Elevators fall into the category of facility components that go largely unnoticed by building occupants — until they malfunction. Students and staff at one major university are finding out the hard way that the issue can create both safety and accessibility issues.
Problems with elevators are causing issues in university apartment buildings, as well as classroom and office buildings at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). The Daily Bruin checked the permits of more than 80 elevators on the UCLA campus and the Hill between August and November of 2024 and compared the listed expiration dates with inspection logs provided by UCLA media relations. The newspaper found that 71 elevators were inspected after the expiration date listed on the permit.
In addition, the average time between the expiration of the elevators and third-party inspection is 34 days. The longest period where an elevator’s permit was not updated since its state expiration date was 615 days.
In an emailed statement, UCLA facilities management said the prevalence of expired permits is due to delays in the state’s inspection process. As a quicker alternative, UCLA relies on third-party state-licensed elevator mechanics. But considering the paperwork must still go through the state after the inspection, UCLA facilities management said new permits are often still delayed by one to three months.
And yet the newspaper found that the delays are not just related to paperwork. Thirty of the elevators checked were not even inspected until more than 30 days past the expiration dates shown on the elevators’ physical permits, further delaying the already slow process of receiving inspection reports from the state.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.?
