Monthly Archives: May 2018

The city of York, Yorkshire, is well-known for its rich heritage and wealth of historic attractions, including York Minster. With this background, it’s hardly surprising that York has a wealth of traditional and modern English hotels.

One of York’s modern hotels had recently been acquired by a larger premium leisure brand, resulting in the hotel’s refurbishment and identity change.

As part of the refurbishment programme to bring the hotel up to the standards of the new owner, the hotel’s two passenger lifts had been identified for modernisation. Working with the hotel’s primary lift service provider, Hydratec was commissioned to undertake the lift modernisation project.

Hydratec’s contract was to undertake a drive, signalisation and aesthetic modernisation of both passenger lifts. The hydraulic system chosen was the Hydratec smart™ modular solution utilising a Bucher hydraulic iValve and a Lester Controls EN81-20 custom-built Almega II control system. Once installed, the low energy integrated hydraulic Hydratec smart™ provides improved floor levelling, reliability and energy efficiencies.

As part of Hydratec’s complete lift modernisation service, we also relined the lift cars, installed new landing entrances and replaced the existing lift call buttons.

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In recent years, the Government, along with local councils, has been combining various services into new or recently built facilities designed to better serve the local community. However, in some cases, particularly those constructed over ten years ago, the facilities have been in regular and constant use and an upgrade of the buildings machinery infrastructure is now required.

This was exactly the case for a public building in Sheffield that was originally constructed over ten years ago. At the time, the four-storey building had two modern scenic lifts that were beginning to show signs of their constant usage.

To address the reliability issues, and working with the lift service provider, the decision was made to modernise and upgrade the hydraulic equipment, including replacement of the two rams and lift controllers.

Hydratec was awarded the contract to undertake a complete Hydratec smart™ modernisation, including the two bore hole rams. The two, 3-stop scenic lifts were designed and work as a duplex pair so the Hydratec smart™ was configured in the same way. In this instance, the Hydratec smart™ solution utilised Bucher hydraulic iValves and Lester Controls custom-built Almega II control systems. To assist with accurate floor levelling, Hydratec also installed APS (CEDES) Absolute Positioning Systems in the lift shafts.

Now completed and fully working, the Hydratec smart™ will not only improve reliability and travel smoothness but also, importantly, reduce energy consumption.

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The need to provide safe and reliable floor-to-floor passenger transport for a shopper’s convenience is essential to maintaining customer satisfaction and to comply with the needs of the Equality Act 2010.

For retailers, this invariably means that stores need escalators or, at the least, passenger lifts that can convey wheelchairs. In the majority of cases, passenger lifts installed in two and three-storey stores are likely to be hydraulic and were potentially installed over ten years ago. This means that they are very likely to benefit from an upgrade or refurbishment.

This was exactly the case at one of Wigan’s high street department stores. Working under contract to one of the major lift and escalator service providers, Hydratec was to quote for a full hydraulic modernisation based on the Hydratec smart™ fitted with an ALGI frequency-controlled hydraulic valve. The lift being modernised was of a 2-stop hydraulic passenger lift.

The Hydratec smart™ lift controller – designed and manufactured by Lester Controls specifically for Hydratec – was adapted to interface with the ALGI VVVF system. As part of the in-shaft Hydratec smart™ modernisation, Hydratec also installed Lester Controls APS (CEDES) Absolute Positioning System.

Some of the major benefits of the Hydratec smart™ range include improved energy efficiency and safety features. These, combined with lower noise levels and improvements to ride quality, have been instrumental in the success of Hydratec smart™.

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