"Door close" fake elevator button

A friend told me he "knew a guy" who used to work at an elevator factory (Otis elevator is, indeed, located here in Bloomington). He said the story he heard was that the elevator company added the "door close" button when people got frustrated waiting for the door to close. The catch is, the button is not connected to anything, it's just so people feel better.

I thought that was a funny story, if nothing else. Anyone have a clue if its true?

[snopes]

I believe the "close door" button is an artifact of the switch from elevators with manually-operated gates/doors to ones with electronically-operated doors (and from attendant-operated elevators to passenger-operated ones). The modern sensors/timers that automatically regulate the opening and closing of elevator doors came later.

- snopes

[chillas]

I can tell you with absolute certainty, from riding the elevators at work from 6 to 8 times a day, the close door button does, in fact, function.

[tribrats]

I don't have anything to add about the button. But I can tell you that if the transformer or power choke fail, Hubby or I didn't build it! The guy that worked at the machine next to me might have though.

Originally Posted by Beastly Despot

A friend told me he "knew a guy" who used to work at an elevator factory (Otis elevator is, indeed, located here in Bloomington). He said the story he heard was that the elevator company added the "door close" button when people got frustrated waiting for the door to close. The catch is, the button is not connected to anything, it's just so people feel better.

I thought that was a funny story, if nothing else. Anyone have a clue if its true?

[Fantine]

I've lived in two different high-rise buildings over the past 5 years, and none of the elevators had "close door" buttons at all. The doors closed after you hit ANY button (except for the "open door" button).

[FullMetal]

well, in the elevators i've been in I know the close door button WORKS,

the one in my apartment building, (otis elevator btw) had an "individual service" key, which locked out the normal functioning of the elevator so you could load it up with stuff, bring it down to the main level to load up a truck. to make it move at all, you needed to hold down the close door button until the door closed then and only then would it go up or down to the floor specified.

so if some people do disconnect them, they're also disconnecting that feature if available on that particular model of elevator

[lynnejanet]

I don't think it's true. Most elevator doors actually close immediately after you hit the close-door button. Who knoes, though: maybe it's a coincidence.

[stalker]

Originally Posted by Beastly Despot

A friend told me he "knew a guy" who used to work at an elevator factory (Otis elevator is, indeed, located here in Bloomington). He said the story he heard was that the elevator company added the "door close" button when people got frustrated waiting for the door to close. The catch is, the button is not connected to anything, it's just so people feel better.

I thought that was a funny story, if nothing else. Anyone have a clue if its true?

I guess true. Because giving frustrated customers a solution that says it does what they want, but doesn't actually do anything is one sure way to appease them.

[DrRocket]

I worked at an elevator company for two years, and can tell you that, if equipped, the button does indeed work. But it's up to the buyer to determine if that button is needed.

[hijack]I was talking to one of the servicemen one day, and he told me that when he was sent to free up a jammed car in an office building, he always asked how long the passengers had been in there, and did they come out of a meeting. If the answers were "Longer than a half hour" and "Yes, they'd just gotten out of a (coffee soaked) meeting." He always advised people to not stand in front of the door, as the chances were good the by-now desperate people inside would knock any obsticles over on their way to the restroom. He told me the first time he ran into that situation, one unfortunate soul in the way had shoe prints up the front of his shirt.[/hijack]

[snopes]

Comment: Hi Snopes! Thanks for all the great work. Here's the story:

"In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early
nineties, the door-close button doesn't work. It is there mainly to
make you think it works."

This one is from The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...act_paumgarten

While the answer is almost certainly "some work, some don't", it would be
nice to shed some light on where the story comes from, if the buttons are
indeed sometimes intended as a kind of placebo solution, if it's a local
(US) phenomenon, etc.

[purpleiguana]

Most of the elevators I've been in will close almost immediately after pushing the Door Close buttons. A couple did not. I'm thinking the buttons were just broken and nobody had gotten around to fixing them yet.

[KirkMcD]

I don't remember where I heard it, but some of the door close buttons have a slight delay built-in. I forget why.
That's why they seem not to work all the time.

[Casey]

Originally Posted by purpleiguana

Most of the elevators I've been in will close almost immediately after pushing the Door Close buttons. A couple did not. I'm thinking the buttons were just broken and nobody had gotten around to fixing them yet.

More than likely, exactly this. It can work, but the button can also break.

The elevators in the hospital I work in are paralyzingly slow. There's a trick one of the maintenance guys mentioned- hold down the button for your floor. Apparently it kicks into "turbo mode" and skips the floors in between. I only used it when I was on call and sent to a given floor quickly, but that always worked.

[Jonesy]

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: Hi Snopes! Thanks for all the great work. Here's the story:

This one is from The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...act_paumgarten

After clicking on your link I would have to say that in my opinion *THIS* is the story


"Loading up an empty elevator car with discarded Christmas trees, pressing the button for the top floor, then throwing in a match, so that by the time the car reaches the top it is ablaze with heat so intense that the alloy (called “babbitt”) connecting the cables to the car melts, and the car, a fireball now, plunges into the pit: this practice, apparently popular in New York City housing projects, is inadvisable."

I never once heard of this happening. I have an acquaintance who works as a firefighter in a neihborhood filled with New York City housing projects. He would love to tell this story - but I never heard it. I see no on-line evidence that this is or ever was popular anywhere.

I think that arson and attempted murder is inadvisable. Is this how UL's start? In The New Yorker?

I'm recalling the "barbecue in the bathtub"

[Atlanta Jake]

Originally Posted by Jonesy

After clicking on your link I would have to say that in my opinion *THIS* is the story


"Loading up an empty elevator car with discarded Christmas trees, pressing the button for the top floor, then throwing in a match, so that by the time the car reaches the top it is ablaze with heat so intense that the alloy (called “babbitt”) connecting the cables to the car melts, and the car, a fireball now, plunges into the pit: this practice, apparently popular in New York City housing projects, is inadvisable."

I never once heard of this happening. I have an acquaintance who works as a firefighter in a neihborhood filled with New York City housing projects. He would love to tell this story - but I never heard it. I see no on-line evidence that this is or ever was popular anywhere.

I think that arson and attempted murder is inadvisable. Is this how UL's start? In The New Yorker?

I'm recalling the "barbecue in the bathtub"

Yeah, about that... Mr. Otis made this impossible. The cars are equipped with centrifugal brakes that prevents them from falling. Watch the early episode of mythbusters where the disabled all the safety features to make a car fall. It was actually quite difficult.

Atlanta Jake

[blinkingblythe]

Originally Posted by Beastly Despot

A friend told me he "knew a guy" who used to work at an elevator factory (Otis elevator is, indeed, located here in Bloomington). He said the story he heard was that the elevator company added the "door close" button when people got frustrated waiting for the door to close. The catch is, the button is not connected to anything, it's just so people feel better.

I thought that was a funny story, if nothing else. Anyone have a clue if its true?

Usualy, that button is only enabled when the elevator is put in "fire service mode", but sometimes it is enabled in regular running mode. I did see a freight elevator that had a door open/close button even though the doors were entirely manual with no motors in them!

[snopes]

Ms. Christy strikes down one common myth — that "door close" buttons don't work. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, she says. It depends on the building's owner.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...385871618.html