Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / HydraSafe Brake Preventing Elevator Failures | Kevin Cunningham, Part 2
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean I mean code when I mean by code driving it, uh A seventeen three uh twenty twenty drives that in an ass sense of that's an existing elevator code.
- 0:09SPEAKER_02: So the existing elevator code states every elevator uh if it's retroactive has to have an unintended ascending movement device on there.
- 0:17SPEAKER_02: Okay so states like uh Nevada, uh Florida, um going back, if they don't have a device, they need to be compliant by a certain year.
- 0:25SPEAKER_02: So they usually give them a couple years, give the give the building owners a couple years to be compliant.
- 0:30SPEAKER_02: And and there again, that's what's what what has been driving our device.
- 0:35SPEAKER_02: Um New York City, New York City has a has what they call a a single plunger uh type of uh a code where any any elevator machine with a single plunger type of a brake, uh you need to take care of that with a device like ours.
- 0:52SPEAKER_02: Okay, again, a a rope brake type of device, uh, because those single plungers years ago could stick, and that single plunger lifts both sides of a brake shoe.
- 1:02SPEAKER_04: Okay.
- 1:03SPEAKER_02: And basically, if it sticks, you're not clamping down that machine keeps moving, and the elevator keeps driving toward the top or bottom of the wastewave.
- 1:12SPEAKER_03: Hello, and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
- 1:18SPEAKER_03: I am your host, Matt Allred.
- 1:20SPEAKER_03: In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers.
- 1:36SPEAKER_03: Today we're sitting down with Kevin Cunningham, an elevator professional and entrepreneur, who, along with his partner Tim Tone, turned a critical safety challenge into a mission to safeguard lives.
- 1:48SPEAKER_03: Their company, Hydra Safe Break, isn't just creating a product, they're creating peace of mind for everyone who steps into an elevator.
- 1:56SPEAKER_03: This is a story of how a commitment to safety can transform an entire industry, proving that with vision and determination, we can make the world a little bit safer, one elevator at a time.
- 2:09SPEAKER_03: This is part two.
- 2:10SPEAKER_03: Kevin, welcome to the show.
- 2:12SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
- 2:13SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me.
- 2:14SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
- 2:14SPEAKER_03: I'm excited to be able to talk again.
- 2:16SPEAKER_03: It was a lot of fun getting to talk about your career and uh want to learn a little bit more about HydroSafe Break.
- 2:23SPEAKER_03: And that's that's the company that you and Tim started, correct?
- 2:26SPEAKER_02: Yes, my partner and I started a company, uh HydroSafe Break, and it's uh it's uh we developed a device, uh an unintended ascending movement device for the elevator, for the elevator business.
- 2:38SPEAKER_02: Um it's more of a safety device.
- 2:40SPEAKER_03: Uh we say ascending, unattended ascending.
- 2:44SPEAKER_03: To me, I mean, does that mean going up?
- 2:46SPEAKER_03: But I I guess I'm under I I just want to clarify because uh I I assumed it was if it's gonna fall, right?
- 2:52SPEAKER_02: You need to you're at your ascending, your ascending would be going up, your unattended would be going down.
- 2:57SPEAKER_02: So in certain situations with with traction elevators that are counterweighted.
- 3:01SPEAKER_03: Right, right, right.
- 3:02SPEAKER_02: Right?
- 3:02SPEAKER_02: So your 40% heavier elevator is gonna head up.
- 3:05SPEAKER_02: So let's say uh in case of a brake failure, your brake fails.
- 3:08SPEAKER_02: Um a pad can't clamp, a spring brake, so whatever the case may be, uh uh your plunger hangs up or something like that, the elevator is just going to drift.
- 3:18SPEAKER_02: Or it might run away sporadically uh again because of some other mechanical uh or maybe even an electrical issue.
- 3:26SPEAKER_02: So our device, what it does uh based upon code, code's been driving this now for quite a long time, is once it senses that uh uh our device clamps on the rails.
- 3:37SPEAKER_02: Ours is is activated on the rails, is what our device does.
- 3:41SPEAKER_02: So we we we basically uh took a set of uh disc brakes and we put them on an elevator is what we did.
- 3:48SPEAKER_03: That's cool.
- 3:49SPEAKER_03: And and like I say, just grab hold of the to the of the rail and and as long as it pinches tight, it's not going anywhere.
- 3:55SPEAKER_02: No, as long as it as long as it pinches the rail like a set of safeties normally would, it does not go anywhere.
- 4:01SPEAKER_02: Uh uh so it's it's kind of a neat system.
- 4:04SPEAKER_02: Uh uh and also what the features will do and later on down the line, which we're in development on now, is to be able to, like a set of disc brakes, pulsate.
- 4:12SPEAKER_02: Let me be able to pulsate.
- 4:13SPEAKER_02: If you do have a problem in an elevator and you cut get stuck in a blind hoist way, you gotta get the people out.
- 4:18SPEAKER_02: First responders are coming in.
- 4:19SPEAKER_02: What can they do?
- 4:20SPEAKER_02: We we we we have features where they can go to a lobby panel and take the key and pulsate that and and and go so so essentially it goes down slowly because it's it's gonna bite, bite, bite, bite as it goes down the road.
- 4:33SPEAKER_02: It would kind of like that.
- 4:34SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you'd actually be going up in in in that type of it depends how many people are in an elevator, but yes, that would actually be the concept of it.
- 4:41SPEAKER_02: Yes.
- 4:42SPEAKER_02: And and and to get that to a safe landing, open the doors, break sets, you know you're safe.
- 4:48SPEAKER_02: First responders are safe as well.
- 4:50SPEAKER_02: They could exit people out of the elevator, and then a technician uh can also then start taking a look at what the problem is.
- 4:56SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 4:57SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
- 4:58SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm I'm a little intrigued because you know, elevators have been around 150 years.
- 5:02SPEAKER_03: And so part of me is saying, well, why didn't this get invented 100 years ago?
- 5:08SPEAKER_03: And and and here it is.
- 5:10SPEAKER_03: Um so explain that a little bit to me.
- 5:12SPEAKER_03: You're saying the the code is actually developed to where it's saying, hey, we need a and essentially a second break.
- 5:18SPEAKER_03: We need we need protection in case the brake fails.
- 5:22SPEAKER_02: A redundancy feature basically that's built into the system for safety.
- 5:25SPEAKER_02: So um, you know what what what has happened over the course of the years is again, like I say, brakes fail.
- 5:31SPEAKER_02: Elevator can be open at a floor, and all of a sudden it brake fails and the elevator drifts away, whether it's in the up or down direction.
- 5:37SPEAKER_04: Sure.
- 5:38SPEAKER_02: Could take off at any time.
- 5:39SPEAKER_02: So again, with the brake failures, they needed a secondary measure, right?
- 5:43SPEAKER_02: A redundancy.
- 5:44SPEAKER_02: Um there's other products out there uh within within the field that we got into called the rope brake, where you stop the ropes on an elevator.
- 5:52SPEAKER_02: There's an external type of a disc that would mount on a machine.
- 5:56SPEAKER_02: And with both of those, uh, again, uh with a rope brake, your machine could potentially keep spinning.
- 6:02SPEAKER_02: Again, you're gonna stop the ropes and stop the elevator.
- 6:05SPEAKER_02: On a disc type, your elevator can keep moving because your ropes are kind of sliding over that that that that shiv.
- 6:12SPEAKER_02: Ours stops directly on the car, so you're you're literally stopping the car right where it's at.
- 6:16SPEAKER_02: So a little different, uh, a little different way of stopping an elevator.
- 6:20SPEAKER_03: Yeah, tell me tell me a little bit about the demand for this.
- 6:23SPEAKER_03: You mentioned code is are there customers saying, hey, we want your device?
- 6:28SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I mean code, when I mean by code driving it, uh A173 uh 2020 drives that in an essence of that's an existing elevator code.
- 6:38SPEAKER_02: So the existing elevator code states every elevator, uh, if it's retroactive, has to have an unintended ascending movement device on there.
- 6:46SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 6:46SPEAKER_02: So states like uh Nevada, uh Florida, um going back, if they don't have a device, they need to be compliant by a certain year.
- 6:54SPEAKER_02: So they usually give them a couple years, give the give the building owners a couple years to be compliant.
- 6:59SPEAKER_02: And and there again, that's what's what what has been driving our device.
- 7:04SPEAKER_02: Um New York City, New York City has a has what they call a single plunger uh type of uh a code where any any elevator machine with a single plunger type of a brake, uh you need to take care of that with a device like ours.
- 7:21unknown: Okay.
- 7:21SPEAKER_02: Uh again, a a rope brake type of device, uh, because those single plungers years ago could stick, and that single plunger lifts both sides of a brake shift.
- 7:31SPEAKER_04: Okay.
- 7:32SPEAKER_02: And basically, if it sticks, you're not clamping down that machine keeps moving in the elevator, keeps driving toward the top or bottom of the hoistwap.
- 7:41SPEAKER_03: Gotcha.
- 7:42SPEAKER_03: Gotcha.
- 7:43SPEAKER_03: Um so um you you yeah, obviously you it's uh yeah, works for, like I say, the ascending or the or the descending.
- 7:54SPEAKER_03: Um and I think you had mentioned the brakes on on uh the roped elevators before as we've talked, but it sounded like from what I the impression I got that a lot of hydraulic elevators maybe didn't have much to hold them.
- 8:06SPEAKER_03: They're just gonna fall.
- 8:08SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, I mean hydraulic elevators again, uh we when we built our uh device, we wanted a device that could work on really all types of elevators.
- 8:17SPEAKER_02: Uh the other two I mentioned, those disc driven and and the and the rope brake type applications, only work on traction elevators.
- 8:25SPEAKER_04: Okay.
- 8:26SPEAKER_02: Ours works on hydraulic elevators.
- 8:28SPEAKER_02: Any elevator with T-rails, sure, our device will work on.
- 8:31SPEAKER_02: So what is a hydraulic, a regular in-ground hydraulic type of a uh uh if it's not a roped hydraulic, right?
- 8:38SPEAKER_02: It has no safety device.
- 8:39SPEAKER_02: So really no no no safety device on a hydraulic elevator if it isn't roped.
- 8:44SPEAKER_02: What does roped mean?
- 8:46SPEAKER_02: Rope means it has a set of hoist ropes, uh counterweighted and does have a device that would set a governor and trip a governor uh in case of a runaway or an over or an over speed, right?
- 8:58SPEAKER_02: Um so that's the rope side of it.
- 9:01SPEAKER_02: Um a regular hydraulic elevator, though, um doesn't really have any type of device.
- 9:05SPEAKER_02: So if you've got if you get a cylinder that maybe has a hole due to excessive water in the ground and over the years it blew a hole, that elevator, it cannot go up, it would only go down because you're losing pressure.
- 9:17SPEAKER_02: So once you sense that, our device senses that based off uh of an encoder, uh, if you will, understands where the counts are, floor level, things of that nature, and would clamp on the rails, stop the elevator, and shut the elevator down.
- 9:31SPEAKER_03: Gotcha.
- 9:32SPEAKER_03: Gotcha.
- 9:33SPEAKER_03: Um you had mentioned some time ago in a conversation uh a hospital that that lost its CAT scan machine.
- 9:40SPEAKER_03: Uh what happened in that situation?
- 9:43SPEAKER_02: You know, that was uh it was a it was uh uh unfortunate situation.
- 9:47SPEAKER_02: The elevator came up to the landing, opened the doors, they were about to wheel a machine on there, and what happened is that that the packing in that certain situation um actually blew out, uh, which again was not able to contain the pressure inside that cylinder, right?
- 10:05SPEAKER_02: So what happened is the elevator took off and went down.
- 10:08SPEAKER_02: Literally took that machine, the scanner, the CT scanner that they were wheeling in, and cut that in half, caused a lot of damage, wedged the elevator at the opening, and caused quite a bit of damage.
- 10:20SPEAKER_02: So, with that, that prompted um prompted some hospitals to uh uh give us a call and said, hey, do you your device, it can stop that from ever happening?
- 10:31SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, it can.
- 10:33SPEAKER_02: And and a lot what you see out there is you see a lot of buildings, hospitals or whatnot, uh public use, uh government facilities, uh commercial buildings or whatnot.
- 10:42SPEAKER_02: Their elevators are old.
- 10:43SPEAKER_02: They might not have the money or they don't want to, you know.
- 10:45SPEAKER_02: So, but what we did find is in hospital situations and public use, they they always have money for safety features, and that's a good safety feature to have.
- 10:54SPEAKER_02: So that's increased our our end by saying, hey, you have a device that would work.
- 10:59SPEAKER_02: Yes, we do.
- 11:00SPEAKER_02: We'll keep the public safe.
- 11:01SPEAKER_02: Yes it will.
- 11:02SPEAKER_02: So that's that's sparked a lot of interest.
- 11:05SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, and and you you obviously have a a group of of customers there that that uh they can see the immediate benefit.
- 11:14SPEAKER_03: I mean, uh obviously you're super super fortunate that no one was was on yes, was in there with the CAT scan machine, because I know those things are not cheap and they're not light.
- 11:25SPEAKER_02: No.
- 11:26SPEAKER_03: And that could have been much more catastrophic than just a CAT scan machine in an elevator.
- 11:32SPEAKER_02: You know, and they look at it and they say, hey, look, uh uh they've had problems on elevators in the past, and and when people are involved and they hurt themselves or they may get killed or wedged in an elevator, the the cost of that lawsuit is just it's is is is astronomical.
- 11:50SPEAKER_02: So when you think about a safety device that you're gonna add on an elevator for you know 20,000, 30,000 bucks, uh sure you might have 10 elevators, but boy, it's a hell of a lot cost effective to to to run with a safety device.
- 12:03SPEAKER_02: And your insurance companies look at that too and say, hey, wow, you know what?
- 12:07SPEAKER_02: Now now you've you've you've lessened that liability impact, if you will.
- 12:12SPEAKER_02: And it does affect some of their rates and costs and things of that nature.
- 12:16SPEAKER_03: So uh well, just just the reassurance of of knowing you know, to your point a minute ago, that that a lot of the hydraulic elevators just don't have anything.
- 12:25SPEAKER_03: So who who's to say your packing's not gonna blow and and have some kind of unintended descent that it's like, yeah, we you never know.
- 12:36SPEAKER_02: You don't.
- 12:36SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're packing your your again, uh uh uh you know, electrolysis in the ground, water in the ground, uh transferring back to uh, you know, you get a two, three, four-stop elevator where you have 40 feet of cylinder in the ground.
- 12:50SPEAKER_02: Uh again, it might not be protected by PVC.
- 12:53SPEAKER_02: Today's codes, you're you sink a PVC tubing in there, if you will, and now your cylinder is going in there, so you're keeping that dry, you're keeping that away from all types of catastrophic uh effects on that on that cylinder.
- 13:06SPEAKER_02: So uh again, the odds of you blowing out a cylinder are are are very slim at that point now.
- 13:12SPEAKER_02: But there's there's there's hundreds of thousands of elevators out there hydraulics that um are not do not have that PVC type of a uh a sleeve or encapsulated.
- 13:21SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
- 13:22SPEAKER_03: Well and and yeah, you've you've kind of got a a story to tell now, right?
- 13:26SPEAKER_03: You could only you could kind of approach every hospital in the country and say, oh, here's what happened and and here are the all the people that called us.
- 13:32SPEAKER_03: Do you want to do you want to get on board?
- 13:34SPEAKER_02: Yes.
- 13:35SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's been that's been part of our end as well, contacting some of the folks direct.
- 13:40SPEAKER_02: Uh the elevator companies too have have have looked and looked at our product and says, Well, you know what, this is a pretty unique product.
- 13:46SPEAKER_02: And boy, this would work in a lot of these uh uh situations.
- 13:50SPEAKER_02: So there some of them are smart enough too to go out and say, you know, I'm gonna pitch this to a hospital.
- 13:55SPEAKER_02: That gives me a little bit of what we call open order work in the industry.
- 13:58SPEAKER_02: It gives us our keeps our teams busy, and this is great for a safety factor, right?
- 14:03SPEAKER_02: Uh um, so that's helped.
- 14:04SPEAKER_02: It's helped on both sides.
- 14:06SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
- 14:06SPEAKER_03: How how difficult is it to install on an existing elevator?
- 14:12SPEAKER_02: You know, our our our product is number one, our product is very costly because of the way we did build it.
- 14:18SPEAKER_02: Uh we we we we we built it to to withstand um different climates.
- 14:23SPEAKER_02: Uh Florida, Texas, high humidity.
- 14:26SPEAKER_02: Uh you're in a parking garage, right?
- 14:28SPEAKER_02: We don't want our product to rust.
- 14:29SPEAKER_02: So a lot of what we use is is a lot of stainless within our product.
- 14:34SPEAKER_02: Uh our pumping units, a high pressure pumping unit.
- 14:37SPEAKER_02: So uh the material costs are are higher, but the labor to install it is the biggest ticket, right?
- 14:44SPEAKER_02: So once we have trained folks on how to install our product, normally we tell them it's probably gonna take you about two days if you've never installed one.
- 14:51SPEAKER_02: Okay.
- 14:51SPEAKER_02: After that, we're seeing some of the team, uh, the teams that are out there, the technicians that are out there, we're seeing anywhere from six to eight hours to install one of our devices, uh, and then you're ready to go.
- 15:02SPEAKER_02: You can test it the next day, pass it on inspections or whatnot.
- 15:06SPEAKER_02: But so roughly about a day to install.
- 15:09SPEAKER_02: If you're in a modernization situation, you kind of split that up.
- 15:13SPEAKER_02: You're probably four hours to install the device.
- 15:16SPEAKER_02: Later on down the line, another couple hours to wire it in as you're wiring the car top.
- 15:20SPEAKER_02: So you're even you're even reducing more of the time frame.
- 15:22SPEAKER_02: So the biggest key is the labor savings.
- 15:25SPEAKER_02: Labor savings per team is very, very expensive across the country, depending where you're at.
- 15:30SPEAKER_02: From New York to Chicago to San Francisco, uh uh you could be a thousand dollars an hour for a team rate.
- 15:38SPEAKER_02: So again, when you're when you're spending a couple extra days installing another device, let's say like a rope break or uh or an external disc type, that could take in some situations, you know, anywhere from three days to two weeks to install one of those.
- 15:53SPEAKER_02: Right.
- 15:53SPEAKER_02: So that's a lot of labor.
- 15:55SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, absolutely.
- 15:57SPEAKER_03: And and how long do they last?
- 15:59SPEAKER_03: I mean, would you would you say, hey, you need to replace it every time you modernize your elevator, or or can you take it off and and mod and then just bolt it back on?
- 16:07SPEAKER_02: Or yeah, the best part about ours is it can be reused in a modernization.
- 16:11SPEAKER_02: So with with even some of the uh uh uh uh codes driving the existing elevator end of it with uh uh A1732020 as an example, you can put it on a 15, 20, 25-year-old elevator.
- 16:24SPEAKER_02: And when you do go to modernize, or again, at that time they do have the money uh to put a modernization plan together for all their elevators, uh they could reuse the device.
- 16:33SPEAKER_02: The device can be reused.
- 16:35SPEAKER_02: So that that's not a problem at all.
- 16:36SPEAKER_03: Uh very cool.
- 16:37SPEAKER_03: That's very cool.
- 16:38SPEAKER_03: So if somebody wanted to learn more or see more or um you know, uh understand how it works, where where would you direct them?
- 16:47SPEAKER_02: You know, I I I I'd have you go to our website, hydrasafebreak.com, and it's uh H Y D-R-A-S-A-F-E-B-R-A-K-E.com.
- 16:58SPEAKER_02: And everything is on there.
- 16:59SPEAKER_02: We've got uh tutorials, we've got safety boltons, we've got uh AHJ documentation where the AHJ is how do you inspect the unit?
- 17:09SPEAKER_02: Uh again, uh we're tied in with with NASA and some other platforms uh uh for the uh elevator inspectors that are out there uh as well.
- 17:19SPEAKER_02: So uh we're out and we're trying to uh in certain parts of the country for NASA.
- 17:24SPEAKER_02: Um we're teaching uh our our our end on it's about an hour, goes toward your your CUs for the hours that you need to keep your uh uh elevator inspection license.
- 17:36SPEAKER_02: Um uh um yeah, you need 10 hours a year.
- 17:40SPEAKER_02: So what we do is we try to help them out and we go through code on ours.
- 17:43SPEAKER_04: Sure.
- 17:44SPEAKER_02: Uh we go back to 2.19 A1712.19.
- 17:47SPEAKER_02: We run through all the aspects of that and how to inspect it and things of that nature.
- 17:51SPEAKER_02: So all the information is on the website, uh, and that's the best way to get a hold of us.
- 17:56SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
- 17:57SPEAKER_03: And as we as we wrap up this interview, Kevin, what would you say to those who are maybe teetering on the edge trying to decide if they want to spend that extra money?
- 18:06SPEAKER_02: You know, I uh again, it's it's it's it's a safety product.
- 18:09SPEAKER_02: We're we're we're very big in into safety, and and you know, it's funny when when when when I think back in 1985 when I got in the elevator business and they gave me this little belt and it had a rope on the end of it.
- 18:22SPEAKER_02: Well, today's day and age with harnesses and and the the gloves and the glasses and all the PPE that's out there right now.
- 18:32SPEAKER_02: Uh again, we've advanced so much in technologies and with safety that's out there, why would you want to compromise any one of your elevators uh if you know that you have an avenue to keep the public safe?
- 18:43SPEAKER_02: So that's what I would say.
- 18:45SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's it's a great option.
- 18:47SPEAKER_02: And we're not we're not for every application, but again, for for for several applications out there, uh we're a perfect fit.
- 18:56SPEAKER_03: So awesome.
- 18:57SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
- 18:58SPEAKER_03: Kevin, thank you again.
- 18:59SPEAKER_03: It's been a pleasure as always.
- 19:01SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
- 19:02SPEAKER_02: Appreciate your time and having Hydra Safe Break on your uh on your podcast.
- 19:06SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
- 19:07SPEAKER_03: You bet, you bet.
- 19:08SPEAKER_03: Well, good luck to you as you continue keeping people safe.
- 19:11SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
- 19:11SPEAKER_02: Have a nice day.
- 19:12SPEAKER_03: You too.
- 19:13SPEAKER_03: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
- 19:20SPEAKER_03: Please visit our YouTube channel at Elevator Careers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
- 19:28SPEAKER_03: Please like and subscribe.
- 19:29SPEAKER_03: And until next time, stay safe.