You might be forgiven for thinking that an elevator is an elevator is an elevator; and that there is little variation between them, but this is actually a grave oversight if you are looking at having them installed in your building. There are many variations possible for elevators and we will look at just two very disparate ones here.
Some elevators require machine rooms, but many more modern elevator designs will be ‘machine room-less’. This means that all of the components or most of the components of the lift fit inside the shaft itself and this has many benefits. For one, a machine room-less elevator will leave more usable space which can be used for any purpose that the building owner decides. At the same time these are generally more energy efficient and tend to save 70% and more energy when compared to hydraulic counterparts. These also do not require any oil to run, and are less costly to install. They can also run slightly faster which might mean more available time for staff to work on other projects – as they say, time is money.
On the downside however these elevators will be slightly more expensive to maintain (you should get your maintenance cheaper by using a lift maintenance contract).
