I am writing this article as someone who has answered the following question many times to customers. Customers wonder why their broken-down lift is not back in service immediately after a call out, or sometimes, after several call outs to their lift.

I am not a trained lift technician, but I have 25 years in lift customer support, so I hope this article can explain the fault-finding process in a way that is not too technical.

Lifts are a complex interaction of electrical and mechanical parts. To further complicate matters, lifts have significant human labour input as they are generally produced in relatively small numbers. When lifts are installed on site everything is fixed into position, adjusted, tuned and tested by hand. All the variables of manufacturing and human error can result in lift faults being layered and intermittent and then sometimes there are power surges or water egress into electronics…

Lift faults fall into two basic categories:

1. A fault that stays present on the lift. These faults are generally easier to diagnose as the technician can work through their standard fault-finding process until the fault is identified.


2. Intermittent faults. These faults can be difficult to find as they clear themselves before a technician can diagnose them. Sometimes it may take several visits to site until the lift fault can be seen by the technician. There are a range of diagnostic tools such as cameras and power monitoring equipment that can be installed to capture a fault occurring, this is usually only done with persistent issues.

When a lift goes out of service and a technician is engaged to identify the fault/s it is essential that the technician works through a logical process. It is very tempting for technicians to jump to an “obvious” conclusion only to find out that it was only one of a number of faults and not the one causing the real issue. If a logical problem-solving process is not followed it is easy to mis issues that may then cause many breakdowns and repeated visits to site and a frustrated customer! Fault finding is core to being a good lift technician and requires years of training.

In summary, faults can be caused by a myriad of issues in lift design, programming, use, installation, lack of maintenance etc… there can be a complex interaction of layers of issues that need to be methodically resolved to get to the actual fault causing the lift to malfunction... Lift technicians and lift parts are expensive so efficient fault finding processes are essential.

I trust that the above helps customers understand that it is sometimes not the technician’s fault why a lift malfunctions. Sometimes fault finding just takes time and patience. If a technician has been to site more than three times it is reasonable to contact the lift company to escalate the issue. If issues go unresolved for several months then a second opinion can be useful.

All the best with the fault diagnosis process!

Published: March 19, 2026