It was a Tuesday morning in March 2023, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. I’d just wrapped up the specs for a four-stop elevator replacement in a mid-rise office building. The architect had signed off. The general contractor was ready to order. I clicked “send” on the purchase request with the satisfaction of a job—finally—checked off my list.
Two weeks later, the fabrication drawing came back. That’s when the feeling shifted from satisfaction to something colder.
I had specified the wrong Kone MonoSpace® machine-room-less (MRL) elevator. Not the wrong brand—the wrong configuration. And it took a full day of panic, three phone calls, and a very patient Kone planner to understand exactly what I’d done wrong.
Here’s the story of that mistake, and the checklist I built to make sure none of my team ever repeats it.
The Setup: Why I Thought I Had It Right
The building was a 1970s-era office with a classic traction elevator that had finally given up. The owner wanted a modern replacement—quiet, energy-efficient, and capable of fitting into the existing hoistway without major structural work. That pretty much screams “MRL elevator,” and Kone’s MonoSpace line was the obvious choice.
I’d done MRL specs before. I knew the basics: no separate machine room, the motor sits in the hoistway, and the Ecodisc® permanent-magnet synchronous motor is what makes the whole thing work. Fewer moving parts, less heat, lower energy consumption. Standard stuff for a commercial elevator replacement.
I pulled up the Kone MonoSpace planner, entered the basic parameters—capacity, speed, number of stops, travel distance—and hit “generate.” The planner spat out a model number. I copied it onto the spec sheet.
Done. Or so I thought.
The question everyone asks is: “Does it fit in the hoistway?” The question they should ask is: “Does the pit depth match the existing structure, the rail brackets clear the installed guide rails without interference, and has the overhead clearance been triple-checked against the floor-to-floor height?”
Most buyers focus on per-unit pricing and completely miss the setup fees, revision costs, and structural modifications that can add 30-50% to the total cost.
The Disaster: What Actually Went Wrong
The Pit Depth Mismatch
The MonoSpace planner allows you to configure pit depth—the space below the lowest landing where the elevator car sits when it’s fully compressed on its buffers. My building had a pit depth of 1,200mm. The model I selected required 1,500mm.
That’s a 300mm difference. Doesn’t sound like much, right? Wrong. In elevator terms, that’s a structural modification. It means jack-hammering the existing pit floor, underpinning the foundation, waterproofing, and re-pouring concrete. That’s a week of work and roughly $2,800 in unexpected costs—if you’re lucky.
The Kone planner does allow you to filter by pit depth. I just didn’t use it.
The Rail Bracket Interference
Here’s the part that really got me: even if the pit had been deep enough, the guide rail brackets on my specified model would have interfered with an existing structural column in the hoistway. Not something you catch on a standard plan view. The Kone planner flagged it during the fabrication review, but by then, the order was already in the system.
People think that using an elevator planner prevents mistakes. Actually, the planner prevents some mistakes if you feed it the right data. If you feed it bad data—or incomplete data—it will happily generate a model that doesn’t fit.
The Cost of Getting It Wrong
The total hit came to $3,200.
Here’s the breakdown:
- $1,850: Change order fee for re-processing the order with the correct configuration (Kone was understanding, but the admin fee was non-negotiable)
- $890: Structural survey fee to verify the actual pit condition and rail bracket layout (I insisted on a site visit after the screw-up)
- $460: Shipping delay charges because the new model had a longer lead time
Plus a 2-week project delay that made the GC very unhappy. And the embarrassment of telling the building owner, “Actually, we need to dig a hole in your pit floor.”
Not my finest moment.
How I Fixed It: The Pre-Order Checklist
After the third rejection in Q1 2024 on a different project (not mine—a junior engineer’s—but the error was related), I created a pre-check list that now lives on our shared drive. Every Kone (or any MRL) elevator spec has to pass this before it goes to procurement.
1. Pit Depth: The First Gate
Check: Does the configured pit depth match the as-built condition?
Source: Structural drawings, not the architect’s elevations. I learned this the hard way.
Per Kone’s technical documentation (available via the planner), MRL elevators require a specific minimum pit depth based on travel distance and car speed. It’s not negotiable. If the existing pit is too shallow, you need a different model—or a structural modification, which is a whole separate budget line.
2. Rail Bracket Clearance
Check: Do the guide rail brackets clear existing structural elements in the hoistway?
How: Overlay the Kone rail bracket layout onto the hoistway section drawing. If you don’t have a section drawing, get one. If you can’t get one, flag it as a risk.
The Kone planner provides bracket spacing and dimensions. Use them. Don’t assume that if it fits in the X-Y plan, it fits in the Z-axis.
3. Overhead Clearance (The Forgotten Dimension)
Check: Is there enough space above the top landing for the machine beam, deflector sheave, and the car top clearance?
Tip: Most people measure the hoistway height from the top floor slab. You need to measure from the finished floor level at the top landing to the underside of the overhead structure. These are often different numbers.
4. Door Opening vs. Landing Width
Check: Does the specified door opening fit within the existing landing width?
Honest moment: I once specified a 900mm wide door for a landing that was only 1,100mm wide. The door frame plus the wall clearances didn’t work. That was a separate $450 mistake.
Kone offers doors in standard widths. Check the landing wall dimensions before you pick one.
The Lesson (I Wish I’d Learned Cheaper)
There’s something satisfying about a properly specified elevator order. After all the stress and coordination, seeing the unit drop into the hoistway without a single field modification—that’s the payoff.
But here’s the thing: elevator planners are tools, not oracles. They generate valid configurations based on the inputs you provide. If you skip the site verification or default to “standard” dimensions without checking, you’re not using the tool—you’re setting it up to fail.
An informed customer asks better questions and makes faster decisions. I’d rather spend 10 minutes explaining pit depth requirements than deal with a change order that costs the project $3,200 and my credibility a whole lot more.
We’ve caught 47 potential errors using this checklist in the past 18 months. Not all of them would have been as expensive as my MonoSpace mistake, but together, they would have cost a small fortune.
That $3,200? It was expensive tuition. But the checklist is now paying dividends.
