Frequently Asked Questions

Important facts on maintenance term years and automatic renewal clauses

Elevator companies bill in advance, at the beginning of each month. Full Maintenance Contracts are also similar to insurance policies protecting you from unexpected major repair bills.

 Owners will also be required to pay in advance at the beginning of each month. Some maintenance providers are even going as far as requiring payment for 90 days in advance via electronic funds transfer.

The standard elevator contract usually covers a 5-year term with a termination clause requiring 90-days prior written notice.

 These terms can be modified by reducing the length of the contract and eliminating automatic renewal clauses. Typically shorter-term contracts will provide the building owner with the ease of re-biding or switching maintenance contractors. The trade-off is that the cost of a shorter-term contract will most likely be at a higher rate.

Keys to pricing and annual price adjustment

Material costs and labor costs are subdivided in most contracts. Pricing under full maintenance contracts is normally divided into a percentage for materials and labor. Each elevator company has a different way of calculating the percentage of labor and percentage of materials. Under full maintenance agreements you can usually expect costs for labor to be around 80% and materials around 20 %.

Every elevator company also has a different procedure for annual price adjustment. Owners need to be aware that a price adjustment will occur every year. One problem with the annual price adjustment approach occurs when cumulative increases are applied over many years. This yearly price adjustment may increase the contract price to a level that exceeds the price the current contractor would charge if the maintenance contract were put out to re-bid.

Union elevator mechanics regular working hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Wages for work performed outside these hours during regular working days is normally paid at time and a half including Saturdays. On Sundays and holidays union mechanics are paid double time.

If you select a maintenance agreement that does not include callbacks you most likely will be charge the full overtime portion.

 Usual maintenance contracts do not require elevator companies to perform two-person (crew) or major repairs on overtime unless specified by the owner to proceed with the work. For a slightly higher monthly fee maintenance contracts can be structured so the owner will be charged only for the overtime-differential portion on callbacks services and reduce overtime costs.

These overtime charges usually include more than just the time spent on the job, such as door-to-door travel time plus mileage for overtime repairs. You should budget for these calls and estimate a minimum of 3 hours per trouble call to be safe.

What is not covered under maintenance agreements?

All service contracts include a list of exclusions that will not be covered under the maintenance contract. Unfortunately, these exclusions can happen regularly and may increase your overall maintenance cost by as much as fifteen percent. Here are some common examples of items that can result in extra charges:

 Overtime callbacks / trouble calls

Doors knocked off tracks by movers

Keys dropped in the pit (you may be surprised at how often this happens)

Car left "keyed off" or left on "independent" by building personnel, movers or security guards.

Debris in car or hall door sill tracks.

Foreign objects caught or wedged under car or hall doors such as carpet tacks, small rocks and coins.

Stuck buttons and broken safety edges.

Flooded machine room, top of car, or pit Vandalism:

doors kicked off tracks,

fire in elevator cab set by vandals and burned car buttons.

Calls placed for service resulting from building power even though no emergency power feature exists to run the elevator equipment.