Two of the four passenger elevators in Hesburgh library are out of service, having “suffered driver failures,” according to a statement university spokesperson Erin Blasko sent to The Observer on Tuesday.
Facilities program director Reginald Burton explained the drivers “capture the energy from the motor when the elevator breaks or slows down.” According to Burton, these drivers feed the energy “back into this power grip that is in the elevator and that is what makes the elevator work.”
Blasko said the drivers were sent out for repair. The university expects to see one back as early as tomorrow, while the other should arrive early next week.
“It should take an hour or two to install each of the drivers once they arrive. In the meantime, the other two passenger elevators remain in operation,” Blasko wrote.
Margaret Meserve, vice president and associate provost for academic space and the interim Edward H. Arnold dean of Hesburgh Libraries and University of Notre Dame Press, explained that this is an issue that happens occasionally.
Despite regular maintenance, “each elevator has a number of these parts, and they fail from time to time,” Meserve said. “We are just, at the moment, in an unfortunate situation where the drivers on two of the cars have failed at the same time.”
The delay stems from the lengthy process of replacing parts.
“We are waiting for parts. The parts for these things are very, very expensive and you have to send them out. Once you send them out, you have to wait until they send them back. We have to send the parts all the way to Virginia so they can be rebuilt and then once rebuilt they have to send them back,” Burton said.
The company in Virginia who fixes the parts also outsources parts from another company. In this instance, the parts from the third company are causing the delay.
While no one was able to provide a clear answer on when these elevators were installed, Meserve explained that the library was built in 1963 and has since undergone a significant renovation beginning about a decade ago. She believes the elevators were overhauled during the renovation.
Along with the four passenger elevators, Burton shared the library also has a fifth freight elevator.
“Here in the library we have five [elevators]. We have those four, and we have a freight elevator that goes from the basement to the second floor. It is a bigger elevator and that one was actually less than two years old,” Burton said.
According to Meserve, the university complies with ADA regulations by having elevators carry people to and from the public floors.
“We also have stairs that people can take to every floor, but the elevators are certainly a crucial part of the operation of the building,” she said.
Both Meserve and Burton say they’ve noticed longer waits for the elevators, especially during the recent home football game.
“We don’t really have a way of tracking [elevator wait times], although I would say observationally, I have seen more people waiting in the elevator lobby. Certainly on game day, their visitors come into the library and they like to go up to the upper floors to see the view, and there were some crowds of people waiting around there. I have not seen the same crowds during the week, so my very unscientific sense is that it has not created an undue burden on people waiting to get into the elevators,” Meserve said.
