How to read architectural drawings to find the best place for a home elevator

Simply put, an architectural drawing is a detailed blueprint of the design and layout of a building that will be constructed or remodelled. Created to scale, this technical drawing provides an accurate representation of proportions and space that is essential for planning and construction.

Scaling of drawings

Architectural drawings are created to scale to represent the actual dimensions of the building proportionally reduced. For a private home, common scales are 1:50 or 1:100. That means that the drawing is a correct and proportional two-dimensional representation of your home, only 50 times or 100 times smaller than it is in real life.

What are the different types of architectural drawings?

There are many kinds of architectural drawings that we will not mention here, like construction drawings and detailed drawings, as they are not of great interest to most homeowners. These are the technical drawings that we think give you the most useful information about your property:

Drawings of the exterior

Site plan: An aerial or bird’s-eye view of your property’s location in relation to its boundaries, surrounding landscape and neighbouring buildings.

Elevation drawing: A flat, head-on view of the exterior façade (front, rear or side) of your house. Elevations show elements like doors, windows and building materials, giving you a good sense of the architectural style and proportions of your house.

Drawings of the interior

Floor plan: A floor plan is a horizontal slice of your house that gives a view from above of a specific floor. It provides you with room layouts with exact indoor dimensions and shows elements like walls, doors, windows, staircases and fixtures like kitchens and bathrooms.

Section drawing: A section drawing makes a vertical slice of the building. This cut-through view reveals hidden elements like wall layers, ceiling heights, floor-to-floor relationships, and roof structures.

While site plans and elevation drawings give a good general sense of the property and its style, floor plans and section drawings contain the details you need to find the perfect place for your residential elevator.

Tip: Start by putting the floor plans for each level side by side to find an installation spot that works for all floors. Then use section drawings to determine the available floor-to-ceiling height for the lift on each level.

Architectural drawings contain key elements that provide detailed information about the building and its structure. We have listed the things we think are the most important for you to know about when looking for the best place for a home elevator in your floor plans:

• Walls: Exterior walls and load-bearing inner walls are usually drawn thicker than partition walls that cannot bear load.
• Doors: Door openings are generally shown as empty boxes in the walls with arched lines illustrating the opening direction of the door leaf.
• Windows: Window openings are usually illustrated as empty boxes in the exterior walls of the building.
• Stairs: Staircases are depicted as multiple horizontal lines between two vertical or curved lines.
• Measurements: The numbers next to horizontal/vertical lines on the drawing indicate measurements such as wall width and ceiling height.
• Annotations: Text providing additional information about materials, finishes, and specific construction details.

As we have already established, architectural drawings can help you find the best location for your elevator. The next thing you need to figure out is what size and type of elevator is best for your home. A good way to start is by studying your architectural drawings and asking yourself these questions:

1. How many people do you want the elevator carry?
2. Does the elevator need to be big enough a wheelchair?
3. What is your available space for a home elevator (width x depth)?

If the home lift needs to be big enough for a wheelchair, we recommend a lift size of at least 1000 x 1300 mm (interior measurements, width x depth). For more information about wheelchair elevators, please visit our wheelchair lift page.

Enough space around the elevator

Furthermore, your architectural drawings can help you make sure that you have enough space to circulate around the elevator in your chosen location. The lift shaft itself takes up room but depending on your needs and on the layout of your home, there may be more factors to consider.

Space for elevator doors

If the elevator has swing doors, they need space to swing open. Ideally, you should also keep some space for passage on the landings, even when the lift doors are open.
A smart way to save space on the landings is to choose a home elevator with automatic sliding doors, like Cibes C1 Pure. Why? Because sliding doors do not require any space in front of the elevator to open.

Passageways around the lift

If space is tight around the lift, you also need to figure out whether the passageways around it are wide enough for you to comfortably circulate in your home. To give you some guidance, most European countries recommend a minimum width of 90 centimetres, or 0.9 metres, for corridors and other passageways.

Manoeuvring space for wheelchair elevators

For wheelchair users, having enough space around the elevator is even more important. The general recommendation is to have at least 1.5 x 1.5 metres of free manoeuvring space in front of every lift door. If there are passageways on the other sides of the elevator, you should also make sure that they are wide enough for a wheelchair (approximately 1.2 metres).