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Foreword

Following the publication of the first edition of the American Standard Safety Code for Elevators in 1925, requests for a handbook or manual covering the inspection of elevators were received by the Sectional Committee on a Safety Code for Elevators, Dumbwaiters, and Escalators (A17). This Committee appointed a subcommittee to prepare such a manual. Cities, states, casualty insurance companies, elevator manufacturers and maintenance companies, and the Federal Government furnished the committee with material based on their field experience. A final draft was prepared and was unanimously approved by the Sectional Committee, the sponsors, and by the ASA as an American Recommended Practice and the edition was published in 1937 simultaneously with the third edition of the Code.

Since the publication of the first edition of the Manual, a fourth edition of the Code including revisions approved by ASA in 1942, was published in 1945. A second edition of the Manual was prepared by the committee to bring it in line with the fourth edition of the Code and a new Part III was added to cover the inspection of escalators. In addition, new appendices were added covering descriptions of various types of under-car safeties, method for determining stopping distances of sliding safeties, guide rail data and types of overspeed governors and the handling and socketing of wire rope. The second edition of the Manual was approved by the American Standards Association as an American Standard Practice, and was published in 1945.

This third edition of the Manual includes revision to bring it in line with the 1960 edition of the A17.1 Code. In addition, the text has been revised and enlarged by the inclusion, in the appropriate sections, of considerable new material.

This third edition of the manual was approved by the Sectional Committee, by the three sponsor organizations, and on August 10, 1960 by the American Standards Association as an American Standard Practice.