Skip to main content

Are Shaftless Home Elevators Right for You?

shaftless home elevators can be installed in small places

Shaftless home elevators like PVE vacuum elevators fit most any home…even a yacht! The largest model, PVE 52, accommodates a wheelchair and additional person yet has a space-saving compact footprint. Their compact design is possible because no shaft is needed. They save additional room in that no machine room is required either.

Our PVE elevators are manufactured right here in the USA and installed by certified elevator installers so you know you are getting quality you can trust. The unique, innovative shaftless elevators are self-supporting requiring no pit on the bottom floor as is required for traditional hydraulic or traction elevators. In fact, the only construction in most installations is to install a 220-volt circuit to plug the elevator into, create holes through the floors, and open the ceiling on the top floor to attach the elevator unit to the home’s structure.

Download Our Shaftless Elevator Guide

"*" indicates required fields

Get immediate access to download our shaftless elevator brochure. Submit form for download link. Note a download link will also be sent to your inbox for future reference so check your email, including the spam folder.
Your Name
Contact Preferences
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Benefits of Shaftless Elevators

Shaftless home elevators add safety, convenience, and the mobility to multi-floor residences. Their flexibility and beauty are perfect for either retrofit or new construction elevator installations:

  • Very little pre-installation or post-installation construction is required so modifications to your home are minimal: no shaft or machine room and no pit to excavate in your bottom floor.
  • Fast installation time, usually 2 days or less, minimizes the impact of a construction project on your life
  • Small exterior size of the vacuum elevator’s tube, including our largest shaftless wheelchair elevator  preserves more space in your home for living and storage.
  • The PVE shaftless elevators self-supporting nature create many more options for elevator installation locations within your home.
  • Our shaftless lifts are so beautiful you would not want to hide them if you had to. They add no only mobility, but also value to your home as they are much more elegant than stair lifts or open wheelchair lifts.
  • Many of today’s homes are based on an open concept design that our see-through elevators keep intact. Our vacuum elevators offer 360-degree panoramic views while riding in the car.
  • PVE elevators boast 20+ years of exemplary safety. Though these innovative elevators seem new, they are a proven technology.
  • Many choices of frame and glass colors for your PVE elevator make it possible to complement any decor.
  • Keep costs low over the lifetime of owning your home elevator, not only because of lower construction costs, but also because minimal electricity usage required to operate the efficient vacuum pump and very limited maintenance requirements of your PVE which every 15,000 lifts which is typically about a 5-year period.
white framed 2-story shaftless vacuum elevator with dark smoked glass installed in an open stairwell of a conroe texas home

How Do Shaftless Elevators Work?

Your elevator is custom-manufactured, assembled at the factory, tested, then packaged and shipped, ready to stack modules for quick installation.

The self-supporting shaftless elevators rest on the lowest floor. As long as the bottom floor is level, no pre-construction for the bottom landing is required. The car comes to rest at the bottom of the hoistway built into the unit so a depression in the lower floor, called a pit, is not required.

These shaftless home elevators are completely self-supporting and can travel up to 5 floors high.  The modules for floors higher than the ground floor are hoisted through the holes cut between floors. Then the bottom floor unit is positioned and then each module is stacked on top of the other with silicone applied at each joint. When assembly is finished, the vertical cylinder is the pneumatic tube in which the coaxial car will travel smoothly between landings.

An efficient pneumatic pump removes air out of the chamber above the elevator car. This creates a lower pressure above the car so that the now higher pressure below the car gently lifts it. To descend, a valve releases air into the top chamber to eliminate the low-pressure vacuum slowly, equalizing atmospheric pressure above and below the car, causing it gently lower. No electricity is used for descending.

When the elevator car arrives at a landing, brakes lock it in place then the door will open so passengers may enter or exit.

The shaftless PVE elevators, though drastically different than traditional elevators, have the operational and safety features you expect. They are full-functioning, familiar controls with automated control using buttons and equipped with emergency alarm and phone, interior lights, and safety features.

What Is a Shaftless Elevator Installation Like?

Installation of a vacuum elevator is hard to explain because it is so different from building a shaft and then assembling a traditional elevator piece-by-piece. It is difficult to grasp what it looks like when your elevator arrives in pre-assembled and tested modules that when stacked on top of one another, create a fully functioning elevator.

A video is the best way to show you how shaftless home elevator installation happens. And Vanilla Ice (aka Rob Van Winkle) of rapping fame turned construction contractor and home flipping show host makes it fun to see how one of these vacuum elevators is assembled.

Shaftless Home Elevator Safety

PVE vacuum elevators are manufactured in Miami, FL. The US manufacturing facility meets the strictest quality and safety standards. These shaftless lifts are certified in all 50 states of the US and during the last 20 years, have been installed and safely operated in more than 90 countries. Each of PVE home elevators is manufactured to specifications required by your home and decor selections mad by you. Then the complete elevator is assembled in the factory where it is safety-tested prior to disassembling into modules, packing, and shipping ready for installation in your home.

Why Buy a Shaftless Home Elevator?

The US’ aging population has more than 3.5 million Americans turning 65 each year. Most will live decades beyond 65 and will increasingly need mobility solutions Many move to accommodate their failing health opting for 1-story homes, homes with elevators, and other helpful aging-in-place considerations. Installing a PVE elevator will not only make it possible for you to stay in your home longer, but will also make your home attractive to more buyers when you are ready to sell.

Our PVE elevators are full-function elevators that meet all local building codes unlike some shaftless elevators on the market such as through-the-floor (TTF) lifts. Three models are available from the smallest elevator in the world, a single passenger PVE30 to the 2-passenger PVE37 to a 3-passenger, wheelchair-accessible PVE52 model.

When you invite us to your home for an in-home elevator consultation, we will examine your home’s architecture and talk with you about your mobility needs you have now and perhaps might face in the future. Then we can make the best recommendations about where to install your shaftless elevator to maximize its usefulness and keep as much square footage as possible in your home.

We look forward to an invitation to your home to provide you with a free, no-obligation quote as well as answer all your questions about how a shaftless home elevator can serve your mobility needs today and in the future. Call (713) 360 7353.

Free, No-Obligation In-Home Estimates

Contact Us

Leave a Reply

CALL US TODAY