This quarter’s value engineering topic is elevators. Elevator design is a thorny topic for value engineering during preconstruction (before a vendor has been selected). Compared to other trades there are very few qualified vendors and the vendors available each have their own (not always rational) preferences, requirements, and cost structures. For these reasons we tread carefully. However, there are some certainties (at least for this week) we can carry from project to project. In this article we will cover some of the most important of these, including the cost impacts of shaft and platform sizes, machine room-less (MRL) elevators vs. conventional elevators, speed and capacity, acoustical measures, entrance type, and fixture options. The article will not explore cab and entrance finish selections because for these the options are endless and the cost impacts are more obvious.

Shaft and Platform Sizes.

The question of so-called “standard” elevator shaft and platform sizes is often misinterpreted. Many design professionals—even elevator consultants themselves—will tell us there is little to no cost impact. This is not the case (at least for most of our projects). In order to explain some of the confusion surrounding this issue, we must first get some basic facts about the elevator market out of the way.

At Monadnock, we generally place elevator vendors into one of two categories:

1. those with their own, exclusive equipment which we sometimes call “proprietary” (these are the big, multi-national corporations such as Kone, Otis, TKE, Schindler, etc.), and

2. “independent” companies who buy equipment, rails, accessories, and other components from a variety of suppliers (each of whom can in turn supply to whomever they want) such as Hollister Whitney or Delaware. Some large independent companies in the city are TEI, Noble, LCD, and Rotavele.[1] Proprietary and independent contractors compete constantly and, if the industry is considered as a whole, have roughly equal pricing. (More on this later.)

The platform size (for the sake of this conversation, the cab footprint size) is a function of the capacity (or vis versa).

At any given capacity, all the platforms will have a similar square footage. But at each capacity the proprietary companies have a “standard” platform shape or dimensions that they don’t want to stray from. For the independent companies, there is no such thing as a standard for this because they can simply buy a platform fabricated in any dimensions they choose (or choose from a variety of sub-vendors who have different standards).

Although the proprietary vendors may be willing to install non-standard platforms, it means they must venture outside the comfort of their own internal supply chains and buy equipment from an independent supplier. They don’t like to do this, and they price the projects accordingly (they will typically add hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes even doubling their cost).

And as a result, the confusion: if there is no difference in overall pricing between the proprietary and independent contractors, and if “non-standard” platforms have no cost impact for independent contractors, then the cost impact of designing a non-standard platform should be $0, right? The problem with this line of thinking is that there in fact does seem to be a very significant difference in pricing between the proprietary and independent contractors, but only for low- to mid-rise MRLs.

For low- and mid-rise construction, the independent contractors have not been competitive on price (at least not that we have seen) in years. In fact, it’s almost exclusively Kone and Otis MRLs that can be competitive on these projects.

For high-rise elevators, if we were to design a non-standard platform and get bids, we’d get a high number from the proprietary contractors and a competitive number from the independent contractors. Did we leave money on the table by designing a non-standard platform size? It’s impossible to say because we don’t know which contractor would otherwise have had the low bid. The independent contractor will win the bid and tell everyone at the buyout table that our non-standard platform was “free”—because, for him or her, it was. And after that, design professionals may go around repeating this, causing some of the confusion referenced above.

Now for low-rise elevators. If we were to design a non-standard platform for a low-rise elevator and get bids, the independent contractors will likely be the least expensive again and they will again tell us that our non-standard platform upcharge is “free”. But this time, unlike the high-rise elevator example above, we can be certain we left money on the table. This is because the proprietary contractors are otherwise so much more economical for these types of projects. This is borne out in the bids we have received over the last several years. For example, the difference between the average proprietary and independent bids per car was $59K, $112K, and $118K at Park Haven, 1240 Metcalf, and 110 E 149th respectively. Accordingly, for the purposes of rough-order-of-magnitude conceptual budgeting, we might say that the premium for non-standard platform sizes would be somewhere in the range of $60k - $120k per car. This is one of the largest premiums or incremental costs we encounter relating to elevator design.

It is also important to remember that other design decisions can make this whole discussion irrelevant. For example, if the architect includes an elevator feature that is “non-standard” in the same way a platform can be “non-standard”—for example, including a “corner post elevator”—they may inadvertently put the system into the higher cost structure and standardizing the platform will become irrelevant and unnecessary.  

Machine-Room-Less Elevators vs. Conventional Elevators.

For the last 10 years or so, most elevators Monadnock has installed have been machine-room-less (MRL). At its simplest, the difference is that for MRLs, all the elevator hoisting equipment is within the elevator shaft itself.

MRLs have their pros and cons—most of the pros are for the architect, who no longer has to find space for a machine room, and most of the cons are for the mechanics who have to maintain the equipment within a cramped elevator overhead space rather than a well-lit and comfortable machine room. In light of this con, many cities have gone so far as to ban MRLs, believing that an elevator that is more difficult to maintain will be poorly maintained. 

As far as we can tell, for anything taller than the low-rise projects described above, the difference in cost within Division 14 between an MRL and a conventional elevator is negligible. The true savings involved in switching to an MRL are found in other divisions—simply put, with MRLs the structure and exterior wall of the machine room no longer have to be built or paid for.

This savings may not outweigh the disadvantages of MRLs forever. Over the last years the Department of Building has continued to make its MRL inspection requirements more stringent—specifically regarding the inspectors’ access to the governor (a critical safety component of the traction elevator systems we typically install).

This dynamic has obliged us to install full interior platforms within the shaft at the level of the governors and elevator machines with lighting, receptacles, access, etc. In a sense, we are now simply building machine rooms masquerading as shaft space. Given this increasing difficulty and the Department of Buildings’ increasing sensitivity to inspection access, Monadnock’s standard recommendation at the time of this writing is to only specify MRLs for projects under 150’ (although we frequently stray from this recommendation as we are often overruled by other stakeholders).

Speed and Capacity

Although straightforward to the point of not being worth mentioning (our clients don’t need New York City’s most competent builder of multifamily housing on board to tell them that a slower, weaker elevator is less expensive), speed and capacity are also relevant factors in pricing. Here, a more noteworthy point might actually be that this premium is not as high as we initially suspect. On several recent projects, we have found that an upgrade in capacity of 500 pounds was worth between $5,000 - $10,000 per elevator. Although every bit counts when we are trying to save our clients’ money, in the scheme of things this is likely to be under 2% of the elevator cost. We have found similarly minor cost differences for speed increases of 50 to 100 feet per minute. (The elevator speeds we encounter on our projects are typically between 100 and 500 feet per minute.) Saving the premium on speed is often more compelling than saving the premium on capacity—our elevators rarely reach their maximum speed anyway (due to traffic patterns and the buildings’ height).

Vibration Isolation at Rails

Acoustic consultants, bearing no liability for cost and much liability for noise complaints, will often specify noise control measures overzealously. When acoustical consultants are involved in a project or when an architect forgets to adjust their specification book before they hit paste, we may encounter requirements to isolate elevator rail brackets from their anchorage point. We don’t have quality cost data on this because it usually gets eliminating from a project prior to pricing, but one recent quote was approximately $300 per elevator stop.

Side Opening vs. Center Opening Doors

There are many elevator entrance types but we generally encounter two: center opening and two-speed side opening. Center opening doors are preferable from a design perspective because they generally open and close faster. (Assuming a maximum speed for entrances, the door leaves for a side opening entrance simply have farther to travel.) The speed advantage of center opening doors can have a meaningful impact on an elevator consultant’s traffic model or study (where a variety of inputs are used to calculate the likely wait time or overall trip time for residents) and the design team may oppose a change on this basis. However, many projects have no elevator consultant, no traffic study, and have had center-opening doors specified without intention. In these cases, we may be able to save our clients’ money by making a design change. For independent contractors, we have seen this change to be worth $350 - $500 per entrance on recent projects. 

Fixture Options

Notwithstanding ultraluxury projects where we have seen custom fixture finish selections (like blackened steel or brass), the major cost question regarding elevator fixtures is type. You may not notice it, but different buildings have dramatically different fixture functionality at the typical levels. For example, some buildings have direction indicators telling you the current direction of the car’s travel only. Others might have car position indicators in addition to direction indicators. Still others might have the rarer three-digit position indicators (some condo owners might like to see “PH1” light up on the fixture when traveling to their apartment).

In addition to the indicators and lanterns, there are variants on standard call buttons as well. For example, if not every car stops on a given floor, a designer may want an extra call button option so that if that floor is your destination you can be sure to get the right elevator.

Adding fixture types and functionality adds cost. At the time of this writing, Monadnock’s standard recommendation for cost effective affordable housing is position indication at the lobby and direction indication (only) at the typical floors.