Three of the four explanations of why an elevator’s “Close Door” button never seems to work have the button a) broken, b) intentionally disconnected, or c) never wired at installation.
But the elevators that I know of in buildings of any real size have a “manual mode” and a “fire mode,” both of which require the button to be operating to make the lift do anything at all.
Are thousands of people in danger because of unwired “Close Door” buttons? Are fire departments across the country less-than-diligent in their inspections? Is there another “Close Door” button hidden behing a panel somewhere? Or did Otis and the Elevator Repairmen hand Cecil a line of, well, less than honest information?
Those firemen buttons give me a bit of the creeps when I see them. I was told by a contractor that in many buildings, the elevator is wired to the alarm system so that it goes down and opens up when the alarm is pulled, to await a brave fireperson. Even if this is not true, once a fireperson is inside and using his / her key, it certainly is not going to respond to frantic pushing of the elevator button on the somthingith floor. What gives me a touch of the Willies is that most cities have building codes that require new elevator installations to have doors wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair. Ye-Ghads! Is almost like we are setting a trap for them.
The utter servility of mankind comes out in his preference for a bovine existence.
– Aristotle; N. Ethics
By the way, did they finally invent a new word for the psychological phenomenon of pushing the elevator’s button several times while waiting for it? (Remember: The more often one pushes the button, the faster it’s supposed to come).
Or would this be an entirely different topic for itself?
The way the elevators in my old apartment worked was that the close door button didn’t do a damn thing normally, and may not have been wired up at all.
In “independent mode”, which I think was the same as “fire” or “service” mode, the doors would stay open until you push and hold the floor button for about 10-15 seconds at which point they would being closing.
Seems odd to make fire fighters wait 15 seconds before moving, so there was probably some other mode for fires. But thats how to close an elevator door without a close door button.
I don’t know where everyone else who commented on the elevator “close-door” buttons is from, but all the ones around here seem to work…unless its just a placebo and i just THINK they work…hmm.