Inside the Elevator Shaft: A Guide to Home Elevator Terminology

Shopping for a home elevator often comes with a new set of vocabulary. Words like shaft, hoistway, cab, car, gate, door, and drive can sound alike or get used interchangeably, but each has a specific meaning.

Knowing the difference isn’t just about speaking the same language as your home elevator installation company. It also helps you compare options, understand design choices, and make informed decisions about what will work best in your home.

This guide walks you through the key parts of a home elevator and explains how they all work together.

Elevator Shaft, Shaftway, or Hoistway

If you imagine an elevator ride from the outside, the shaft (also called a shaftway or hoistway) is the vertical passage the elevator car travels through. It’s essentially the elevator’s “highway” between floors, built to enclose and guide the car safely through each level.

In most home elevators, the shaft is framed and finished just like any other part of the house, with the mechanical components tucked away inside the shaft. The shaft contains the elevator car itself, as well as rails, elevator wiring, and safety systems. 

Local building codes and elevator safety codes will determine the shaft’s dimensions, fire rating, and other safety requirements. That’s why involving a qualified installer early in the design process is so important, especially if you’re an architect or builder working a home elevator into new construction or a remodel.

Note on when elevator shafts aren’t needed: While most traditional home elevators travel within a shaft, there are exceptions. Shaftless home elevators are a newer option for a home elevator, particularly in retrofit situations where space is limited. This design type eliminates the enclosed hoistway, allowing the cab to travel between two levels through a simple cutout in the floor. The smaller shaftless elevator option allows for greater placement flexibility and requires minimal construction, which is a bonus for homeowners who don’t want major renovation work.

For builders and architects, knowing whether a project requires a shafted or shaftless home elevator design can significantly impact major details, such as layout or electrical planning. For homeowners, it impacts the look and feel of how the elevator appears in the space.

Elevator Car, Cab, and Cabin

When you picture an elevator, you probably think of the part you step into and ride. This is known as the elevator “car,” “cab,” or “cabin.” However, while these terms are often used interchangeably, they technically refer to different things:

• Elevator car: This is the full passenger-carrying unit, including the platform, car frame, cab, and the doors attached to it. Think of it as the entire assembly that moves up and down inside the shaft.
• Elevator cab/cabin: This is just the finished interior space inside the car—the walls, ceiling, floor, and any decorative parts you see and touch while riding.

This distinction is more likely to come into play for builders and architects. When discussing design details or quoting an installation, your home elevator installation company may need to know whether you’re talking about the full mechanical assembly (car) or just the interior finishes (cab). However, in most cases, it’s fine to just know that any of these terms refer to the part of the elevator that goes up and down.

Shape and Style Options

Most residential elevator cabs are box-shaped for simplicity and efficient use of space. However, some modern designs, such as certain pneumatic or “vacuum” elevators, feature a round cab that becomes an architectural feature in its own right. These unique shapes can influence not only the look of your elevator but also its footprint, door style, and cost.

Interior Customization

From wood paneling to sleek metal finishes, cab interiors can be tailored to match your home’s décor or the design vision of a new build. Even lighting choices and control panel styles can make a big difference in how the elevator feels.

Elevator Gate and Door

“Gate” and “door” may sound interchangeable, but they mean different things in elevator terminology. Understanding the distinctions can help you clarify design options, safety features, and even code requirements.

Gate

In a home elevator, the car gate is attached directly to the cab. It moves with the elevator car and opens or closes to allow entry and exit. Car gates can be accordion-style, scissor-style, or sliding panels, depending on the model and your preferences.

A note about wheelchair lift terminology: In a vertical platform lift (VPL), the term “gate” refers to a landing barrier that may be half-height or full-height. This type of gate swings open when the lift is at the landing. In this way, a gate on a wheelchair lift is akin to a door on an elevator (see below).

Door

Home elevator doors are typically mounted at the landing and attached to the hoistway. These “landing doors” stay fixed in place and open when the elevator car is aligned with the landing. Most home elevators have landing doors that swing open and look like other doors in your home. It is also possible to upgrade the landing doors on a home elevator to be “sliding landing doors” which look and function similarly to elevators in commercial buildings such as hotels. 

A note about LULA elevators: The sliding landing doors just described are also common to another type of elevator, known as a limited-use/limited-application (LULA) elevator. These compact lifts similarly include landing doors, which are fixed at each floor, and car doors that travel with the elevator car. When the car reaches a landing, a clever “clutch” system allows the moving car doors to mechanically engage the landing doors and pull them open in sync. This ensures the landing doors open only when the elevator is exactly where it should be. As with other lift and elevator systems, there is a locking device integrated into the door system to prevent the landing doors from opening when the car is not present.

Rails, Guide Rails, T-Rails

Inside every elevator shaft, you’ll find one or more rails—vertical steel tracks that guide the elevator car smoothly between floors. They’re a little like the rails on a train track, only they’re positioned vertically to keep the car perfectly aligned within the shaft as it moves. Because their purpose is to guide the elevator car, they are often called guide rails. 

These metal guide rails for elevators are usually shaped like a capital “T” and for that reason are also referred to in the elevator industry as “T-rails”. This is true of home elevators, LULA elevators, and other types of elevators as well. 

For an elevator to operate quietly and comfortably, these rails must be installed with extreme precision, ensuring they are perfectly plumb from top to bottom. Even a small deviation can cause excess wear, unwanted vibration, or noise during travel. This is one reason why professional installation and precise measurement are so crucial.

The rail may be out of sight in your home, but it’s essential for smooth operation. For builders and architects, the rail’s location can influence framing details and clearances inside the shaft. In retrofit projects, installers sometimes need to have walls reinforced or add blocking to provide a solid anchoring surface for the rails.

It’s worth noting that rails aren’t unique to home elevators. Almost every lift device—from stair lifts to dumbwaiters to inclined platform lifts—uses a rail or track system of some sort. The design and placement may differ, but the purpose is the same: to keep the moving platform stable and safe.

Drive

The drive is the system that makes the car move up and down. Although it’s largely hidden from view, the drive is the heart of the elevator and plays a big role in how smooth, quiet, and efficient your ride will be.

Different drive mechanisms, such as traction, hydraulic, or pneumatic, each have their own advantages, from saving space to keeping noise to a minimum. The right choice depends on your home’s layout, your budget, and your priorities for performance and maintenance.

If you’re comparing elevator options for your home, keep in mind that the drive type will influence where the elevator can be installed and what kind of upkeep it will require. It’s also a key component for builders and architects planning clearances, mechanical space, and structural support.

Plan Your Next Steps

Understanding the basic parts of an elevator, from the shaft to the cab, can make the buying or building process much smoother. If you’re still unsure about a term, a design choice, or which options might work best for your space, we’re here to help. Give us a call and we’ll walk you through each component.