Elevator Weight
I got into an elevator yesterday on the first floor of a NYC hotel. Also getting on where two maintenance men for the elevator company, Otis. Getting off the elevator was a family with three little girls, who apparently clicked about 5 floors before getting off. So when I got on and pressed “30” after the Otis guys pressed, “2”, I looked down and saw a bunch of floors lit up.
“Did you guys do that?” I joked to the burley maintenance guys.
“I think it was those kids getting off” was the reply from guy number 1.
The same Otis guy then proceeded to press a number of other buttons, so that it looked like he was trying to press every single floor, making it about an hour until I got to my floor.
Do you know why he did that?...
As soon as he hit one more floor, ALL floors that were lit up went blank, effectively canceling all floors. I then pushed my floor again and joked that it must be a flaw with the Otis elevator.
He told me that elevators have something called “load sensors” or “weight recognition” or something I forgot what he called it that detects the weight of the elevator compared to how many floors have been pressed and assumes it was a mistake, so it zeroes out all floors.
Thought I’d share.
Comments
Makes sense. The motor would require more electricty to raise the weight of the people. Wonder if this is true with other elevator companies.
Posted by: Dad D | October 18, 2007 12:43 PM