Lift 40: A Combo Car: From inside the Cottage to the Dock.

Model: 2-Person (400-pound capacity)
Track: 92' at 20°
Area: Lake Muskoka
Year: 2011

The owners of this cottage had a badly damaged lift that was unsafely at the best of times. We designed and built a new lift that fit into exactly the same footprint; aside from replacing the button boxes, no modifications were needed at either the top or bottom stations.

At the top, the upper station is actually inside the basement. It has shutters can to seal the opening in winter and, because a corner of the lift was in their way, we programmed an over-ride into the lift's PLC control code to allow the owners to move the car from the normal upper stop to the upper emergency stop. We added this feature to all our lift programs so that the slack cable emergency brake trigger can be easily reset even if the car has been moved into the upper station.

The track is almost entirely on the ground the whole way. We used the concrete footing from the previous lift to anchor the track.

We dropped the car into the old footprint at the bottom end, only the button box is new. The car opens to both sides so it can also be used for lawn maintenance.