Home Lift Size and Load – What Do I Need?

Deciding on a home lift size and load seems easy – but it’s not. If you have specific requirements (e.g. needs to fit an electric wheelchair or carry 500 kg) this can affect everything – the lift technology, the power consumption, the price and the maintenance frequency.

What seems like a small question is actually a huge issue.

The Most Important: Load Does Not Equal Standing Space

Most traditional elevators use load to determine capacity: every person is 75 kg, so a 400 kg load elevator can take 5 people (5 x 75 = 375 kg).

This creates ridiculous situations where a 500 kg home lift will say it is for 6 people, but it is so small that you could only fit in 2 – and only if they aren’t too big!

The right metric to look at is ‘standing space’. Usually, you can fit about 3.5 people per square meter, so it is important to look at how much space you actually have. A lift providing 1.5 sqm of standing space will be able to comfortably hold 5 people. Meanwhile, a lift with half a square meter but a 6 person rated load of 500 kg will barely be able to fit 2!

Always ask for the standing space of any elevator you choose!

“I don’t get to choose, I only have _________ space available”

This is a common misunderstanding: that your load and capacity is determined by your space. Thankfully, nothing could be more wrong.

Every technology out there provides a different standing space to used space ratio. Simply put if you have a 1.5 x 1.5 m space for a home lift, a traction lift will waste most of the space with a reinforced concrete shaft, a counterweight, guide rails and space for the doors to open. At the end, you will likely end up with 30-40% of standing space only.

Hydraulic is a little bit better, but the common hydraulic design leads to lots of wasted space as well.

Screw Driven lifts are some of the most space saving options out there. Their unique design can lead to up to 73% of the space being used as standing space. Every one of their sizes is optimized for space utilization and maxing out the number of people that can fit.

I have a Wheelchair, What Home Lift Load Do I Need?

For a wheelchair, standing space is extremely important, but even more so is the door opening. Wheelchairs come in all shapes and sizes but can roughly be summed up in four categories: compact, standard, sports and electric.

Each has a different width, which can range from 60 cm to 130 cm. As you can imagine, a standard home lift opening of 90 cm won’t work with all wheelchair sizes. Check your wheelchair and ask your home lift expert to suggest which size would work best.

Home Lift Load and Power, What’s the Relation?

Generally, the higher the load, the higher the power requirements. When lifts get to very high loads, they require 3 phase electricity and simply cannot operate under 1 phase.

Before looking at load, look at whether you can offer 3 phase power to your home lift. If not, you may have to downgrade to lower loads such as 300 or 400 kg.

However, let’s be honest: home lifts rarely have the need to accommodate more than 4 users at once, even in multi-generational homes. More likely, the average right only holds 2 or 3 people, for which a 300 kg load is more than enough.

Be careful that you do get a good trade-off on power though. If you are looking at a lower load, you should be only having a 2.2 or even 1.5 kW motor. Anything above 3kW will lead to high electricity bills.

Was this article helpful for you? Make sure to check out our article on the best sizes for a home lift!