First, rule out the obvious power problem
Before you assume the lift has failed, prove it has electricity. Every UK home lift installed under the Machinery Directive sits on a dedicated fused spur — usually a 13 A or 16 A switched isolator marked Lift, mounted in an airing cupboard, a hall or the plant space next to the shaft. If someone has switched it off during decorating or a plumbing job, the lift will look completely dead.
Check three things in order:
- The isolator switch is in the ON position and its neon lamp (if fitted) is lit.
- The consumer unit hasn't tripped — look for an RCD or MCB flagged Lift in the down position.
- Other sockets on the same floor are working; a whole-floor outage means the lift isn't the fault.
Safe to check yourself
If the isolator was off, switch it on, wait 30 seconds for the controller to complete self-test, then try a call from the landing. Most lifts flash a startup sequence on the car display during that half-minute.Check every door on every landing is fully closed
UK home lifts are safety-interlocked: a single door left even a few millimetres ajar takes the whole lift out of service. A grandchild pushing a landing door to but not shut, a rug caught under a lower panel or a swollen timber door in damp weather will all break the interlock chain and produce exactly the same symptom — the lift will not move.
Walk every landing and the car itself. Look for:
- A door that closes visually but doesn't engage the latch — press the handle in firmly.
- Rubbish, post or a phone charger cable trapped in the door edge.
- Damp swell around the frame in winter or after a leak.
- Any door held open by the door-hold-open button (usually a labelled button inside the car).
Read the display and note the light
Most modern UK home lifts (Stannah Ascend, Aritco, Cibes, Terry Lifts, Otolift home lifts and similar) show a status light or short message on the car operating panel or on a small display inside the top of the shaft. Note exactly what you see — colour, pattern, and any short message — and photograph it. This single scrap of information is what turns a two-visit engineer diagnosis into a first-time fix.
Do not attempt to clear the fault by cycling the isolator repeatedly. Some controllers latch a persistent fault after three unsuccessful restarts and then require an engineer with the manufacturer's service key to reset.
Not sure which brand or model you have? Send us the symptom in plain English and we’ll point you at the right diagnostic page for free.
Describe your symptom →The overload sensor is the second most common cause
Every UK home lift weighs its car before it moves. If the load cell thinks the car is over its rated capacity — usually 250 kg or 400 kg — it will refuse to close the doors or refuse to accept a landing call. In practice the sensor is rarely genuinely triggered by weight; it is triggered by:
- Shopping bags leaning against the car wall so they push on the wall panel rather than sitting on the floor.
- A pushchair whose wheel is off the floor and pressed against the door.
- A calibration drift after a power cut (the load cell zero has moved).
Remove everything from the car, close the door and try again from inside. If the lift now moves, load was your problem. If it still refuses, the sensor itself has drifted — an engineer job.
Battery-backed lifts and the lockout after a long outage
Cabin lifts with battery lowering (Stannah Ascend, Cibes A5000, most modern hydraulic residential lifts) hold a small battery pack that will lower the car to the nearest landing if mains power fails. After a long outage — a fortnight's holiday, a rewire, a solar-panel install that isolated the lift — the battery can be flat enough that the controller refuses to run on mains until it has charged for a set period, typically 2–6 hours.
If the display shows a battery symbol, a BAT message or a rising percentage, leave the isolator on and simply wait. Do not run repeated call attempts; each one drains the battery further and extends the recovery window.
When you must stop and call an engineer
Stop — call an engineer
Stop trying to reset the lift and phone your service provider if any of the following are true:
- You can hear the motor try to run but the car doesn't move.
- There is a burning-electrical or hot-oil smell from the shaft.
- Water has entered the shaft or pit.
- The car has moved a few centimetres and stopped — do not attempt to move it further from outside.
- The lift is in a workplace or a managed building, in which case unauthorised interference may breach LOLER — see our LOLER thorough examinations guide.
What to tell the engineer when you phone
A UK home-lift engineer typically charges a fixed callout plus a labour rate for anything beyond the first hour. You will get a faster, cheaper visit if you have the following ready before you dial:
- Make and model, and the year of installation if you know it.
- Exactly what the display shows — message, light or symbol — photographed.
- Where in the travel the lift stopped (top, bottom, mid-shaft).
- What you did just before it stopped (power cut, a door left open, a heavy load).
- Whether the household still has safe stair access or the lift is the only route between floors — this changes the response-time obligation on many contracts.
Frequently asked questions
- Is it safe to try resetting my home lift myself?
- Toggling the labelled isolator switch once, waiting 30 seconds and switching it back on is safe for any UK domestic lift. Beyond that — opening the controller cabinet, jumping interlocks, resetting via a service menu — is competent-engineer work only and may breach LOLER if the lift is in a shared or workplace setting.
- How long can a home lift sit unused before it stops working?
- Most modern UK home lifts will sit for 2–4 weeks with no ill effects. Beyond a month the battery-lowering pack may need a full recharge cycle before the lift will accept a call. Owners going away for longer are usually advised to leave the isolator ON, not off, so the battery keeps trickle-charging.
- Why does my lift move when it's empty but not when I get in?
- Almost always the overload sensor. Empty-car test runs bypass the load cell; adding a person triggers it. If the sensor is genuinely misreading a light load as overweight it needs a calibration visit — this is a common drift after a power cut or a controller firmware update.
- Can I use the lift while I wait for the engineer?
- No. Once a home lift has stopped for a fault and shown a code, further attempts to run it can escalate a minor sensor fault into a controller lockout that costs significantly more to reset. Use the stairs and leave the isolator on so the controller keeps its fault log intact.
- Does my home insurance cover a home lift breakdown?
- Standard UK household policies do not cover the lift itself; they may cover damage the lift causes (a leak flooding a floor below, for example). Cover for the mechanism sits on the annual service contract with the installer, which for LOLER-notifiable lifts must include a 6-monthly thorough examination.