Elevator Obscura: Hacks and Curios in the Lift Industry

July 9, 2023 10:14 AM

Okay, this is seriously geeky, but it's geeky in such a great way. Elevators: how do they work? Well, this talk from 2011 tells you everything about how elevators work and ALSO is sort of a grey hat hacker video about how elevators REALLY work. Elevator Obscura: Hacks and Curios in the Lift Industry [1h30m, conference talk video, minor CW for a couple of accident photos, no gore]
posted by hippybear (38 comments total)

I can't watch the entire video right now, but I remember once seeing a repairman? push a series of buttons in an elevator to get to a floor that couldn't be reached just by pushing its corresponding button. It was a while ago, so my memory of it is not that fresh. Maybe it was roof access?
posted by mmrtnt at 11:00 AM on July 9, 2023

I see that I already watched about an hour of this. Main takeaway is elevators are super dangerous do not fuck around with them.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:47 AM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Just finished, this was fascinating, thank you for posting. Reminds me of being a teenager and spending my free time looking into how things works and amatuer "hacks" of things like vending machines (whether real or completely fictious)

I actually was really relieved to see how safe elevators are in normal operation. I work in a building with a very old elevator, and also had a colleague get stuck once. I honestly never looked much into it, but it seems even if you become entrapped you aren't in physical danger. The fire key issue is interesting, difficult to find a balance between ease-of-access and security. One thing that I was thinking - doesn't the fire mode somehow alert someone (security or otherwise)? I'd imagine this would be at least one easy thing to add so that if someone is using that when it's not a fire at least the management will be made aware.
posted by unid41 at 11:57 AM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

My first job out of college was in the ad department of a large, old downtown department store. Our offices were on the 11th floor. Normally, you’d just take the normal elevator. But, you could also take the freight elevator up. The best part about the freight elevator was that is was basically a large cage, so you had an unimpeded view of the elevator shaft walls as they zipped by. What was very cool was all the graffiti left on the walls by decades of employees.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:56 PM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

When I at a meeting in Beijing, China the modern glass office building we met in had a feature where you could press the elevator button a second time and it would cancel the initial press. I’ve never seen that feature anywhere else in the world and that makes me a little sad.
posted by interogative mood at 3:14 PM on July 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

I discovered the same in Korea by accident. Got a dirty look from the guy whose floor I canceled #oops.
posted by mpark at 3:21 PM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I worked on a couple elevator projects and my favorite part was how enthusiastic the elevator consultans were about elevators. You could tell they really loved their work and the one guy basically just wouldn't fully retire. I was reading The Intuitionist at the time and was a perfect fit. And if you're looking for a super well paid career in the trades, elevator work is probably a good choice.

I also saw the top of a concrete slab an elevator had partially busted through from below during an accident and am very respectful of elevators now.
posted by sepviva at 3:22 PM on July 9, 2023

elevator work is probably a good choice.

Though it does have its ups and downs...
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:52 PM on July 9, 2023 [11 favorites]

low-hanging fruit
posted by hippybear at 3:55 PM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

I have a Duty to pass down top-floor Sacred Dad-Joke Lore to the young ones.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:07 PM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

That’s a super video thanks hippybear. mmrtnt that was likely a secure floor e.g. banking, laboratory (especially level 5 or forensic), security, or a machine deck (pumps, air con etc., mass-damper etc). Many buildings have a hidden floor, and often a second hidden liftshaft. Odd watching a big building in construction as often one glimpses small details that hint of this.

I used to clean up lift shaft interiors after initial construction (35-ish floors), where the primary contractor typically left a real mess - areas of low-strength concrete, bolts and rebar poking out of walls, cable ducts full of concrete, beams with insufficient concrete cover… some was rope access, some via scaffolding, and the most fun was riding a bare lift deck - just the base and open walls and the cables spooling away above. I normally did this at night (as there are less people around - seemed to be impossible to keep people out of the lift well no matter how much you warned them about death from above).

I'd scout the shaft during the day to get an idea of the work, and then join the lift man and spend a happy evening breaking things - I’d have all my gear spread out across the floor; some serious lighting, gas-cutting set, grinders, sledge hammer, buckets of concrete mix… Unlike most work on a building site we could do it dust free as we'd start at the bottom and go up and dust and rubbish (large concrete chunks, boxing nails, bolts, pipe…) would fall away below us.

I learned so many things about lifts and lift shafts in this time, including yes hacking them both physically and electrically (and safely getting out of them – which has been useful a few times since)- I was about the only guy in my crew without a criminal record so there were a lot of opportunities to learn building ‘access’. Management refused to give us master keys which just increased our need.
posted by unearthed at 4:19 PM on July 9, 2023 [24 favorites]

"22 steps just to get downstairs!"

-Duplex Dad
posted by clavdivs at 4:22 PM on July 9, 2023

When I was in college, our 4 story dorm had an elevator...

We did a lot of things to that elevator, (I lived on the first floor, LOL).

Stop it between floors, pry the doors open and climb out was a big one. Surprised we didn't inadvertently kill someone. Good times!
posted by Windopaene at 5:29 PM on July 9, 2023

My college time was spent in a 12-story dorm, with something like 10-12 rooms/20-24 people per floor, so the elevator stayed quite busy during the day. I can't tell you how often people would be standing at the elevator waiting for it to arrive, and more people would come and impatiently press the button as if that would make it come quicker. I imagine (with much amusement!) the level of chaos that would occur if the cancel-button behavior interogative mood and mpark mentioned had been implemented there...
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:51 PM on July 9, 2023

You think elevators can be scary, look up paternoster.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:10 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

look up paternoster.

But carefully, or you're liable to crack your chin on the next step.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:23 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

…I remember once seeing a repairman? push a series of buttons in an elevator to get to a floor that couldn't be reached just by pushing its corresponding button.

We have a couple of elevators that are set up like that in our hospital. They are used for patient transport, primarily between two floors, but occasionally to others if you know the code. Fortunately it is written in sharpie next to the buttons, so those of us who only use those elevators occasionally aren’t really inconvenienced. There are few other tricks for bypassing or simplifying the security on elevators as well. But I still haven’t figured out how, when at a bank of elevators where every elevator doesn’t serve the floor you want to go to, to call an elevator that goes to your destination. So like everyone else, if I get the “wrong” elevator, I send it to the basement, hop off, and try again to get the car I need. Not exactly the epitome of efficiency.
posted by TedW at 7:59 PM on July 9, 2023

I don't like high-rises, because they often don't have enough elevators. Older 16+ storey high-rise with 2 elevators, one or two of them gets a glitch, everything just goes to shit. Wait for more power outages.
posted by ovvl at 8:07 PM on July 9, 2023

I can't tell you how often people would be standing at the elevator waiting for it to arrive, and more people would come and impatiently press the button as if that would make it come quicker.

There’s a sniglet for that: elleceleration.
posted by TedW at 8:08 PM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Similar to how people think pushing the Close Door does anything at all.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:09 PM on July 9, 2023

The building I work has 54 stories and 3 banks of 6 elevators, with each bank going to certain range of floors. But instead of an up or down button to call the elevator, there's a screen where you select which floor you want to go to. In most cases, an elevator door opens within about 10 seconds. Often, almost instantly, with elevators loitering in the lobby are heavily used floors.

My company is also in another building, 11 stories with 2 banks of 4 elevators (one bank each for the north and south towers). It also has a screen to select which floor you want to get on, but it can take more than a minute for an elevator to appear.

My guess is that the first building's elevators are optimized to move people the fastest. It's pretty rare that you have to share an elevator with someone who goes to a different floor. When several people request different floors, there's almost always an elevator for each floor.

In the second building, my guess is that the elevators are optimized for energy savings. They'll try to get as many people on one elevator as possible to only use the smallest number of elevators as possible.
posted by ShooBoo at 9:37 PM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

But instead of an up or down button to call the elevator, there's a screen where you select which floor you want to go to.

Destination dispatch; more efficient in tall buildings and would solve the problem I describe above, but can be confusing to people. I have seen it in a number of hotels.
posted by TedW at 4:50 AM on July 10, 2023

You think elevators can be scary, look up paternoster.

We have one of these in one of the buildings where I work. It's something of a rite of passage to take new hires on the tour and make them use it.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:23 AM on July 10, 2023

Front-and-rear access doors are a thing in some elevators. I’ve been in dimly-lit, atmospheric elevators where a worker will access the side not normally used, and it’s as though a portal has opened to an alternative universe with harsh lighting and big noisy machines.
posted by kinnakeet at 7:09 AM on July 10, 2023

Still watching, but the British person demonstrating the drop brake early on is Tim Hunkin and this is the video quoted. If you never saw his 'Secret Lives Of Machines' series, you could do a lot worse.
posted by BCMagee at 9:10 AM on July 10, 2023

Great video; loved the details about having somebody in the motor room if POTUS happens to be visiting.
The didn’t mention the difference between door close buttons which are (as I understand) a placebo in the US since 1990 -but which do work in places like the UK.

Equally nothing on the several reasons why elevators are likely to have mirrors in them.
posted by rongorongo at 9:27 AM on July 10, 2023

Door Close button definitely works in our residential building in Toronto.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:31 AM on July 10, 2023

What a fascinating video. I especially loved the debunking of the "Sabbath elevator" idea.
posted by Dr. Wu at 10:07 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

My elevator story is I once worked in a building that had an elevator with a phone in it. The instructions on the phone said if you got stuck, call X local number. I figured out this phone was just a regular phone line, called my cell phone with it, and in so doing acquired its phone number from the caller ID. Thereafter, I pranked lots of people by calling the elevator.
posted by signsofrain at 12:11 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

A building I worked in many years ago (early 80s, IIRC) still had a manual switchboard for the phones, with an operator who went home at 5pm. After that, the only line to the outside world was the emergency phone in the lift, and it wasn't unusual to get in the lift and find someone in there with a chair, notebook and pen, making a work call.

Back to more modern times, and one of our offices in NYC has double-decker lifts, the bottom deck doing even floors and the top deck odd ones. It still feels a bit strange when the lift stops and the doors don't open, because it's serving another floor.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 2:40 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Destination dispatch; more efficient in tall buildings and would solve the problem I describe above, but can be confusing to people. I have seen it in a number of hotels.

Stayed in two different hotels with this system, and neither warned guests of how the elevators worked. I don't live in a city and had never experienced destination dispatch until I suddenly did. It's enormously useful once you know what's going on, but every single day at these hotels I encountered a guest checking in who had wild eyes and palpable confusion that their elevator wasn't headed to the lobby floor as requested.
posted by grandiloquiet at 2:49 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

For the U.S., this is mostly the case:

A post getting traction on Reddit claims 80 percent of "Close Door" buttons on elevators are non-functional.

While we can't vouch for that exact percentage, the premise is true.

The Executive Director of National Elevator Industry Incorporated says the “Door Close" function is largely a thing of the past.

The reason is the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.

It required elevators stay open long enough for someone with a physical disability to make it inside.

Since most working elevators were built after that passed, it's safe to say they don't have a functioning "Close" button.

The "Open" button, however, does work.

posted by tiny frying pan at 7:34 PM on July 10, 2023

DeviantOllam has also done a presentation "Through the eyes of a thief" about how he uses his skills as a penetration tester to get into your building, and then into the places within it he is not supposed to be.
posted by rongorongo at 3:26 AM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

I will say that though our elevators do have a door close button, they do stay open quite a long time if you don't press it. Lots of people in our building have mobility issues, including mobility scooters. This is why I'm grateful the door close button works, because if you don't press it, you have a long wait for the doors to close. I guess in the US people would be too selfish and would close the doors on a mobility challenged person, so the button is disconnected? What even is that?
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:21 AM on July 11, 2023

It's interesting that one of the links from tiny frying pan discuss the ADA, because our newest hospital (~8 years old) as functioning door close buttons because of the ADA. Before the hospital opened I happened to get on an elevator tech who, after waiting about 15 seconds cursed under his breath and explained the whole situation to me. There was only one up/down button on each floor and it was in the middle of a bank of 8 -10 elevators, so each elevator had a set time to keep the doors open to comply with ADA. Obviously, the ones further away had to stay open longer. But, since the use case is such that you will see if the door can be safely closed early, our buttons work!

To be fair, I know of at least one other building on the same campus where there is a bank of three elevators where the close door button only works on the middle elevator.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 8:16 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

The close button will work when the elevator is switched into a firefighter/freight mode. This will keep the door open until it is closed and also take you direct to a floor bypassing other elevator requests from individual floors. It also tends to override security lockouts for floors.
posted by interogative mood at 8:28 AM on July 11, 2023

Destination dispatch is great - have 5 elevators - when things get busy each ends up stopping on roughly every 5th floor (but different floors from the others)
posted by mbo at 12:47 AM on July 12, 2023

One more DeviantOllam talk (I mention these because he gives a fascinating presentation chock full of stories from his personal extensive personal experience and containing more than a few details which could save your ass/life if you were to follow them): "Lawyer. Passport. Locksmith. Gun. (A Talk About Risk & Preparedness)"
posted by rongorongo at 5:57 AM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]