“Does your condo have a lift maintenance problem?”

Should you get an independent lift maintenance contractor?

Reading Hafiz Asril's LinkedIn post on the importance of lift maintenance in buildings dredged up an unpleasant memory of being stuck in a lift at a KLCC condominium where I once owned some rental apartments. If my memory of the incident more than 10 years ago is correct, it took more than 30 minutes for the lift rescue team to arrive and get me out.

There was a serious problem with the building's lift maintenance back then. You see the owners corporation had inherited a independent lift contractor that serviced and maintained the Sxxxx lifts in the building. The independent contractor was certified by DOSH and had been appointed by the developer's property management company. I think the original intention of the previous property management company was to save some money because a comprehensive lift maintenance contract with Sxxxx was much more expensive.

But the problem was the replacement parts used by the independent lift maintenance contractor were not original Sxxx equipment but cheaper clones made in You Know Where. The lifts in the building started having problems when the owners corporation took over the building management. First one, then two and more lifts broke down and finally stopped working. These lifts were fixed, but occasionally the lifts would get stuck again. Until one fine day I found myself stuck in one lift at 10pm, waiting to be rescued.

As an elected member of the owners corporation I suggested at the next MC meeting to get back to Sxxxx for lift maintenance. Never mind the higher costs. And so we did. Sxxx was of course delighted to return as lift maintenance contractor but there was just one precondition.

The owners corporation had asked Sxxxx to perform an audit inspection as part of its due diligence before their appointment. As a result, Sxxxx had discovered and itemized a list of all the non original parts installed by the previous lift maintenance contractor. The MC had to pay to remove and replace all non original parts in the lifts before Sxxxx agreed to take over.

If my memory is correct it cost more than RM200,000 to remove and replace all the non original Sxxxxxx equipment that had been installed. The sum exceeded the cost savings of replacing Sxxxx with the cheaper monthly maintenance contract by the third party lift contractor.

The moral of this story is "Beware of changing your original lift maintenance contractor". If you do decide to do so for cost reasons, then at least make sure only original replacement parts are used and get the documentation. You never know if one day there are no spare parts available on the aftermarket and you need to go back.

See also my posts at 360 KLCC

Does Your Condo Have A Security Problem?

Does Your Condo Have A Water Quality Problem?

Post Script

In 2022 the availability of good quality aftermarket parts to third party lift maintenance contractors might have improved in the past ten years. Previously it was also difficult for independent lift maintenance contractors to buy certain OEM spare parts not available in the after market eg lift control panels. But I think more lift manufacturing companies are making available their OEM parts to the independents. For the pros and cons of using OEM v aftermarket lift parts see here.

The Hong Kong government’s Electrical & Mechanical department has a booklet available on standard operating procedures for lift maintenance, see below. The ESD also periodically releases a survey of the costs of lift maintenance.

#propertymanagement #liftmaintenance