable
- Power — a dedicated three-phase supply with proper earthing, plus a route for the DG changeover
A shaft that is out of plumb by 60 mm will pass a casual eye test and fail a guide-rail alignment. Ask for a plumb survey report at handover.
Step 5 — Choose Doors and Cabin
Doors cause more service calls than any other component, so the choice is not cosmetic.
- Manual swing / collapsible — lowest cost, highest injury risk, most complaints
- Semi-automatic — automatic car door with a manual landing door; a middle option
- Automatic telescopic — the standard for new residential buildings
- Automatic centre-opening — faster door cycles, better for commercial traffic
Door width matters more than car width for loading furniture. An 800 mm opening will not take a standard mattress; 900 mm will.
Cabin finishes are the easiest place to save. Stainless steel hairline holds up better than mirror finish, which shows every fingerprint in a building with children.
Step 6 — Verify Safety and Compliance
India’s reference standard for lift installation is IS 17900, aligned with the European EN 81-20 and EN 81-50 series. It replaced the older IS 14665 practice for new installations and raised the bar on door strength, car protection and control reliability. Several states also run their own Lift Acts requiring registration and periodic inspection.
Insist on all of these, regardless of budget:
- Automatic Rescue Device (ARD) — brings the car to the nearest landing on power failure
- Light curtain / infrared door protection across the full door height, not a single beam
- Overload sensing that blocks movement and signals audibly
- Emergency alarm and two-way intercom to a manned point
- Door interlocks on every landing, so the car cannot move with a door open
- Overspeed governor and safety gear on the car
If a vendor lists any of these as an optional extra, treat the base quote as incomplete.
Step 7 — Compare Quotes the Right Way
Three quotes on three different scopes are not comparable. Ask every vendor to itemise the same eleven lines.
| Line item | What to check |
| Machine and controller | Make, gearless or geared, VVVF drive |
| Capacity and speed | In kg and m/s |
| Number of stops and openings | Openings can exceed stops |
| Doors | Type, width, operator make |
| Cabin | Material, finish, ceiling, flooring |
| Safety package | Itemised, not “as per standard” |
| Shaft components | Rails, ropes, buffers, counterweight |
| Civil scope | Who does what |
| Erection and commissioning | Included or extra |
| Statutory approvals | Who files, who pays |
| Warranty and AMC | Duration, response time, spares |
The exclusions that inflate the final bill
Scaffolding, shaft lighting and the 3-phase power run to the machine are excluded in most quotations. Together they add a meaningful amount to a small-building project. Ask for them to be priced in, or priced out explicitly.
Step 8 — Judge the Vendor, Not Just the Machine
An elevator is a 20–25 year relationship. The controller card will fail at year seven, and what matters then is whether someone answers the phone.
Ask three concrete questions:
- Where is your nearest service team, and what is the guaranteed response time for a trapped-passenger call?
- Is the controller proprietary or open? Proprietary controllers lock you into one service provider for life.
- Can I see a building of similar size you installed at least five years ago?
That third question sorts vendors quickly. Anyone can show a new installation.
FAQs
How long does elevator installation take? For a standard G+7 residential lift, allow six to ten weeks from shaft handover to commissioning — roughly two weeks for material delivery, three to five weeks for erection, and one to two weeks for testing and statutory clearance. Delays almost always come from shaft readiness or power availability, not from the lift itself.
Can a lift be added to an existing building? Yes. The usual routes are an external shaft in the setback area, a structural shaft in a stairwell void, or a low-pit hydraulic unit. Feasibility depends on setback rules, foundation access and available headroom. A site survey settles it in a single visit.
How many people should the lift carry? Size it against peak five-minute demand, not against the flat count. For most 40–70 flat buildings, a 6- or 8-passenger car at 1.0 m/s works, with two cars preferred over one large car wherever the shaft allows.
What is the lifespan of an elevator? The structural components — rails, shaft steel, car frame — last 25 to 30 years. Controllers and door operators are the shorter-lived parts, typically 12 to 15 years. Most buildings modernise the control system once and keep the mechanical package.
Conclusion
Get the sequence right and the lift disappears into the building the way it should: quiet, quick, and unremarkable. Traffic first. Drive system second. Civil work third. Price last. If you are still at the drawing stage, that is the best possible time to talk to an engineer.
Get a Specification, Not Just a Price
Express Elevators designs, manufactures and services passenger, home and goods lifts across India. We size the lift to your building’s actual traffic, hand over full compliance documentation, and back every installation with a service network that answers trapped-passenger calls first.
Send us your building drawings and floor count. We will return a sized specification and an itemised quotation — no exclusions buried in the footnotes.