Pincus Elevator Co.: West Chester firm launches 70%+ more efficient product

In a sleepy West Chester office park sits a 60-year-old elevator maintenance and installation company, and the firm is trying to squeeze efficiencies and innovation into an industry at least a century and a half old.

This year, the Pincus Elevator Company began installing what it calls”Machine Room-Less Elevators,” which locates a smaller, more efficient, magnet motor above the individual elevator, rather than in a separate machine room as has been custom since the 1850s or so.

Because the technology is relatively new, the focus has been in low to mid-rise buildings, with fewer than two dozen floors.

The big benefit, said company president Matt Pincus, is the efficiency.

“It’s an estimated 70 percent to 80 percent energy savings over standard hydraulic elevators,” said Pincus. That comes with a cost — the price of an ‘MRL’ is 30 percent more expensive than a similarly sized standard elevator.

But they have been installed in Center City already — at 1025 Arch Street and 1148 Wharton Street, said spokeswoman Lauren Wenzel.

Other innovations, says Pincus:

• MRLs reduce the size of the electrical feeders needed to power the elevator due to a more efficient design.
• MRLs eliminate the environmental concerns over buried hydraulic oil filled cylinders.
• MRLs utilizes a gearless-type traction machine which provides a better ride quality and faster speeds over a hydraulic elevator.