Capstone: the first-month field log

At the end of her first month, Lena asked Tamsin to hand in her field log and to lead two tasks with Ray watching: a top-of-car and pit visit on one of the Tillicum Building's geared cars on Route 7, and the lockout of a hydraulic car at Holloway Memorial Hospital before a valve replacement. Neither task was new to her. The point was to show that she could plan and carry out each one in the right order, explain why each step was there, and record it properly. This lesson follows the log and the two tasks and brings together the whole course: the industry, the equipment, the safety culture and the procedures for hoistways, pits, lockout, falls, running equipment, electricity, tools and housekeeping.

The field log

Northcrest asks every apprentice to keep a field log: one line per day with the job, the tasks, the hours and anything learned or reported, plus a weekly note. The log supports the official hours record for certification and, more importantly, shows the apprentice's progress. Tamsin's first month looked like this.

Tamsin's weekly notes were short and specific. Week 1: "A JHA control has to name a thing someone will do." Week 2: "Switching off is not lockout. The car is held up by oil." Week 3: "An SRL anchored overhead needs less clearance than a lanyard at my feet." Week 4: "Test it before you trust it: the interlock, the stop switch, inspection." Lena read them aloud at the branch meeting as an example of what a log should contain.

# Hours check from the field log after the first month
days = [8, 8, 8, 8, 8,  8, 8, 8, 8, 9,  8, 8, 10, 10, 8,  8, 8, 8, 8, 8]   # 20 working days
kinds = {"installation": 9, "service": 5, "repair": 3, "modernization": 3}   # days of each kind
total = sum(days)
print(f"hours this month: {total}")
for k, d in kinds.items():
    print(f"  {k:<14} {d:2d} days ({100 * d / len(days):.0f} %)")
required = 8000
print(f"share of the 8,000-hour Class A requirement logged so far: {100 * total / required:.1f} %")

hours this month: 165
  installation    9 days (45 %)
  service         5 days (25 %)
  repair          3 days (15 %)
  modernization   3 days (15 %)
share of the 8,000-hour Class A requirement logged so far: 2.1 %

Task 1: a top-of-car and pit visit at the Tillicum Building

The Tillicum Building's car 2 is a geared traction elevator with a relay controller, a machine room in the penthouse and no car top guardrail. The work order was a routine maintenance visit: inspect the car top equipment and door operator, check the hoistway, then inspect the pit, buffers and governor tension sheave. Tamsin started with the JHA, which listed the steps in the order she would do them, with the hazards and controls for each.

The visit went well, with one stop. On the car top, during the interlock check at the 6th floor landing, Tamsin noticed that the hoistway door's closer was weak: the door did not close fully on its own when released. She stopped, called it to Ray, and they wrote it up as a deficiency for repair that afternoon. Ray pointed out that the weak closer would not have been found if she had been in a hurry. In the pit, she found a puddle of oil under the counterweight buffer, an oil buffer whose oil level then checked low. Both items went into the logbook and the work order, with a note to the building manager.

On the way out of the pit, Tamsin climbed to the landing and, before she had returned the pit stop switch to run, a tenant walked up to the lobby barricade and asked when the elevator would be back. Ray answered while Tamsin finished. Her log entry for the day included the line: "People will always talk to you at the worst moment. Finish the step."

Task 2: the hydraulic lockout at Holloway Memorial Hospital

Holloway's car 1 is a four-stop in-ground hydraulic serving the emergency department, imaging and two inpatient floors. Northcrest was replacing its control valve as part of the modernization, and the hospital's facilities manager had agreed a four-hour window during the night with car 2 kept in service for patients. Infection control rules required the work area at the power unit to be inside a sealed barrier with negative air, and every worker had completed the hospital's orientation. Before the night, Tamsin worked out the stored energy and pressure in the system with Ray.

# Holloway car 1: static pressure and stored energy in the hydraulic system
import math
g = 9.81
car = 2300            # car and sling, kg
plunger = 700         # plunger, kg
rated = 2000          # rated load, kg
d = 0.150             # plunger diameter, m
h = 12.0              # travel from buffers to the top landing, m
A = math.pi * d**2 / 4
for label, load in (("empty car", 0), ("full rated load", rated)):
    W = (car + plunger + load) * g
    p = W / A
    print(f"{label}: static pressure {p / 1e6:.2f} MPa ({p / 6895:.0f} psi)")
E = (car + plunger) * g * h
print(f"stored energy with the empty car at the top landing: {E / 1000:.0f} kJ")
print(f"oil in the cylinder at the top landing: {A * h * 1000:.0f} L")

empty car: static pressure 1.67 MPa (242 psi)
full rated load: static pressure 2.78 MPa (403 psi)
stored energy with the empty car at the top landing: 353 kJ
oil in the cylinder at the top landing: 212 L

The figures gave Tamsin a feel for the system. The static pressure is modest for hydraulics, but the oil in the cylinder holds up several tonnes, and the stored energy with the car at the top is the energy of the car falling the full height of the building. Opening the valve body with the car above its buffers would release it. The lockout therefore had to bring that energy down to zero before any fitting was opened.

Tamsin's written lockout sheet, checked by Ray before they started and by Lena afterwards, had these steps.

• Prepare: read the written procedure for the unit and the valve maker's instructions; identify every energy source (mainline, car light and fan, the old valve's solenoids, oil pressure, gravity, hot oil); gather locks, tags, a hasp, a tested voltage tester, absorbent and drip trays.
• Notify: confirm with the facilities manager and the charge nurse on each floor that car 1 is out of service and car 2 is in service; signs and barricades at all four landings.
• Shut down: run the car to the lowest landing on normal operation, then on inspection lower it onto its buffers and continue lowering until the pressure gauge shows the car's weight is off the oil.
• Isolate: open the mainline disconnect and the car light and fan disconnect; close the manual shut-off valve in the oil line.
• Lock and tag: Ray's and Tamsin's personal locks on the mainline disconnect hasp, the car light disconnect and the shut-off valve lockout device, each with a tag.
• Release stored energy: relieve the pressure trapped between the shut-off valve and the control valve by the method in the valve maker's instructions, into a container; confirm the gauge reads zero; let the oil cool.
• Verify: try a call from the lobby and an inspection run from the controller; nothing moves; controls back to off; live-dead-live test at the valve solenoid terminals and the controller.
• Work and restore: replace the valve; refill and bleed as specified; remove tools; tell the facilities manager; remove locks in reverse order of application by their owners; test run on inspection and normal operation; check the valve adjustment and the levelling; return car 1 to service.

The work went to plan, with one change. When Tamsin opened the shut-off valve after the new valve was fitted, a slow drip appeared at a fitting. She closed the shut-off valve again, relieved the pressure, confirmed zero on the gauge and tightened the fitting before reopening. Ray said it was the right call, made in the right order, and that he would have done the same.

What the month showed

Lena's review of the month covered three points. First, Tamsin had done every procedure in order, and when something was not as expected, she had stopped and called it. Second, her JHAs had improved from vague to specific, and her controls now named actions and devices. Third, she still needed practice at estimating time: both tasks had taken longer than planned, and in occupied buildings that matters to the people waiting for the elevator. Lena's answer was not to rush, but to plan more carefully, with the procedure steps written out in advance so that each one takes as long as it needs and no longer.

The review ended with the outline of the year ahead. Tamsin would spend most of the next months at Quayside Tower, where hoistway construction and rail setting would be the main work, the subject of the next course in the program. The hospital modernization, the mall escalators and Route 7 would bring her back to hydraulics, escalators and service, each with its own course later in the program. Every one of them would build on the procedures in this course.