The American Society of Mechanical Engineers Elevator Code lays out all the rules and regulations that building owners must follow regarding their elevators. One requirement listed in ASME A17.1 is that all elevators must have dedicated telephone lines to ensure proper communication during emergencies.
Is the elevator phone line not working in one of the elevators in your building? If so, you’ll need to work on getting it up and running again as soon as possible.
Learn about three things that can cause an elevator phone line to stop working below. This information will help you decide whether to replace old copper landline setups with state-of-the-art cellular elevator phone options.
1. Power Failure
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average U.S. electricity customer loses power for over five hours each year. If you ever experience a power failure in your building, it could knock out the electricity in your elevator and leave you with an elevator phone not working.
For this reason, the International Building Code requires anyone who owns a building higher than four stories to install backup power systems to ensure power failures don’t knock out elevator phone lines and cause communication issues in case of emergencies. Anyone stuck in an elevator during a power outage should have a reliable way to communicate with the outside world.
2. Equipment Failure
A power outage is far from the only thing that can lead to an elevator phone line not working. Equipment failure related to the phone system in an elevator can also cut off communication between those stuck in elevators and those who can help them by sending out first responders.
Faulty wiring is one of the most common equipment failure problems with dedicated phone lines in elevators. Other issues include:
- Electrical shorts
- Dirty electrical connections
- Improperly installed components
Some communication equipment found in older elevators is outdated by the ASME Elevator Code standards. Updating it with digital solutions, like a Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP system, might make your elevator phone work significantly better than it has in years.
3. Unpaid Phone Bill
Have you stayed on top of paying the phone bill for your elevator phone line? If you’ve missed making payments for a few months, that alone could reveal why your elevator phone line is not working.
Contact your telecom company to settle your unpaid phone bills. This could provide a quick and easy remedy for getting your elevators’ phone lines working again.
Elevator Phone Line Not Working? Call Us for Assistance
If you’re dealing with an elevator phone line not working, any number of things could be causing issues, the most common of which we’ve outlined above. You’ll see elevator safety suffer within your building if you don’t do anything about it.
Let ELEVATE Monitoring help you get your elevator phone line working normally. Contact us at 877-990-9191 to get answers to any other questions you might have and to schedule service from our experts.
