The Strangest Tools You Never Knew Existed
July 8, 2025
Source: Reddit
When you enter an elevator, you expect it to function properly and move you to your destination as planned. The elevator companies have their technicians and tools dedicated to making sure the ride was safe and secure. One of those tools is the elevator test cart.
The Heavyweight Champion of Elevator Safety
An elevator test cart is a sturdy, wheeled metal box filled with standardized weights. The purpose is to complete load tests. In other words, it is used to simulate maximum capacity or overloading. This ensures that the elevator system handles that stress safely.
They are typically manufactured from heavy steel like most commercial equipment and painted in neutral tones. They are designed to last for years and probably even decades. For added security, these carts are often padlocked so that they cannot be tampered with, or accidentally removed by offloading.
Why We Need Load Testing
To ensure the elevators are regularly tested and maintained, load testing will confirm that the lift can accommodate its rated weight. This process ensures the system won’t be stressed. The elevators test carts allow that to be done.
These carts are:
- Wheeled and designed to be rolled into an elevator car
- Loaded with a series of calibrated metal weight blocks, usually several thousand pounds of them
- Used during inspections or following repairs and upgrades
Load tests will identify malfunctioning motors, brakes, cables, and hydraulic systems that normal riding alone would not identify.
Behind The Scenes
You will typically find these carts in maintenance rooms or in an area of the building close to the elevator shafts while they are getting inspected. You will find these carts lined up to be stored or in challenged condition from use. To technicians, they are invaluable.
You will likely see older style cart models that are scratched and dented. They reflect years of purposeful use. Older commercial type buildings have to carry out loading tests regularly to satisfy safety standards. The elevator test carts provide the primary means to accomplish those tests.
Precision and Practicality
Manufacturers of cart systems, such as Mars Metal, create carts using precise engineering and specifications. The interior of the cart is lined with blocks of weights of the same dimensions. Therefore, it shouldn’t matter how you load the cart. The weights will be equally distributed and stored, preventing the cart from becoming unstable when loaded.
Some cart test systems are integrated into a digital monitoring system. This system collects and logs all test data during any inspections.
A Quiet Contributor to Public Safety
It is because of regular inspections that elevators run smoothly and properly with consistent use. This is primarily due to an understated piece of equipment called an elevator test cart.
Each time you enter an elevator and it works correctly, there is a good chance that an elevator test cart has verified its reliability. It may be out of the public’s view, but it continues to maintain elevators’ reliability and integrity, one test at a time.