Had a weird call at the old hospital on 3rd Street that made me rethink door lock checks

I was out on a service call last week for a stuck car at St. Mary's, the old brick building downtown. The nurses said the elevator kept stopping with the doors slightly open, maybe an inch, then closing again after a few seconds. I figured it was a simple door lock or detector issue, right? But after checking the usual stuff, I found the problem was actually a worn roller on the car door hanger. It was letting the door sag just enough to break the lock circuit when the car was perfectly level, but only on certain floors where the hallway floor was a bit higher. I mean, I've seen worn rollers before, but this one was so subtle it only messed up on a specific alignment. I ended up replacing the roller and adjusting the track, and it's been smooth since. Has anyone else run into a door issue that only showed up because of the building settling on certain floors?

3 comments

3 Comments

reese_hayes711mo ago

But come on, is a sticky door really that big of a deal? It's an old building, stuff settles. @sean_green44 has a point about checking the sill, but sometimes you just fix the worn part and move on. I've seen way worse where the door would bounce open a full inch and the car would just sit there. This sounds like a tiny alignment thing. Did the nurses even notice, or were they just looking for something to complain about?

sean_green441mo ago

That's a tricky one. Did you check if the hallway floor heights were actually off, or was it just the door sag making it seem that way? I've had jobs where the sill was out of spec on one floor and it threw everything off.

sage_moore371mo ago

We had a sticky door on the third floor last month. Turned out the whole frame was out of square by almost half an inch.