Residential Dumbwaiters

A residential dumbwaiter can be a great addition to a home and provide a means of easily transporting items between floors. There are several different types of dumbwaiters available and many different manufacturers, but the electric dumbwaiter is currently the most popular type of dumbwaiter.

Electric dumbwaiters can generally be classified as either Dumbwaiter Kits or Custom Built. Both of which have their advantages and disadvantages.

Dumbwaiter Kits

Dumbwaiter Kits are preassembled dumbwaiters that are built to a specific size and dimension. As a result, they are often less expensive than custom built dumbwaiters, but they offer lifts with set sizes and lifting distances.

The installation of a dumbwaiter kit is often very straightforward, with many of the steps being preformed at the manufacturing plant. However, the installation will still require a good deal of advanced building knowledge and abilities.

In some instances a dumbwaiter kit will be also easier to install into an existing structure. This is in part due to their size, but the way dumbwaiter kits are installed also plays a role.

The installation is usually divided into several parts, including the installation of the track, the installation of the dumbwaiter car, and the wiring and framing of the dumbwaiter stops.

While dumbwaiter kits can sometimes offer an easier installation and lower cost, they often do not have as many features and they only come in certain sizes.

Custom Built Dumbwaiters

A Custom Built Dumbwaiter is one that is built specifically for your home. This allows you to make the most of your space, because the car and track is made to the fit the exact specifications of your dumwaiter shaft and fulfill your required lifting capacity.

Custom built dumbwaiters also offers a good deal of customization. A wooden car is typically offered standard, sometimes with several different wood and Formica choices. Steel and Aluminum cars are also available.

In some cases, the lifting system of a custom built can be more complex than that of a dumbwaiter kit. With multiple cable backups and even hydraulic lifts found in some custom built residential dumbwaiters.

While much more customizable and in some cases of better quality, custom built dumbwaiters typically cost more than dumbwaiter kits. They also take longer to build and are usually easiest to install into new homes as they are being constructed.

Quite often, one of the hardest tasks in a home is bringing items up between floors. Depending on the size of the home, items that are carried up the stairs can include things like the laundry, groceries, or cleaning supplies. The process of carrying these types of things up the stairs can not only be tiresome, but it can also increase the risk of a fall, so many people choose to use a dumbwaiter in their home.

Dumbwaiters are very similar to elevators and can make housework much easier. They are much smaller though and most are not made to carry people, instead being used only for transporting non-living goods and supplies. They are also much smaller than an elevator and take up much less space, with the average residential dumbwaiter taking up only about 4 square feet of space, which is opposed to an elevator, which will typically take up at least 30 square feet of space.

Most people today opt to go with electric dumbwaiters, which can be installed into existing homes or into new homes as they are being built. They require a vertical space between floors, which the dumbwaiter will move in. This space is called a dumbwaiter shaft and is much smaller than the shaft required for a regular sized elevator.

Usually a track system is ran the length of the shaft. The dumbwaiter car, which is the part that holds items as they move between floors, is attached to the track. This helps keep it stable, well balanced, and increases safety. At the top of the shaft, a pulley drive system is responsible for raising and lowering the dumbwaiter through the home.

With most older dumbwaiters, the most difficult part of the installation involved installing and aligning the drive system at the top of the shaft. This process has been simplified with some of the more popular dumbwaiter kits, which come with the drive system, dumbwaiter car, and a good portion of the electrical system already installed on a short piece of track. This section of track is placed onto the top of the shaft, which means in one step, you can finish one of the hardest parts of the install.

Dumbwaiter kits like the one described above greatly simplifies the installation process, but it can still be a little bit complicated, so many people decide to go with a professional installation. Even if you go with a professional installer, you can still save money by using an improved dumbwaiter kit.

The first recored use of a dumbwaiter dates back to the era of the Romans. Since then, almost every culture has in some way, shape, or form used a dumbwaiter to help make the movement of goods more efficient. To simply a rope tied to a rafter, to complex worm gear driven systems, dumbwaiters have been a way of reducing work for many years.

Dumbwaiters have a very rich history in pretty much every culture and this is especially true of America. Beginning in the late eighteenth century and continuing on until present day, these devices have been used extensively in homes and businesses. The earliest types of dumbwaiters used a simple rope system, which was operated by hand. This proved to work great around the home, but for larger loads, such as in businesses or construction, it was often unpractical.

As a result there were many innovations to the dumbwaiter in the eighteen-hundreds. The steam engine was invented during the eighteenth-century and, like most inventions, it was quickly applied to many different areas of technology. During the eighteen hundreds many businesses began using steam to power their dumbwaiters.

This was practical for large businesses, which already had a steam power plant, but proved to be too expensive for many smaller businesses. This changed, however, when Elisha Otis, the father of the elevator, invented an elevator that contained its own steam engine.

Also during the eighteen-hundreds, several inventors began experimenting with hydraulic powered dumbwaiters. Otis and his sons developed a system, which could use city water and using a special reservoir build up enough pressure to raise a substantial amount of weight. Many also began experimenting with using oil instead of water.

While the hydraulic and steam powered dumbwaiter would prove very popular commercially, it was seldom practical for most homes. As a result, the manual dumbwaiter remained very popular. Increasingly, electric dumbwaiters were developed for use in the home, but it would not be until the 1930s for these devices to truly take off and be extensively used in residential settings.

Today, while some still opt for a manual system, the electric dumbwaiter is by far the most popular choice for a home dumbwaiter system. They can quickly be installed into existing homes and use a track system, which not only keeps the dumbwaiter level, but also allows it to safely move between floors.

A dumbwaiter is a device that is commonly used in homes throughout the world. It facilitates the easy transfer of items between different floors in a home.

These devices are similar in elevators in that they move vertically between floors in what is referred to as a shaft. They are not intended to be used for people though, but some commercial dumbwaiters can support more than a thousand pounds.

The dumbwaiter is actually a very old device, which dates back to 236 BC. They are still used extensively today in commercial and residential settings. The electric dumbwaiter is relatively new and has a much richer history in commercial usage.

Today, there are many industries that make extensive use of dumbwaiters. In mines they quickly bring loads of rock or coal from deep between the earth. They are in many ways more efficient than conveyor mining systems.

Businesses like hospitals and libraries also use them to move many types of items between floors. Some of the oldest dumbwaiters that are still used are in libraries.

Restaurants also often make use of dumbwaiters. They allow the food to be brought to guests quickly while it is still hot. Most restaurant dumbwaiters include shelves that can be used to hold trays of food. They are also often insulated.

One of the advantages of dumbwaiters is that it prevents having to carry items up the stairs and it is usually smaller and easier to install than an elevator. The space issue is one of the reasons that they are often used in boats as well.

The use of dumbwaiters in boats is hundreds of years old. On a boat, space can be at a premium, so often the stairs are cramped. Using a dumbwaiter allows the quick movement of goods throughout boats. By the beginning of the twentieth centuries, many larger boats had electric dumbwaiters.

Automobile manufacturers and other manufacturers often use dumbwaiters as well. Industrial businesses like these often have very large dumbwaiters that can support a good deal of weight. These were especially important during the industrial revolution, because often space considerations necessitated that the factories be built vertically into the air. As a result there were many factories and plants that were multi-storied.

Reductions in price is one thing that has catapulted the dumbwaiter back into the home. They were incredibly popular during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Now, there are several electric dumbwaiter kits available that are inexpensive and can be installed quickly.

Dumbwaiter have roots that date back many thousands of years. The earliest record of a dumbwaiter is in 236 BC during the Roman age. Since then, they have been used extensively to allow objects to be easily and quickly moved throughout a multi-story dwelling.

Dumbwaiters became very popular during the nineteenth century and it was during this time that the first electric dumbwaiter was developed. Up until this time, dumbwaiters had been powered through the use of animal power, human power, or water power. It was also during the nineteenth century that several safety innovations occurred that allowed dumbwaiters to reliably move between floors.

Even thought the first electric dumbwaiter was developed in the nineteenth century, electric dumbwaiters would not become popular in residential settings for many years. The electric dumbwaiter was instead almost exclusively used in commercial settings. These dumbwaiters lacked many of the advancements that are available today.

They were generally controlled in one location by a dumbwaiter attendee. When someone pushed a button, a light would turn on at the dumbwaiter attendees station. It would then be the job of the attendee to prioritize where the elevator needed to go next.

This early dumbwaiters were incredibly popular in factories and department stores, but they could be found in many other types of businesses. They have a very deep root in the transportation industry as well. They were first used in carriage factories and with the advent of the automobile, they began very popular in automobile plants as well.

While the electric dumbwaiter was extensively used in businesses beginning in the nineteenth century, the manual dumbwaiter remained popular in residential settings. Almost any home that spanned multiple floors had a dumbwaiter and they were also extensively used in apartment buildings. Due to an increasing number of thefts as items were lifted up the dumbwaiter, special locking doors were eventually installed on apartment building dumbwaiters.

Today, the electric dumbwaiter is still extensively used in the manufacturing industry and other commercial settings. They can be found in restaurants, hospitals, and in many large ships. These dumbwaiters are designed to quickly and efficiently carry goods between floors and many are able to support well over a thousand pounds. Commercial dumbwaiters are often custom built and the car usually is of steel construction. Depending on the needs of the business, these lifts can be built to include things like on board shelf systems, which help improve the way the space of the dumbwaiter car is used.

Today dumbwaiters are more popular than ever and because they often have less strict building codes requirements, they are in many cases preferable to a traditional elevator.