In the Round

Custom elevator company overcomes design challenges and delays for showpiece residential elevator.

submitted by Farid Waleh

Custom Cabs Inc. (CCI) manufactures and installs custom elevators, and the company’s latest elevator project was in the city of Laguna Beach in southern California. The elevator is in a private residence in an exclusive gated community, and the owner wanted a round elevator that would be a showpiece for the new home. 

The house is situated below a hill and, in fact, some of the space for the house is carved out of the hill. There is a lot of reinforced concrete used for the retaining walls along the side of the hill and the foundation of the house. CCI had to coordinate the piping and the cables under the slab. The pipes and cables are encased in PVC pipes from the machine room, which is about 20 ft away from the shaft. This work was done during the time the formwork for the concrete was being put down. Once that was done, before any of the walls for the house were put up, CCI was busy with the final drawings for fabrication. 

CCI collaborated with the architects working on the plans and created an elevator that can be a model for all future round elevators. The entire elevator system is painted a gold color that involved a custom-made multi-process painted finish. 

The elevator is commercial size with center-opening doors and CCI’s exclusive under platform door operator (galaxy). The doors and the cab consist of glass and painted steel frames. The shaft is also glass with spyder attachments.

The entire structure for the elevator rests on the two steel tubes that support the rails from the pit to the overhead. Other minor tubes support the glass on the back of the shaft. The glass is cut in a spiral pattern to match the pitch of the stairs. The cut and the curvature had to be perfect for the effect the architect had envisioned. 

The holes in the glass are strategically located so they can be held in place with the spyders. All the spyders are painted the same color as the elevator along with the shaft, rails and rail clips. They blend perfectly with the rest of the equipment.

CCI worked very closely with the contractor on the installation of the support tubes for the rails, as they had to be perfectly placed and plumb from top to bottom. Installation of the elevator was performed in phases, as construction moved slowly at first with changes in the design from the owner and design team. The CCI crew was on and off the site several times due to these changes. The changes did not affect the elevator but affected installation.  

CCI collaborated with the architects working on the plans and created an elevator that can be a model for all future round elevators.

The travel cable has a winding reel in the pit that winds and unwinds the cable depending on the travel of the car. There is no cable to loop in the shaft. The reel is motorized, so it works no matter where the car is and does not burden the cable with excess tension as with spring-loaded reels. The cable reel is hidden under the pit, as there is the rough pit and the finished pit. 

The door operator boxes and the header boxes are attached to a curved 3/8-in. thick piece of sheet metal above each opening that is the support for the boxes. There was a minor gap to install our boxes and still have room for the running clearances. This made it very challenging as the support was manufactured and installed by another sub-contractor, and both the curved support and CCI’s boxes had to have the exact curvature throughout the entire opening to fit in place. There was very little room for error. CCI coordinated its drawings and got both to match, modifying its equipment to fit within the confined space.

Once the entrances were completed, the rest of the cab and the final adjustments went without a hitch, as CCI was working with accurate drawings from the architect. The contractor was very detail-oriented in the construction of the shaft. The elevator will be a showpiece for the owners for years to come.