In this elevator rescue training video, Carolina Fire Days instructor Geoff Davis discusses how hydraulic elevators work while introducing components like a stopcock valve that allows rescuers to manually operate the elevator by taking fluid from the piston back into the reservoir which slowly lowers the elevator down safely.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:

Looking at the basic setup of a hydraulic elevator, we have the pump and the hydraulic reservoir there  Going through to a pipe to the bottom of the piston. Piston gets full of fluid through the pump. Elevator goes up,  pump goes the opposite way, sucks fluid off this, and elevator goes down.

Looking up in a hydraulic hoist way from the top of the car, we noticed there’s nothing there.

There’s no cables, there’s no safety cables, there’s no sheath.  Makes for a lot better work condition when we get out on top of once a day. There’s a lot of room 

Don’t get used to that. You know the first one you run that set electric traction, you’re gonna open it up and there’s gonna be shit everywhere.

They’ll be a big beam in the middle.

You have a bunch of cables in your way. Much harder to move in and around.

On the bottom we talked before we have guide rails the car sling It’s just the beams that the car is sitting on. The hydraulic, this is pushing on  the bottom  It’s a very simple system. A reservoir, We have a piston, we have fluid that goes in between.

Uh, there is always a small stopcock that we can manually operate to take fluid out of the piston into the reservoir.

It’s very easy for us to find the stopcock, weed a little bit of fluid off of the piston back into the reservoir, and slowly bring that elevator back down.

Relatively safe, if things go wrong, if I start moving too fast, I let go and the stopcock slams shut.