Lift glossary.

Under the Building Safety Act 2022, a person or organisation that owns, or has a repairing obligation for, the common parts of a higher-risk building in England. Accountable persons must assess and manage the building’s fire and structural safety risks.

Lesson: Who is responsible for a lift

Practical advice on complying with health and safety law, approved by HSE, such as L113 for LOLER and PUWER. It has a special legal status: anyone prosecuted who did not follow it must show they complied in some other way.

Lesson: Passenger lift regulations

Statutory guidance on meeting the building regulations, such as Approved Document M on access and Approved Document B on fire safety. England and Wales each publish their own.

Lesson: Passenger lift regulations

A device that stops a traction lift’s car, or slows it to a safe speed, if it runs upwards too fast, for example because the brake has failed with a light car. It can act on the car, the counterweight, the ropes or the sheave.

Lesson: Lift safety systems

The unit that connects a lift’s alarm button to a rescue service. When a passenger holds the button, it calls out automatically and lets them speak to the person who answers. Equipment supplied to EN 81-28 also checks its connection automatically, at least every 72 hours.

Lesson: The analogue switch-off and lift phones

Equipment that uses a battery or other back-up supply to move the car slowly to a floor and open the doors when the mains supply fails, so passengers can leave. Not every lift has one.

Lesson: Power cuts and lifts

The share of the time a lift is needed that it is in service, usually given as a percentage. A maintenance contract should say which hours count and whether planned work counts as time out of service.

Lesson: Measuring lift performance

On a traction lift, the brake on the machine. Springs apply it and an electric current holds it off, so it holds the car whenever it stops and applies automatically if the power or the safety circuit is cut.

Lesson: How a traction lift works

A spring, polyurethane or oil-filled device in the pit that stops the car or counterweight safely if it travels past its lowest normal position.

Lesson: Lift safety systems

A visit by a lift engineer in response to a fault, breakdown or trapping, on top of the planned maintenance visits.

Lesson: Measuring lift performance

The compartment that carries passengers or goods. It sits in a steel car frame that runs on the guide rails.

Lesson: Parts of a lift

A call registered by pressing a floor button inside the car: the floor a passenger wants to go to.

Lesson: What happens when you call a lift

The steel frame, sometimes called the sling, that carries the car, the guide shoes, the safety gear and the rope fixings.

Lesson: Parts of a lift

The panel of floor buttons, door buttons, indicators and alarm button inside the car.

Lesson: Parts of a lift

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, which set out how health and safety is planned and managed on construction work. Their definition of construction work includes installing, maintaining and removing mechanical and electrical services fixed within or to a structure.

Lesson: A modernisation project, step by step

A flat suspension belt made of steel cords inside a polyurethane coating, used on some newer lifts instead of round wire ropes. It can bend around a smaller sheave.

Lesson: Lift ropes

The usual way a lift answers calls: it keeps travelling in one direction, stopping for every call that way, then turns round and answers the calls in the other direction.

Lesson: What happens when you call a lift

Chains, ropes or belts hanging in a loop between the bottom of the car and the bottom of the counterweight. They balance the weight of the suspension ropes as the car travels.

Lesson: How a traction lift works

Under LOLER, someone with enough technical and practical knowledge of the lift to detect defects and judge how significant they are, and who is independent and impartial enough to assess it objectively.

Lesson: How to read a LOLER report

A maintenance agreement that includes replacing parts that fail through normal wear and tear, apart from the exclusions it lists. LEIA’s code of practice notes that even agreements described as comprehensive often have exclusions.

Lesson: Lift maintenance tender checklist

A maintenance contractor’s written report on the state of a lift, listing anything that needs attention and by when. LEIA’s code of practice says a new contractor should survey the lift and give the owner an initial condition report.

Lesson: Lift maintenance tender checklist

An engineer’s inspection of a lift’s condition, safety and parts, with a written report of what needs attention and in what order. It is usually the first step in planning a modernisation.

Lesson: A modernisation project, step by step

The control system that answers calls, decides where the lift goes, commands the drive and monitors the safety circuit.

Lesson: Lift controllers and drives

A frame of weights that travels in the opposite direction to the car in a traction lift, balancing the car and part of its rated load.

Lesson: How a traction lift works

A device on the car door, often a pair of vanes, that engages rollers on the landing door lock when the car is at a floor. It unlocks the landing door and moves it with the car door.

Lesson: Lift doors and interlocks

In an SFG20 maintenance schedule, the colour given to each task: red for statutory or legal, pink for business critical, amber for optimal and green for discretionary.

Lesson: SFG20 for lifts

The installer’s formal statement that a new lift meets the essential health and safety requirements of the Lifts Regulations 2016. It must accompany the lift.

Lesson: Passenger lift regulations

A standard that the government has listed for a set of product regulations, such as the Lifts Regulations 2016. A product built to it is presumed to meet the requirements the standard covers, but following it is not compulsory.

Lesson: EN 81 standards explained

A way of running a group of lifts in which passengers enter their floor at the landing, on a keypad or screen, and are told which lift to take, so people going to nearby floors travel together.

Lesson: What happens when you call a lift

A weight or spring on a landing door that shuts it again, so the lock can re-engage, if the door is opened when the car is not there.

Lesson: Lift doors and interlocks

The motor unit on the car that opens and closes the car door, and the landing door with it when the car is at a floor.

Lesson: Lift doors and interlocks

A small service lift that carries goods such as food, linen or documents between floors. Nobody travels in it.

Lesson: Types of lift

HSE’s term for the person or organisation responsible for a lift or other lifting equipment. It is usually the employer, but it can be the building owner or the person in charge of the equipment.

Lesson: Who is responsible for a lift

A written record of how a resident who needs help to evacuate will leave a taller block of flats in a fire, agreed between the resident and the responsible person under the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025.

Lesson: Fire safety duties for lifts

A light in the lift car that keeps working without the normal power supply. New lifts must have it, with a back-up supply that lasts long enough for the rescue procedure.

Lesson: Power cuts and lifts

On a hydraulic lift, lowering the car slowly with a manually operated valve when the power fails, so passengers can leave at a floor below. Only trained, authorised people may do it.

Lesson: Power cuts and lifts

The family of European safety standards for lifts. In the UK, BSI publishes each part as a British Standard, such as BS EN 81-20 for new passenger and goods passenger lifts.

Lesson: EN 81 standards explained

The body that enforces health and safety law for a set of premises: the Health and Safety Executive or the local authority.

Lesson: How to read a LOLER report

A lift built and protected to keep working in a fire, so that the building’s management can use it to evacuate people who cannot use the stairs, as part of the building’s evacuation plan.

Lesson: Firefighting and evacuation lifts

A scheme drawn up for a particular lift by a competent person, setting which parts are thoroughly examined and how often. It can set longer or shorter intervals than the standard ones in LOLER.

Lesson: LOLER schedule planner

A number or short code that a lift controller shows or stores when it detects a fault. Each manufacturer sets its own codes, so the same code can mean different things on different lifts.

Lesson: What lift fault codes mean

The list of faults a lift controller has recorded, usually with the code, time and floor of each. Engineers read it to see what happened, where and how often.

Lesson: What lift fault codes mean

The fibre centre of many steel wire lift ropes. It supports the strands, holds lubricant and lets the rope flex.

Lesson: Lift ropes

A switch near the top or bottom of the shaft that cuts power and applies the brake if the car travels beyond its normal end positions.

Lesson: Lift safety systems

A water pipe for the fire and rescue service, with an outlet and valve on each storey where firefighters connect their hoses. Also called a dry or wet riser.

Lesson: Firefighting and evacuation lifts

A feature that sends a lift to the main exit floor and takes it out of service when the fire alarm or a manual switch signals a fire, so passengers can get out. BS EN 81-73 covers it.

Lesson: Firefighting and evacuation lifts

An assessment, required by the Fire Safety Order, of the risks to people from fire in a building, used to decide the fire precautions it needs. The responsible person must review it regularly and record it.

Lesson: Fire safety duties for lifts

A key switch at the fire service access level that lets firefighters take control of a lift. On a firefighters lift, it is marked with the firefighters pictogram.

Lesson: Firefighting and evacuation lifts

A lift with extra protection and controls that let the fire and rescue service use it when fighting a fire. New ones are built to BS EN 81-72, which calls them firefighters lifts.

Lesson: Firefighting and evacuation lifts

A protected lobby that gives access from a firefighting stair to the rest of the floor and to any firefighting lift.

Lesson: Firefighting and evacuation lifts

A protected enclosure that contains a firefighting stair, firefighting lobbies and, where provided, a firefighting lift with its machine room.

Lesson: Firefighting and evacuation lifts

A traction machine that uses a gearbox to turn a fast, compact motor into the slow, powerful rotation the sheave needs.

Lesson: How a traction lift works

A traction machine with the sheave mounted directly on the motor, without a gearbox. Most modern traction lifts use one.

Lesson: How a traction lift works

A lift mainly for goods, usually with people travelling alongside them. It is built to the same standard as a passenger lift.

Lesson: Types of lift

A lift for goods that is not designed to carry people. Some are big enough to walk into for loading, but nobody travels in them.

Lesson: Types of lift

A system that links the controllers of several lifts serving the same floors and gives each landing call to the car best placed to answer it.

Lesson: Lift controllers and drives

Steel rails fixed to the shaft walls that keep the car and counterweight on a precise vertical path.

Lesson: Parts of a lift

Moving a traction lift’s car by hand, with a wheel on the machine and the brake released, to bring it level with a floor during a rescue. Only trained, authorised people may do it.

Lesson: Power cuts and lifts

A European standard whose reference is published in the Official Journal of the European Union under EU product law. In Northern Ireland, a lift built to one is presumed to meet the requirements it covers.

Lesson: EN 81 standards explained

The height from the top landing floor level to the underside of the shaft ceiling. It has to fit the car, the equipment on its roof and a safety space above it.

Lesson: Lift sizes and dimensions

Under the Building Safety Act 2022, a building in England at least 18 metres high or with at least 7 storeys that contains at least two residential units.

Lesson: Fire safety duties for lifts

A lift raised by a ram that is driven by oil under pressure from a pump unit. It lowers under its own weight as the oil returns to the tank.

Lesson: Parts of a lift

Controls on the car roof and in the pit that let an engineer move the car at slow speed, only while a button is held, during maintenance and inspection.

Lesson: Lift controllers and drives

A mechanical lock with an electrical contact on each landing door. The lift cannot run normally unless every landing door is closed and locked.

Lesson: Lift doors and interlocks

A fault that comes and goes, so the lift may be working normally when the engineer arrives. A note of when and where it happened helps the engineer find the cause.

Lesson: How engineers diagnose lift faults

A call registered by pressing the button at a landing, usually with an up and a down button so the controller knows which way the passenger wants to go.

Lesson: What happens when you call a lift

The door at each floor that closes off the shaft. It opens together with the car door when the car is at that floor.

Lesson: Lift doors and interlocks

A key that unlocks a landing door from the landing, even when the car is not there. An unlocked landing door with no car behind it is a serious hazard, so LEIA’s code of practice says the key should be made available only to trained and authorised people.

Lesson: Taking on a building with lifts

The distance along a rope for one strand to make a complete turn around it, roughly six times the rope’s diameter. Engineers count broken wires over one lay length.

Lesson: Lift ropes

A row of infrared beams across the door opening that makes the doors reopen if something is in the way.

Lesson: Lift doors and interlocks

A sensor that measures the load in the car. It stops the lift starting when the car is overloaded, and many controllers also use it to pass landing calls when the car is full.

Lesson: Lift controllers and drives

The record kept for each lift of maintenance visits, call-outs, repairs, thorough examinations, tests, building checks and incidents. Every new lift must come with one.

Lesson: Keeping a lift logbook

The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998, which require lifts provided for use at work to be thoroughly examined by a competent person.

Lesson: How to read a LOLER report

The electric motor and brake that drive a traction lift, with the sheave the ropes run over.

Lesson: How a traction lift works

A room, usually above the shaft, that houses the machine, controller and governor of a traction lift.

Lesson: Machine room-less lifts

A traction lift with the machine inside the shaft and the controller in a cabinet at a landing, so no machine room is needed.

Lesson: Machine room-less lifts

Replacing or upgrading the main parts of an existing lift, such as the controller, drive, machine and doors, while keeping parts that are still sound, such as the guide rails. It can be done in one go or in stages.

Lesson: A modernisation project, step by step

When a part can no longer be bought or supported by its maker, even though it may still work. Obsolete parts can make repairs slow or impossible.

Lesson: How long does a lift last?

A device, driven by its own rope from the car, that detects overspeed. It opens a switch to stop the machine and, if the car keeps accelerating, triggers the safety gear.

Lesson: Lift safety systems

The space in the shaft below the lowest landing, which houses the buffers and the governor tension pulley.

Lesson: Lift sizes and dimensions

A stop switch in the lift pit that stops the lift and keeps it stopped while an engineer works there. It is part of the safety circuit.

Lesson: How engineers diagnose lift faults

Scheduled servicing at set intervals to keep a lift safe and reliable, rather than waiting for faults.

Guide: What good planned lift maintenance looks like

A slow lift, moving at no more than 0.15 metres per second, that gives step-free access to wheelchair users and people with impaired mobility. Also called a lifting platform.

Lesson: Types of lift

A shaft, such as a lift well, that lets people, air or objects pass from one fire compartment of a building to another and is enclosed with fire-resisting construction.

Lesson: Fire safety duties for lifts

The UK’s traditional analogue landline network. Openreach says it will close on 31 January 2027, so lift phones that still rely on it need moving to a digital line or a mobile connection.

Lesson: The analogue switch-off and lift phones

The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, which cover the safe use and maintenance of work equipment, including lifts used at work.

Lesson: Passenger lift regulations

The load a lift is designed to carry, given in kilograms and often as a number of persons. LOLER reports call it the safe working load.

Lesson: How to read a LOLER report

The speed a lift is designed to travel at, in metres per second.

Lesson: Lift sizes and dimensions

Changes that the Equality Act 2010 requires service providers, employers and others to make so that disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage. They can include changes to physical features of a building, such as its lifts.

Lesson: Accessible lifts and the law

Free space left beyond the ends of a lift’s travel, in the pit below the car and above the car roof, so that a person working there is not crushed when the car reaches the end of its travel.

Lesson: Lift sizes and dimensions

A lift drive that feeds energy back into the building’s electrical supply when the motor is being driven by the load, for example a full car going down.

Lesson: Lift controllers and drives

A fault that comes back on the same lift within an agreed period after it was fixed. It usually means the cause has not been found.

Lesson: Measuring lift performance

Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the person responsible for fire safety in premises: the employer, for a workplace under their control, and otherwise the person in control of the premises or the owner.

Lesson: Fire safety duties for lifts

How far the ropes move compared with the car. With 1:1 roping they move as far as the car; with 2:1 roping they pass under pulleys on the car and counterweight and move twice as far.

Lesson: How a traction lift works

The maximum load the lifting equipment is examined for. On a lift it matches the rated load on the plate in the car.

Lesson: How to read a LOLER report

A report that the principal accountable person for an occupied higher-risk building in England must prepare under the Building Safety Act 2022, setting out the assessments of its fire and structural safety risks and the steps taken to manage them.

Lesson: Fire safety duties for lifts

The chain of electrical safety devices, such as the door contacts and limit switches, connected so that the lift stops if any one of them opens.

Lesson: Lift controllers and drives

A part listed in Schedule 3 of the Lifts Regulations 2016, such as landing door locking devices, safety gear, overspeed governors and buffers.

Lesson: Parts of a lift

Wedges or rollers on the car frame that grip the guide rails to stop the car if it overspeeds, independently of the ropes.

Lesson: Lift safety systems

The list in a maintenance agreement of what it does not cover, such as damage from misuse or vandalism, or parts that are no longer made. LEIA’s code of practice says exclusions should be clearly stated.

Lesson: Lift maintenance tender checklist

A box in or on a high-rise block of flats in England that holds information for the fire and rescue service, such as the floor plans and the responsible person’s contact details. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 require one.

Lesson: Fire safety duties for lifts

A small goods-only lift, such as a dumbwaiter, with a carrier too small to travel in. The term is also used loosely for back-of-house goods lifts.

Lesson: Types of lift

The building maintenance specification created in 1990 by BESA, the Building Engineering Services Association. Its schedules set the maintenance tasks, frequencies, skills and criticality ratings for each type of equipment, including lifts.

Lesson: SFG20 for lifts

The enclosed vertical space the car and counterweight travel in, also called the hoistway or well.

Lesson: Parts of a lift

A grooved wheel that ropes run over. The traction sheave is turned by the machine and moves the car by friction.

Lesson: How a traction lift works

The grooved threshold at the bottom of a lift doorway that guides the door panels. There is one on the car and one at each landing.

Lesson: Lift doors and interlocks

Tools or software needed to maintain a lift that can only be bought from the original manufacturer. LEIA’s code of practice says special tools and software access codes provided with a lift should be handed back when a maintenance contract ends.

Lesson: What lift fault codes mean

A group of steel wires twisted together. Several strands laid around a core make up a lift rope.

Lesson: Lift ropes

A small recess in the floor of a lift pit where water collects, sometimes with a pump. LEIA’s code of practice notes that pit pumps need their own maintenance arrangements.

Lesson: Water in a lift pit

A test that the competent person asks for in a thorough examination report, when part of a lift cannot be checked properly during the examination itself, such as the safety gear or a hydraulic cylinder. SAFed’s LG1 guidance describes the common tests.

Lesson: Supplementary tests and load testing

The steel wire ropes, or on some lifts coated steel belts, that carry the car and counterweight.

Lesson: Lift ropes

A waterproof layer on the walls and floor of a structure below ground, such as a lift pit, to keep groundwater out. BS 8102 gives guidance on protecting below-ground structures from water.

Lesson: Water in a lift pit

A weighted pulley in the pit that keeps a rope taut, such as the governor rope, so it runs in step with the car.

Lesson: Lift safety systems

A systematic, detailed examination of a lift and its safety-critical parts by a competent person, followed by a written report.

Lesson: How to read a LOLER report

The grip between the ropes and the grooves of the driving sheave. It lets the machine move the car by friction, and gives traction lifts their name.

Lesson: How a traction lift works

The vertical distance between the lowest and the highest landing floor levels a lift serves.

Lesson: Lift sizes and dimensions

A flexible cable that hangs in a loop from the shaft wall to the car and carries power and signals to it.

Lesson: Parts of a lift

The alarm system that lets someone trapped in a lift speak to a rescue service. The Lifts Regulations 2016 require it on new lifts.

Lesson: Lift controllers and drives

A system that detects the car moving away from a floor while its doors are open and stops it within a short distance, to protect people stepping in or out.

Lesson: Lift safety systems

The short distance above and below a floor within which the car door can unlock and open the landing door. Outside it, the landing door stays locked.

Lesson: Lift doors and interlocks

A lift that carries cars and other vehicles between the floors of a building.

Lesson: Types of lift

A variable-voltage, variable-frequency drive that controls the motor’s speed for smooth, efficient starts and stops.

Lesson: Lift controllers and drives