Home / Templates / Home Elevator Pre-Contract Planning Checklist
Free checklist

Home Elevator Pre-Contract Planning Checklist

A printable checklist of everything to confirm about your house, your installer, and the proposal before you sign a residential elevator contract.

Download the checklist (.txt)

Reviewed for 2026, updated September 8, 2026.

A residential elevator is a piece of regulated machinery that lives inside the structure of your home, and the decisions that matter most are made before any equipment is ordered. This checklist follows the same order as a well run project: how the elevator will be used, where it can plausibly go, which drive systems fit, what the proposal must include, and what the contract should assign to whom. Print it, bring it to every site survey and installer meeting, and tick items only when you have the answer in writing.

The list draws on the themes covered in The Definitive Guide to Luxury Residential Home Elevators and the articles on space and structural work, safety features, and ongoing maintenance. Pair it with the Home Elevator Hoistway Footprint Calculator when you are checking whether a location works, and with the Home Elevator Ownership Cost Calculator once you have service quotes in hand. Homeliftr is an independent editorial site and may earn a commission on some links, which never changes what we recommend.

  • Decide who will ride the elevator most often, including anyone who uses a wheelchair or walker, and whether it must support aging in place.
  • List every landing the car should serve and confirm which floors truly need a stop, since each additional stop adds a door, a call station, and construction work.
  • Identify a hoistway location that stacks floor to floor, such as aligned closets, an oversized hallway, space beside a stair, or an exterior bump-out.
  • Measure the pit depth available below the lowest landing and the overhead clearance above the highest landing, and note any roofline or attic conflicts.
  • Confirm whether a machine closet within a short distance of the hoistway is available if a hydraulic pump and controller are proposed.
  • Ask each installer which drive systems genuinely fit the house, whether hydraulic, traction, winding drum, or pneumatic, and why the others were ruled out.
  • Request a written preliminary budget range that covers equipment, hoistway construction, pit, electrical, structural work, landing finishes, permits, and inspection.
  • Verify that the company holds the elevator contractor license your state requires and ask for a current certificate of insurance.
  • Ask how many units of the proposed model the company has installed locally and request addresses of a few you can visit.
  • Ride a comparable installed elevator and listen for noise both inside the cab and in the rooms adjacent to the shaft and machine closet.
  • Confirm the proposal meets the edition of the ASME A17.1 private residence section adopted by your state, including the hall door to car gate gap rule.
  • Check that door interlocks, a gate switch, emergency lowering, battery backup, and a two-way communication device are included rather than listed as options.
  • Decide between swing hall doors paired with a gate and automatic sliding doors, and ask for both configurations to be priced.
  • Choose cab finishes early and confirm in writing that their weight is accounted for in the rated load and the drive selection.
  • Establish who builds the hoistway and to what tolerances, and have that responsibility written into the contract.
  • Confirm who supplies the dedicated power circuit, the cab lighting circuit, and the telephone or communication line.
  • Get the equipment lead time in writing and align the order date with the builder's hoistway schedule so neither side waits on the other.
  • Read the warranty terms for parts and for labor separately and note the length of each period.
  • Ask whether the control system is proprietary and whether an independent service company could maintain it in the future.
  • Have the annual service contract quoted alongside the installation, with the number of visits and the entrapment response time stated.
  • Ask whether replacement parts are stocked locally and how quickly a technician can reach the house after a breakdown.
  • Clarify who repairs and matches the landing finishes, flooring, and trim at every stop once installation is complete.
  • Confirm the permit and third-party inspection process, including who schedules the inspection and who attends it.
  • Start a project folder with drawings, proposals, permits, and warranty documents, and keep the service record in it for future buyers.
Free to use and sharehttps://homeliftr.com/templates/home-elevator-pre-contract-checklist/

Use it in your business, share it with your team, or link to it from your own site.

Also from Homeliftr