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Maximum number of elevators?

W

Wooba

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I'm living in a new condo that's still partially under construction. We've got a real issue during the day with trades using the elevators and having to wait ages. We have 3 elevators but one of them has not been working for a couple of weeks. One of my neighbours told me that when she complained to the superintendant she was told that Ontario law does not allow 3 elevators to be running until a certain amount of the building is occupied. That sounds like a load of doo doo to me, but I'm no expert so can anyone shed any light on this? I'd estimate the building is around 60% occupied.
 
From this link:

High building fire safety concerns

High buildings are designed to be fire-safe. But, because they may contain many people, and because of the building's tremendous size, emergency response is challenging with significant potential for major incidents.

Due to equipment limitations, firefighters cannot rescue people from an outside balcony or window above the seventh floor. Also, a rooftop helicopter rescue is too dangerous. Firefighters must do interior firefighting and rescue tactics.
Click to expand...

If one is concerned about safety, do not select a suite above the seventh floor. In addition, as one gets older in age, get a suite on the seventh floor or lower, so that you might have to walk down (or up) in case the elevators go out of commission.
 
W. K. Lis said:
From this link:

If one is concerned about safety, do not select a suite above the seventh floor. In addition, as one gets older in age, get a suite on the seventh floor or lower, so that you might have to walk down (or up) in case the elevators go out of commission.
Click to expand...

This made be curious about fire fatalities by building type. Hard to find anything Ontario specific.

The best I could find was a document from the US which shows spread in high-rise apartments is significantly lower than "not high-rise apartments".
http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-resear...res-by-property-type/high-rise-building-fires

Building management being required to do service inspections/tests regularly also seems to help a lot. Seems you can remove 70% of the death risk just by ensuring smoke detectors work (last graph).
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/engl...es/FatalFiresSummary/stats_fatal_summary.html

In short, a single-detached house which is well maintained is probably safest but I'm not sure the typical house is safer than the typical apartment unit above 7th floor.

Of course, being below the 7th floor isn't necessarily going to help if management is negligent.
http://www.metronews.ca/news/toront...-charged-over-fire-that-killed-3-seniors.html
 
Wooba said:
I'm living in a new condo that's still partially under construction. We've got a real issue during the day with trades using the elevators and having to wait ages. We have 3 elevators but one of them has not been working for a couple of weeks. One of my neighbours told me that when she complained to the superintendant she was told that Ontario law does not allow 3 elevators to be running until a certain amount of the building is occupied. That sounds like a load of doo doo to me, but I'm no expert so can anyone shed any light on this? I'd estimate the building is around 60% occupied.
Click to expand...

You're in a building that's under construction. What do you expect?

Sounds like bs to me. But complaining about construction workers using elevetors in a building under construction is ridiculous.
 
It's the elevators breaking down in older high-rises that worries me. Whether due to power failures or worse, if every elevator breaks down, getting up beyond three floors can be a problem for some of us. Trying to get up 80 to 100 stories, with most of the elevators broken, is my worry. Especially, if they build them without enough of the elevators to service residents or visitors should one, two, or three are broken down.
 
W. K. Lis said:
It's the elevators breaking down in older high-rises that worries me. Whether due to power failures or worse, if every elevator breaks down, getting up beyond three floors can be a problem for some of us. Trying to get up 80 to 100 stories, with most of the elevators broken, is my worry. Especially, if they build them without enough of the elevators to service residents or visitors should one, two, or three are broken down.
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Agreed. We're an older building and, although we have a great contractor available 24/7, at least one elevator a month goes out for a couple of days. The problem is getting the parts. Then we end up with a hodge podge of parts. We have a generator so we will always have one elevator going at least until our fuel runs out but we are now considering a complete, expensive overhaul. There was a refurbishment about 15 years ago (before we moved in) but that Board left behind no records of exactly exactly what work was done. (Don't get me started.)
 
I work around Yonge n Bloor and seeing 1 Bloor East and now the under construction Bloor West, it just boggles my mind how people can mindlessly just look to live on the higher floors without worrying what might happen during a power or elevator outage. And the more these things get built up, what's being done to the infrastructure to be able to handle that increased load?
 
blixtex said:
I work around Yonge n Bloor and seeing 1 Bloor East and now the under construction Bloor West, it just boggles my mind how people can mindlessly just look to live on the higher floors without worrying what might happen during a power or elevator outage.
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Indeed, my thoughts too. If I was buying a condo I'd want to be within easily climbing, and fire rescue for that matter.

Fire ladders can get up to about 10 stories, after that it's up to you to stay put and wait out or attempt to escape a fire. Not that you want to be running down a smoke filled staircase even a few floors, but odds are still better.
 
We refused to look at anything above the ninth floor, for precisely those reasons.

Furthermore, there are too many elevators, not enough elevator mechanics. Furthermore, elevators are constantly getting misused by contractors and movers and, in half-built buildings, by construction workers.
 
Thanks but, technically we're on the 8th because the ground level is No. 1 -- so there's that.

Our windows open -- and we have balconies.

Solid concrete.

I feel much safer than I did in our house in Riverdale where everybody was so close together and fires could spread roof-to-roof.

Anyway, we could do with another elevator. I wish we had one just for service, moving, deliveries, etc.
 

Toronto condo complex going viral for excruciating 20-minute elevator waits​


From link.

It can be a total nightmare just getting from A to B in Toronto, but for residents of one midtown condo complex, boarding an elevator might just be the hardest part of the daily commute.

The Citylights on Broadway development's pair of condo towers were completed in 2021, but an apparent problem has already emerged despite the buildings only being a couple of years old.

A video making the rounds on social media is drawing attention to a possible elevator capacity issue with the complex at 95 Broadway Avenue, with residents reportedly forced to wait in painful lines snaking through hallways for longer than 20 minutes, just to board an elevator.

The clip, initially shared via TikTok Live by realtor Alessandra Panno, shows an over 20-minute wait allegedly captured on a Monday evening at around 6:30 p.m. Dozens can be seen in a queue to board the elevators on the complex's ground floor as the camera snakes through hallways leading back to the condo lobby.
Click to expand...
Several people have chimed in to share similar experiences with over-capacity elevators in other newly built Toronto condo towers.
Click to expand...
https://twitter.com/x/status/1686378460451934209
And, like every conversation about crappy condos in the city, the famously sketchy Ice Condos got its dues.
Click to expand...
https://twitter.com/x/status/1686385256734367745
Elevator capacity in high-rise buildings is by no means a new issue, and even became a hot political topic back in 2017, when a new provincial law was passed with the intention of making elevators more accessible and reliable.

However, the problem has persisted, and new condo developments are often still constructed with the bare minimum in elevator capacity.

Additional capacity, while not often required for a building's day-to-day elevator traffic, becomes crucial when one or more elevator shafts are taken offline for maintenance or move-ins.

blogTO has reached out to both the developer, Pemberton Group, and DEL Property Management for comment on the elevator situation at the condo complex. Neither company has replied to email requests as of writing.
Click to expand...
 
My condo has 4 elevators (for ~44 floors), and yes, when one breaks down you can instantly feel it. When two breaks down, it's better to stay home IMHO. What makes it worse is that we have the floor numbers outside of the elevators (like an office building) which I still feel simply doesn't work for residential. What happens - and I sometimes do it myself for shame - is that we'll keep pushing the button for floor we want to go to, and end up calling all 4 elevators, which obviously exacerbates the problem.

If I'm going down to Ground, what I find helpful is to call to go up a floor, and just jump on that - it'll eventually make it's way down, and is much faster than waiting for the proper down elevator you were assigned.
 
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