The questions building managers actually ask about lifts.

A passenger lift is a fully enclosed cabin running between defined floors at speeds typically 0.63–2.5 m/s, governed by the BS EN 81-20 / BS EN 81-50 engineering standard. A platform lift is a slower lifting platform (≤ 0.15 m/s) designed primarily for accessibility — wheelchair users, mobility-impaired residents, goods on a trolley — governed by BS EN 81-41. The visible cabin in a passenger lift is suspended from a traction or hydraulic system; the platform lift carries the user on an open or partially-enclosed surface that travels in a shaft or alongside a wall. Both regimes carry the same LOLER duty when they carry people. The /knowledge/lift-types/ guide compares the two side by side.

On the platforms we see most: door / gate interlock faults (the lift refuses to move because the safety circuit reads a gate as not fully closed), obstruction-sensor faults under the platform (carpet trim, debris, or sensor misalignment triggers a stop), controlled-descent battery failure (the lift stops at a floor and won't move on power loss because the back-up battery has aged out), call-station and key-switch wear, and ramp-bridge alignment on through-floor models. Many of these clear in a single visit because we carry the common gate-interlock board, the obstruction-sensor units, and the standard battery sets on every survey. The deeper diagnostic and the modernisation triggers are in our /knowledge/lift-types/ comparison.

Lift maintenance is priced from a site survey, not a price list. The annual figure depends on lift type (platform vs passenger, hydraulic vs traction, MRL vs machine-roomed), visit frequency (two, three, four, or six visits per year), response SLA (4-hour, 8-hour, next working day), parts inclusion (parts-included vs labour-only), portfolio size, age of the equipment, and travel to site. As a sense-check for a single mid-life passenger lift on a four-visit contract with a next-working-day SLA, the annual figure typically sits in the low thousands; platform lifts are usually less because the inspection cycle is shorter. We send a written proposal with a fixed annual figure inside 48 hours of the survey — the breakdown of what is in scope, and what is excluded, is itemised. The /knowledge/lift-maintenance-cost/ guide explains the cost drivers in full.

Platform-lift side: Aritco, Cibes, Dalby, Gartec, Kalea, Motala, Nami, NTD, Phoenix, Pollock, Stannah, Vimec, plus most other UK-installed makes (Terry, Sesa, Liftboy, Wessex, Pickerings on the platform / accessibility side). Passenger-lift side: Otis, Kone, Schindler, ThyssenKrupp, Orona, Mitsubishi, Stannah, plus most major UK manufacturers including the legacy Express, Pickerings, Hammond & Champness, and Evans. If your make isn't listed, call us — independence means we don't refuse brands, and our engineers have combined experience across most equipment in service in the UK. The full brand directory is at /brands/.

Yes. We hold a stock of fast-moving parts (gate interlocks, contactors, push-buttons, door operators, overspeed-governor parts, controlled-descent batteries, common controller boards) and have trade accounts with the major OEM and aftermarket parts distributors in the UK. For obsolete or end-of-life equipment we can source via reclamation, refurbishment, or — where a part is genuinely irreplaceable — engineer a controller or door-operator retrofit using current-generation components compliant with BS EN 81-20 / 81-41. Most parts that arrive are stocked or available next-day; complex retrofits are quoted on inspection. Spares supply is not a separate revenue stream for us — it's a service line at cost-plus.

For 24/7 emergency call-outs in London and the surrounding M25, same-day dispatch — usually within hours of the call. UK-wide emergency response is scheduled by region and priority: we run a national field-engineer network, so a passenger entrapment in Manchester or a stuck platform lift in Bristol is dispatched against the nearest available engineer rather than a London-centric routing. The 24/7 number is 020 3435 6838. Calls are triaged by a senior engineer, not a call-centre script — so the engineer dispatched arrives with a working hypothesis and the right common-fault spares, not a blank van.

We cover the whole UK. The base is London (85 Great Portland Street, W1W 7LT), and the densest engineer cover is the M25 — which is where the bulk of platform-lift accessibility work and passenger-lift modernisation work sits. Outside that we have engineer coverage across Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, and the South Coast. For one-off jobs outside a permanent coverage area we'll quote travel transparently as a line on the proposal; for portfolio clients we negotiate fixed regional rates. Coverage is detailed by region on the locations / coverage section of the site.

Yes, and we do it regularly. Independent service is legal and almost always faster and more cost-effective than staying with the original manufacturer once the lift is out of its initial warranty / managed-service period. We migrate all documentation (LOLER history, PUWER inspection records, modernisation paper trail, parts log), carry out a full takeover inspection inside the first 14 days, and then write a clean SLA-backed contract from there. There is no legal obstacle to taking a passenger or platform lift off OEM service — the LOLER duty is on the building owner, not the manufacturer. The handover is usually invisible to building users.

Fully independent. BASE has no tied OEM contracts, no manufacturer alliances, and no parts arrangements that pay back from a supplier. The economic structure of the business is that we earn on labour and parts at cost-plus, not on rebates or OEM kickbacks — that's the only honest way an independent can give advice on whether to repair, modernise, or replace. Independence also means the LOLER competent person is genuinely separated from the maintenance team on the same equipment, which is the point HSE INDG422 makes about competent-person credibility. If a manufacturer alliance ever made sense for a client we'd disclose it; we don't have one.

Every visit produces a service docket — what was done, what was found, parts consumed, time on site, next-action recommendation. Every LOLER thorough examination produces a written report under Regulation 10 within five working days: itemised findings, defect class per finding, photo evidence, the date by which any in-time defect must be cleared, and the date of the next examination. Reports are written in plain English, not boilerplate — a property manager can read it once and act on it. Documentation is filed digitally and accessible to the client portal; hard copies are available on request. PUWER inspections, BS EN 81-80 audits, and modernisation specifications follow the same documentation discipline.

Defects are graded against a three-tier hierarchy on the report. Immediate (the lift must not be used until rectified — common examples: corroded brake torque arm, missing or shorted overspeed-governor circuit, broken safety-gear release linkage, badly worn suspension). Within Timeframe (must be rectified within a stated period — typically 14, 28, or 60 days). Observation (best-practice or condition-monitoring note, no statutory deadline). For an Immediate-class finding, the competent person isolates the lift, posts an out-of-service notice, notifies the enforcing authority (HSE for most workplaces, the local authority for some retail / hospitality), and we move to engineer the fix and re-examine before return to service. We carry common Immediate-class spares on every survey so a fix isn't blocked by parts where we can avoid it.

Yes. The four service lines are installations (new lift specification, supply, install, commissioning), modernisation (controller, door-operator, machine, traction-rope, cabin, signalisation retrofits — typically on a 15–25 year-old passenger lift or a 10–15 year-old platform lift), service & repair (the SLA-backed maintenance contract plus emergency call-out), and inspections (independent LOLER, PUWER, BS EN 81-80 audit). We are deliberately independent on installations: we specify and source rather than push a single manufacturer, so the lift that goes in is the right lift for the shaft, the traffic profile, the floor heights, the building Class and the operating budget. The /services/installations/ and /services/modernisation/ pages cover those work-streams in detail.

The cleanest start is a site survey. Call 020 3435 6838 or email enquiries@baselifts.co.uk, and we'll book a survey at no charge for any plausible enquiry. We need: the lift's location, type (platform / passenger), make and model if you have it, the last LOLER report if available, an outline of the current contract (OEM, independent, none), and what you're trying to achieve (price-down, faster response, modernisation, takeover, one-off repair). A senior engineer attends the survey, walks the lift, and a written proposal with a fixed annual or job figure follows inside 48 hours. There is no automated triage and no commitment from the survey.