You track it by requiring documented, unit level evidence of every maintenance task performed, and by holding that record somewhere the building owner controls rather than somewhere the service provider controls. In practice this means a maintenance control program for each conveyance as required by ASME A17.1/CSA B44 Section 8.6, a callback and downtime log per unit, and a single system of record across every building in the portfolio. Owners who rely on the service company’s own records have no way to verify what they paid for.
Why can’t most owners prove what maintenance they received?
Because the only record of the work is kept by the company that performed it, in a format the owner cannot audit, and often on a paper log in the machine room that nobody reads until an inspector asks for it.
This is one of the most common findings in an elevator audit. The owner is paying for a full maintenance agreement. The invoices are current. But when you open the machine room and ask for the documentation of what was actually done over the last twelve months, the record is thin, generic or missing entirely. The contract promised a scope. The building received something less. Nobody caught it because nobody was tracking it.
The gap is rarely malicious. Route mechanics are stretched, buildings get skipped, and a paper log signed at the end of a route is a low bar. But the financial effect on the owner is the same either way: paying for a scope of work that was not delivered, and inheriting the deferred maintenance that results.
What should a building owner actually be tracking?
At the unit level, across every building:
- Maintenance control program tasks and completion dates. What Section 8.6 requires for each specific conveyance, and evidence each task was performed on schedule.
- Category 1, Category 3 and Category 5 testing. Test dates, results, and who witnessed them.
- Date, time, unit, reported cause, corrective action, and whether the same cause has recurred. Callback trending is the most honest measure of maintenance quality that exists.
- Total hours out of service per unit per period.
- Repairs performed outside the maintenance agreement. These are where scope disputes live.
- Open code violations and inspection findings, with status and target close date.
- Remaining useful life and capital forecast per unit.
Why does this matter beyond compliance?
Three reasons, in order of how much money they represent.
Contract enforcement. You cannot enforce a maintenance agreement you cannot measure. Documented performance data changes the conversation with a service provider from opinion to evidence, and it is what makes a scope of work enforceable rather than aspirational.
Capital planning. A portfolio with unit level condition and callback history can forecast modernization spend three to five years out. A portfolio without it reacts to failures, which is always the most expensive way to spend capital.
Liability. When an incident leads to litigation, the maintenance record is the first document requested. Under ASME A17.1/CSA B44, the responsibility for compliance rests with the building owner. Not the property manager, and not the service contractor.
Where does software fit?
Software is useful when it makes the record complete, current and owner controlled. It is not useful when it becomes another portal the owner logs into twice a year.
TEC uses ElevatorApp when a client wants a maintenance control program run properly across a portfolio rather than kept on clipboards in twelve different machine rooms. It tracks the MCP, inspections and testing, links to an existing CMMS or work order system, and holds the whole portfolio in one place. Whether a building uses ElevatorApp, another platform, or a well disciplined internal process matters far less than whether the record exists, is current, and belongs to the owner.
Frequently asked questions
Is a paper maintenance log still acceptable under code?
Paper logs remain permissible in many jurisdictions, but the record must be complete, on site or readily available, and specific to the conveyance. The practical problem is not legality, it is that paper logs are rarely complete and are almost never reviewed.
Who owns the maintenance records, the owner or the service company?
The building owner is responsible for the maintenance control program. Access to and control of that documentation should be addressed explicitly in the maintenance agreement, and frequently is not.
How many buildings do you need before this is worth systematizing?
One, if it is a hospital or a high rise. The threshold is criticality, not count. That said, the return grows sharply once an owner is managing more than a handful of units across multiple service providers.