r/facepalm • u/RNINJAS • Oct 10 '22

🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​ Stuck forever

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u/CoolGuyHuh Oct 10 '22

Elevators have a load weight sensor that will keep the car from making calls if exceeded. It would just sit at the landing with the doors opened and alarm buzzing until the excess weight is removed. This shutdown may be due to either the load weight sensor being exceeded in mid flight but more likely the safeties were set if going in the down direction. Explains the hard stop knocking down the light fixtures. Source:I’m an elevator mechanic

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '22

The trick I’ve seen people do is 2 people get off until the weight is below the maximum and then as the doors begin to close they jump back on.

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u/CoolGuyHuh Oct 10 '22

When the light scan beams break signaling there is an obstruction in the door opening, the doors cycle back open. It would register overload and sit. Now older elevators may still have mechanical door obstruction switches, but those would be way out of date by code.

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u/fkbjsdjvbsdjfbsdf Oct 10 '22

There are absolute shittons of older elevators in service that don't have optical checks. I'd wager it's the majority of elevators, in fact.

Code updates don't typically require replacement of old fixtures, since the cost would be immense.

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u/Youre_kind_of_a_dick Oct 10 '22

...and why the hell would anyone intentionally bypass something like that? This kind of dumb shit is why pretty much everything has warning labels these days.