Evans lifts

Evans were a wonderful lift company, They made some of the best old lifts. They made their own lifts, they did not use brought in parts (until Otis took over). They were established in 1919 and they were taken over by Otis in 1982. After that their lifts got increasingly more crap, Otis was just using the evans brand for their cheap lifts. In 1997 Otis took over Express and merged the brands into ExpressEvans

Here is the history of Evans lifts...

1920s

Evans lifts was established on 24 Mar 1919, by the Evans brothers in Leicester.

Here is one of Evans first lifts. A very rare find. Its in a very nice 20s set of flats which has been kept in its original 20s style.

1930s

Here is an over polished 1930s Evans I found in a classic white 30s building. They have kept the building original posh 30s style, including the lift (but sadly they have replaced the floor selector, now it makes that horid generic ticking noise)

Here is a 1930s Evans I found in a run down block of flats, but sadly it does not have its original buttons.. (as long as the flats remain run down the lift won't get replaced).

late 1940s - 1950s

And now we are going into Evans's classic years, with the classic Evans Orange design. These have awsome motors.

Passenger lifts

These are awsome.

(Images and video by gloucestergambit)

Goods lifts

Evans are famous for their goods lifts. These are very relierble, and there are still many arround in the backs of shops.

Residential lifts

Very nice european style lifts without inner doors. (sadly this one has had its inside buttons replaced and a horrid inner door added).

1960s

More Classic Evans Orange. So much nicer than crappy modern generic lifts.

Video of fully original 60s Evans

The 60s Evans in the next 2 videos have sadly had their motors modded.

1970s

A very nice update on the Evans Orange design. With updated buttons, but still clearly evans style. And some of these have, what was then, the brand new advance in motor technology, the predecessor to modern day variable frequency. These induction motors are powered by inverters to change the frequency powering the motor (instead of using the mains 50hz). But unlike modern sytems that can produce any frequency, with these, each inverter produces a set frequencey. These had 2 inverters, so when the lift first starts, it starts with the lower frequencey inverter, then when it gets a certain speed it changes to the higher inverter. You can hear when the fequency changes (sounds like a change of gear).

70s Evans with motor frequency inverts.

70s Evans goods lift with classic Evans single speed motor

early 1980s

In 1982 Evans was brought by Otis

1980s

Evans now started making some boring bog standard lifts.

also Evans still made a few of the older style lifts, but these now had updated logic controller. (1970s and older evans lifts could only take one call at a time, the orange above the call button was to tell you if the lift had responded to your call. so the orange was no longer needed in these 1980s lifts)

1990s

Evans merged with Express to become ExpressEvans. ExpressEvans neither made Express nor Evans style lifts, instead they went on to make generic lifts. This was a very big mistake as their lifts were not distinctive or different from all the other generic companies. In 1997 ExpressEvans went Bankrupt and were taken over by Otis.

It is very sad how 2 great lift companies went Bankrupt.

So many lift companies try to save money by buying in generic parts instead of making their own. when what actually happens is that their lifts stop being special.

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