I advise you how to call a freight elevator if a small one has arrived, and there is only one call button

After the old elevators were replaced with new ones, all the residents of our building became participants in a quest called “How to call a freight elevator if there is one button for two elevators.”

Since leaving bicycles and strollers on the ground floor is the worst possible option, and carrying these vehicles up the stairs using our own muscle power is in most cases impossible, we went to look for a solution to the problem on the Internet.

Solution 1: One up, one down

And a solution was indeed found. As we learned from various forum posts, people came up with the following scheme:

1. If a small elevator arrives, you need to send it empty to the last or penultimate floor (provided that you are on the first floor; if you need to leave the top floor, the passenger cabin should go down).
2. Immediately after this, you should press the call button - since the regular cabin is occupied, a cargo cabin will come to you.

But, as it turned out, the circuit only works in the absence of a load sensor. The cabin installed in our house flatly refused to go anywhere without passengers. And the method proposed by one of the neighbors - placing a bag of bricks on each floor to use in the elevator instead of living weight - we unanimously rejected.

Method 2: Pinch and hold

Time passed, our ordeals continued.And suddenly one of the residents brought good news - it turns out that in order for a freight elevator to arrive, and not a passenger one, you need to hold the call button pressed for ten seconds.

I have no doubt that there are elevator systems that implement just such a control method, but ours is clearly not one of them. We experimented for a whole week - we pressed the button for ten, twenty, and thirty seconds, even for a whole minute, but as a result it simply jammed.

Method 3. Vandal

One day, returning from work, I caught my neighbor doing a non-trivial activity. The passenger elevator stood on the ground floor with open doors, which were prevented from closing by the neighbor's left foot. And the neighbor’s right hand was actively pressing the call button.

In response to the surprise that appeared on my face, the neighbor explained that she was testing a new way to call the cargo compartment. And she said that this was not the first time she had done this - it was always successful. But she is in no hurry to tell others about her discovery, because the method is vandal and if the elevator suddenly breaks down, then the righteous anger of all the residents will fall on her.

I cannot recommend this method to you, although in a critical situation (for example, when you urgently need to lower a person on a stretcher), its use will be justified.

An unexpected solution to a problem

At the next meeting of residents organized by the management company, everyone rebelled and demanded that the elevator be adjusted so that it could be used without waiting an hour for the desired cabin.

In response to this, a representative of the management company promised to look into it, and about a week later we were able to call the freight elevator by double pressing the button.

So if you're tired of trying out all sorts of life hacks, don't hesitate to contact your management company.

Questions and answers

Why used to have a separate call button for each elevator, but now they only make one button for all cabins?

This is due to the habit of calling all elevators at the same time, and then leaving on the one that arrived first. Both the cabin and the mechanism that sets it in motion are not eternal, and the rate of their wear depends on the number of descents and ascents. The more often the elevator runs “idle,” the faster it will exhaust its service life and fall into disrepair. That is, in this way management companies are trying to increase the interval between planned replacement of elevators and reduce the frequency of breakdowns.

Is it possible to reconfigure the elevator from a one-button operating model to a two-button one?

Theoretically, yes, but the decision on this is made by the management company. You should contact your boss with a corresponding statement.

Now you know what to do if a passenger elevator arrives, and you need to go down or up on a freight elevator. If a one-button call is implemented in your home, it is best to ask the management company to reconfigure the call of a large cabin according to a certain scheme. If you encounter two elevators with one call button in someone else’s house, use one of the life hacks suggested above.