The F’s have a beautiful atrium ranch in Pevely, Missouri (Jefferson County) and were looking for a small home elevator to provide more convenient access to their basement and swimming pool in the backyard. Thankfully the design of an atrium ranch home provides the perfect space to add a Stiltz Duo or Trio Alta. The F’s decided to go with the larger Trio Alta because it fit perfectly in the allotted space and has a larger and more versatile cab than the smaller Duo.
This type of location is referred to as a landing application as we are traveling from a landing upstairs to the basement area down below. Installing a Stiltz in a landing application is really quite different than the more traditional through the floor aperture. Since we are traveling through a void there is no modification to the floor joist system which means less construction is required. However we do need to take a few additional things into consideration. Firstly we need a way to firmly hold the rail at the mid floor level since we are not tying into floor joists and through our standard floor insert. Thankfully Stiltz has landing brackets and rail blocks available to accomplish this. On this project we utilized a rail block on the side wall and a landing bracket off of the left side of the landing. The other consideration is that we need a way to secure area in which we removed the handrail on the landing so if the elevator is downstairs there is not a fall hazard.
In order to make this all integrate seamlessly we decided that it would be best to utilize the newel post where the landing meets the top of the staircase to create a gate system. Unfortunately this newel post was located right where we needed to install the above mentioned rail bracket. Thankfully we have a certified welder on staff at First Class Elevator and we were able to modify the steel bracket easily to accommodate the newel post. As you will see in the photos below the F’s also have a vaulted ceiling in the area above the Stiltz home lift. Because we need to have a flat spot to be able to attach our rails to we hand built a small soffit connecting the ceiling to our rails. Once we addressed these issues the rest of the installation is virtually the same as any other Stiltz project.
After the Stiltz home lift was mostly assembled we began to construct a gate system for the landing. Anytime that we have a gate like this it is important for us to install an electronic interlock that makes sure the gate remains locked unless the elevator is upstairs preventing the possibility of a fall. This interlock is wired into our upper limit switch via the trailing cable that is present on all Stiltz products. The F’s now have an easy way to carry items and people between the pool and the upstairs of the home and the entire project took less than three days to complete.
First Class Elevator finished the project in less than 3 days. They were fast and professional. We can now easily carry items between our pool and upstairs thanks to their hard work. Thank you Andrew and the rest of the team!