Lift broken down? What to do, step by step

In short: if anyone is trapped, keep them calm and talking, and call your lift maintenance company straight away. Call 999 if anyone is unwell, distressed or in danger, or if there is a fire. Take the lift out of use and put up “out of order” signs on every floor. Never force the doors open, and never put the lift back into use until an engineer has checked it.

This lift breakdown guide is for building managers, facilities teams and anyone responsible for a lift in a workplace, shop, hotel or block of flats in the UK. It is written from what our engineers see on breakdown call-outs across Essex, London and the South East.

If someone is trapped

1. Talk to them. Use the lift’s emergency phone or speak through the doors. Tell them help is on the way, ask how many people are inside and whether anyone is unwell.
2. Call your lift maintenance company first. They know your lift, and their engineer can release passengers safely. Say clearly that someone is trapped, as entrapments are dealt with before other faults. On many lifts the emergency phone in the car already goes straight through to the maintenance company, so the passengers may have raised the alarm themselves; call anyway, as you can tell them about access and who will meet the engineer.
3. Call 999 if anyone is at risk: unwell, panicking, a child or vulnerable person on their own, very hot or cold conditions, or any sign of fire or smoke.
4. Stay nearby until the engineer or the fire service arrives, and keep checking on the passengers.
5. Do not try to open the doors or move the lift. Only someone trained and authorised for your lift should ever release passengers. Prising doors open or using a door key without training can cause falls into the lift shaft, the most serious kind of lift accident.

Being stuck in a lift is frightening, but a lift car is a safe place to wait. Lifts have several independent safety systems, and a car that has stopped will normally stay where it is.

Make it safe

• Stop anyone using the lift. Put clear “Lift out of order” signs on the landing doors at every floor, not just the ground floor.
• Tell the people who rely on it, such as residents with limited mobility, reception and deliveries, so they can plan around it.
• Do not put it back into service after a fault, even if it seems to be working again. A lift that has stopped for a reason can stop again, or fail in a less safe way. Wait for the engineer to check it.

Quick checks after a lift breakdown, before you call

These are safe for anyone to do, need no tools and don’t involve touching the lift’s equipment:

• Is there a wider power cut? Check whether lights and other equipment in the building are working. If the lift’s own supply has tripped, tell the engineer what you saw rather than resetting it yourself.
• Is anything stuck in the door tracks? Look at the sills (the grooves the doors run in) at each landing. Keys, grit, coins and rubbish in the tracks are a common reason doors won’t close. Don’t force the doors, and don’t put your hands or tools between them.
• Has a switch been left on? Check that the lift hasn’t been left on a fire-service switch, a key switch or “independent service”, for example after a move or a delivery.
• Does the alarm work? Press the alarm button in the car and check the emergency phone connects to someone. If the people inside can’t call for help, that is urgent in its own right.

Never do these

• Never force or prise open the lift doors, from the landing or from inside the car.
• Never try to free trapped passengers unless you have been trained and authorised for that lift.
• Never “reset” the lift by switching it off and on, or by opening the controller or machine room. It can hide the fault, damage the equipment and put the next passengers at risk.
• Never put the lift back into use until an engineer has checked it.

Some advice online tells building managers to reset the lift or release passengers themselves. Please don’t. It is the advice we most often see putting people in danger.

Common lift breakdown causes: what our engineers see most

• Door faults. The most common by far. Doors are the most used moving part of any lift: worn door gear, misaligned doors, faulty door locks and contacts, a damaged safety edge (the strip that stops the doors closing on people), or rubbish in the tracks.
• Power and electrical faults. Power cuts, tripped supplies, blown fuses, and faults in the controller or drive.
• Misuse and vandalism. Overloading, doors held open or kicked, objects dropped into the door tracks, and damage to buttons and panels.
• Worn parts and missed maintenance. Lifts that aren’t serviced often enough wear out sooner: brakes, ropes, levelling problems (the car stopping above or below the floor) and, on hydraulic lifts, oil leaks.

Many of these are found and fixed early on a routine maintenance visit, before they cause a lift breakdown.

What to tell us when you call

After a lift breakdown, having these ready helps the engineer bring the right parts and fix it on the first visit:

• Where: the site address and which lift, if there is more than one, and where the machine room or controller is.
• Is anyone trapped? How many people, and are they OK?
• What it’s doing: where it stopped, whether the doors are open or shut, any noises, lights or error codes on the display, and what happened just before it stopped.
• Access: who will meet the engineer, any keys or door codes needed, and a phone number for that person.
• Paperwork, if you have it: the latest LOLER thorough examination report and the maintenance log. (Older guides mention an “F54” form; that dates from before the current rules, which came in in 1998. Today it is the LOLER thorough examination report.)

Lift breakdown in a block of flats

In a residential block the managing agent or freeholder is usually responsible for the lift, and residents report faults to them.

• Residents: report the fault to your managing agent straight away, with the time it stopped and anything you noticed. If someone is trapped, press the lift alarm or call 999 if they are in danger.
• Managing agents: put up “out of order” signs on every floor, call your lift maintenance company, and tell residents when you expect the lift back.
• Check who relies on the lift. Residents who use wheelchairs, have limited mobility, or are elderly or unwell may be unable to leave or get home. Ask whether anyone needs help with shopping, medicines or appointments while the lift is out of use.

Lift breakdown at work

Employers are responsible for keeping work equipment, including lifts, in good repair (PUWER) and for having lifts that carry people thoroughly examined (LOLER).

• Tell staff and visitors the lift is out of use, and update signs at reception.
• Check evacuation plans. If anyone relies on the lift, check their personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP) still works while it is out of action.
• Record it. Note the breakdown, the call-out and the repair in the lift logbook. A pattern of repeat faults is useful evidence when deciding whether a lift needs modernising.

Lift breakdown out of hours

Our office is open 08:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday. Customers with a maintenance contract can reach us 24 hours a day for breakdowns, using the call-out number in their contract or on the lift, and the emergency phone in the lift car comes straight through to us. If you are not a contract customer, keep the lift out of use, call 999 if anyone is trapped and in danger, and call us when the office opens.

Why some lift breakdown repairs need a second visit

Many faults are fixed on the first visit. Some take longer:

• Parts need ordering. The engineer finds the fault, but the part isn’t something carried in the van.
• Older lifts. Parts for older lifts can be hard to find, and sometimes have to be sourced or made.
• The fault keeps coming back. Intermittent faults can need the lift watched over several days to pin down the cause.

When a part is needed, we quote for it before ordering, so you know the cost before any work goes ahead.

Lift breakdown causes on hydraulic and traction lifts

• Hydraulic lifts are pushed up by a ram driven by oil under pressure. Typical problems are oil leaks, the car slowly sinking below floor level, and slow or rough running when the oil is very cold or very hot.
• Traction lifts are pulled by ropes or belts over a drive wheel. Typical problems involve the brakes, the ropes and drive wheel, and the drive and controller.

Door faults are the most common lift breakdown on both.

Lift breakdown words engineers use

• Car: the part of the lift people ride in.
• Landing doors: the doors on each floor. Car doors: the doors on the lift itself.
• Sill: the groove the doors run in.
• Safety edge: the strip on the door edge that stops the doors closing on people.
• Controller: the electrical panel that runs the lift.
• Levelling: how accurately the car stops in line with the floor.
• Entrapment: someone stuck inside the lift.
• Independent service: a key switch that takes the lift out of normal use, for example for a delivery.

Calling Future Lift Services

Our office is open 08:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday, on 01708 986845. Customers with a maintenance contract with us can get through 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for breakdowns and emergency lift repair call-outs: use the 24/7 call-out number in your contract or on the lift.

On the lifts we maintain, the emergency phone in the lift car comes straight through to us. So if someone is trapped and nobody in the building has called yet, the person inside can reach us directly by pressing the alarm button.

Not a customer yet? Call us in office hours and we will do our best to help. See our lift repairs page for what we repair.

Preventing the next lift breakdown

• Regular maintenance. Most lift breakdowns we attend could have been spotted earlier. A lift maintenance contract means planned visits and a priority route when something does go wrong.
• LOLER thorough examinations. In UK workplaces, lifts that carry people normally need a thorough examination by a competent person at least every six months, under the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER). The HSE explains the duties in its guidance on lifting equipment at work and its leaflet Thorough examination of lifting equipment (INDG422, PDF).
• Act on defects. The examination report lists defects and how soon each must be put right. Keep the reports and act on them by the dates given.
• Keep the door tracks clean and ask cleaners not to sweep rubbish into them.
• Test the alarm regularly, so trapped passengers can always call for help.

Can a lift fall if it breaks down?

Lifts are built with safety systems designed to stop the car moving in an uncontrolled way. Traction lifts have safety gear that grips the guide rails if the car goes too fast; hydraulic lifts have valves that stop the car dropping if the oil pressure is lost. A lift that has stopped will normally stay where it is, so inside the car is a safe place to wait.

If your lift keeps breaking down

Keep a note of each lift breakdown: the date, what happened and what the engineer found. Repeated faults usually mean an underlying cause, such as worn door gear or an ageing controller, that a one-off repair won’t cure. Ask your maintenance company to look at the pattern, and check whether the lift is being serviced often enough. If the lift is old, it may be time to consider modernising it.

How to prevent a lift breakdown

Most breakdowns can’t be prevented completely, but regular maintenance, keeping door tracks clear, reporting small faults early and acting on LOLER defects by their due dates all make them less likely.

Lift broken down? A checklist to print

1. Someone trapped? Talk to them, keep them calm.
2. Call your lift company: Future Lift Services, 01708 986845 (office hours). Contract customers: use the 24/7 number in your contract or on the lift.
3. Call 999 if anyone is unwell or in danger, or if there is fire or smoke.
4. Put “Out of order” signs on every floor.
5. Never force the doors. Never reset the lift. Never put it back into use until an engineer has checked it.

Have ready: the address and which lift, whether anyone is trapped, what the lift is doing, and who will meet the engineer.

Questions people ask