› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Strata Committees › Elevated issues – waiting for elevator like waiting for Godot › Current Page
I love the way editing this website sends me off to find stuff I didn’t know. On consulting Professor Google and Dr Wikipedia, I found there is a thing called the Elevator Algorithm which not only controls most elevators but is the principle behind the control of the hard disk on your computer. Weird or what?
So here is the basic Elevator Algorithm (purloined from Wikipedia).
The elevator algorithm
The elevator algorithm, a simple algorithm by which a single elevator can decide where to stop, is summarized as follows:
- Continue traveling in the same direction while there are remaining requests in that same direction.
- If there are no further requests in that direction, then stop and become idle, or change direction if there are requests in the opposite direction.
The elevator algorithm has found an application in computer operating systems as an algorithm for scheduling hard disk requests. Modern elevators use more complex heuristic algorithms to decide which request to service next.
My point is, this is not something new. If your elevator is even older than computers, it should be using that very basic algorithm and so you have grounds to go to your committee and say it’s broken and you are duty bound by law to fix it.
This is a much easier argument to present than “it’s not working in a way that treats all residents fairly and equally.”
OK, I am putting my chairperson’s hat on now: “It’s working perfectly and it has always operated like that so how can it be broken?”
And your answer is, “maybe it has always been broken or it broke in the early days and never got fixed – but that is not an excuse for not fixing it.”
Now, this is where the politics get tricky. You have to present yourself as being reasonable and even apologetic but determined to get this essential piece of infrastructure working for the benefit of everyone in the building.
So first of all, ask to see the report they got from an an independent lift engineer who was familiar with older elevators (rather than someone from the same company that installed the lift all those years ago but only knows new systems).
The chances are this report doesn’t exist – so you ask for one.
And if they refuse, you tell them that you will very reluctantly (but determinedly) start an action at Fair Trading and then NCAT to compel them to do something. And then you offer to do the legwork so that you can resolve the situation – or discover that it can’t be easily resolved – and present them with options to put to the other owners.
And by the way, you might want to start your legwork HERE or HERE.
And let us know how you go. Our buildings are ageing and eventually we’re all going to need help with the most expensive piece of infrastructure that we collectively own.