All news
2,000 elevators may be stopped in the Voronezh region at once
"It is not possible to extend." Discussions about where to put the comma in this phrase took place this fall in the State Duma, the Ministry of Construction, and the state enterprise "Dom.RF" in connection with the situation in the elevator industry. In accordance with the technical regulations of the Customs Union "Elevator Safety", after February 15, 2025, management bodies are required to stop operating elevators that have been in operation for more than 25 years. If the management company does not do this, Rostekhnadzor will have to intervene. Now the authorities are deciding what to do.
We haven't thought about the service life of elevators for a long time.
In the Soviet Union, the national standard for elevators clearly stipulated the load capacity, cabin capacity, speed, and technical inspection period for the elevator, but did not specify the service life of the elevator. Since all buildings were state-owned, it was expected that the next inspection would show how worn out the mechanisms were, the replacement of which was planned to be carried out at state expense. However, in Soviet times, the authorities rarely encountered the problem of replacing elevators, at least in Voronezh. Until 1991, most Voronezh buildings with elevators were no more than 20 years old.
In the mid-1990s, a new GOST was adopted, which for the first time introduced the term "standard service life of elevators." The authors of the standard considered this period to be 25 years. However, in the early 2000s, many elevators celebrated their 25th anniversary and were still working. After all, according to the law, it was no longer the state that had to comply with this GOST, but the residents themselves, who after privatization became the owners of common property, including elevators. Municipalities across the country continued to provide housing services, but elevators remained virtually unchanged. At that time, there was no practice of collecting targeted donations from residents.
In 2011, the Customs Union Technical Regulation "Safety of Elevators" was adopted. Like GOST, the current version of the document states that the expected service life of elevators is 25 years. But this time, it clearly stipulated that all elevators must be brought into compliance by February 15, 2025. That is, the author slightly concealed the direct requirement to replace all elevators older than 25 years by this date.
Perhaps, now we will surprise you. The requirements of technical regulations for the replacement of elevators apply only to the owners of the building, that is, to the owners of apartments in the building. Therefore, local authorities followed the same path, using donations from residents to include the replacement of elevators in their capital repair program. At first, the replacement went smoothly and slowly, but as 2025 approached, it noticeably accelerated, including in the Voronezh region.
At the beginning of 2024, the Minister of Energy of the regional housing and communal services Evgeny BAZHANOV said "MINE!" There are about 2,800 elevators in operation in the region, each of which is more than 25 years old. About a thousand of them are not under the responsibility of the authorities at all. This is an elevator in a building whose residents decided to carry out major repairs on a special account. Therefore, the owners themselves must take care of replacing the elevators in these buildings. Over the next few years, another 1,800 elevators will be included in the major repair program.
In October of this year, the Capital Repairs Fund launched the "MOE!" program. In response to a request, it was announced that 702 elevators in 216 apartment buildings were planned to be replaced in 2024. At the time of the response to the request, the replacement of 438 elevators in a 148-apartment building had been fully completed and approved. This means that the fund has a better chance of completing the planned work on time.
In buildings with special accounts, the replacement of elevators was practically not prevented, and in most cases there are no funds for this. Thus, by February 15, 2025, the region will have about 2,000 elevators whose service life will exceed 25 years. There are 57,000 such elevators in Russia as a whole out of approximately 600,000, and another 20,000 are approaching the end of their established service life.
The problem is that no one can explain why the stated service life of the elevator is exactly 25 years. Correspondent of "MOE!" I have repeatedly spoken with experts in the elevator industry. And they all agreed that the durability of the elevator depends on timely maintenance, as well as on the integrity of the manufacturer and installer. In some cases, after 25 years, it will be enough to replace several units and assemblies in your elevator.
If the manufacturer and installer create problems, the elevator in your new building will not work properly. Especially those with modern electronic "brains". We remind you that in the residential complex "European Business Class" in Voronezh in July of this year, a delivery service worker miraculously did not die. When the man got out of the elevator, the room suddenly began to move and quickly rise upward. If the delivery driver had hesitated even for a few seconds, he would have died.
Recently, voices have been increasingly vocal in proposing to extend the service life of elevators. "Of course, we will extend it for another five years, that's clear," Vitaly MUTKO, head of the state enterprise Dom.RF, confidently declared at a government meeting in the State Duma in May of this year.
"There is no other way. Because if this deadline is not postponed, Rostekhnadzor will start suspending the operation of all elevators older than 25 years from 2025. This is impossible without state support," Svetlana RAZVOROTNEVA, Deputy Chair of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Public Utilities, said in an interview with the parliamentary newspaper.
Vladimir GORODETSKY, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Federal Structures, noted that the Territorial Development Fund is authorized to provide financial assistance to regions for the modernization of elevators that have reached the end of their service life.
Overall, the fact that representatives of the people at least started talking about state aid is a huge plus. Let me remind you: “Mine!” We have already told you that other necessary work was postponed by local authorities to a later date in the capital repairs program to meet the requirements for replacing elevators. For example, the total cost of work performed under the Capital Repairs Fund competition in 2023 amounted to 3 0816 million rubles. Of this amount, 1.8 billion rubles were spent on replacing elevators. This means that 47% of the total funding for the capital repairs program went to elevators. Of the 5.8 billion rubles allocated for capital repairs this year, 1.9 billion rubles will go to replacing elevators.
At the moment, no decision has been made to extend the elevator's service life or to provide any government support measures.