Elevators becoming a major problem in Canadian highrises

Elevators in the Aura condo tower, Canada’s tallest residential building at 78 stories, are still not all working. Residents in the luxurious building in downtown Toronto were stranded last week following a heavy rainstorm.

Now half the elevators are working, but the service between the 56th and 78th floors is restricted to one manually operated elevator. Residents are furious, with reports of 10 to 15 minute waits.

In a CBC interview, three friends who were staying on the top floor of the building described the situation as “a living hell”. Taylor Henry, one of the three, told CBC “We don’t even live here and we’re frustrated, he said. “If I was paying to live here I’d be pissed off.”

Roger Davidson, a retired resident who lives on the 23rd floor, told CBC that he avoids the long waits by going out at night. “It seems that it takes a very long time to order the parts and replace them,” he said. “I don’t know why because it should have been planned in advance because the elevator needs fixing on a regular basis.”

The City of Toronto says there are no safety issues for residents. And Otis, the elevator manufacturer, confirmed in an e-mail statement fo CBC, that a burst pipe was the source of the damage to the six elevators.

Three elevators are working again, but the other three were the most damaged and are taking longer to repair.

The situation has drawn attention to the maintenance and installation of elevators across Canada. As more living spaces are going vertical, these issues are becoming paramount.

A Canadian Press (CP) investigation revealed more and more Canadians are finding themselves trapped in elevators for varying amounts of time.

Last year in Toronto 2,862 elevator-rescue calls were made to emergency services according to the CP report. We’ll look into some of the reasons this problem is growing, including a shortage of elevator technicians, a monopoly on the market by four multi-national companies, and the wait for parts from China.