Confirm which edition of ASME A17.1/CSA B44 the jurisdiction enforces, then trace each elevator’s hoistway, pit, travel, machine space, and fire service interfaces through the architectural, structural, electrical, fire alarm, and elevator documents. Most findings are disagreements between those documents. AI can flag conflicts; the designers, the elevator contractor, and the elevator inspector decide compliance.
What does ASME A17.1/CSA B44 cover?
ASME describes the A17.1/CSA B44 Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators as the accepted guide throughout North America for the design, construction, installation, operation, inspection, testing, maintenance, alteration, and repair of elevators, escalators, and related conveyances.
ASME’s A17.1 page shows the 2025 edition as current, with earlier editions back to 2007 still listed. Checked October 14, 2026. Elevator codes are often adopted by a state elevator agency rather than the building department, sometimes on an older edition. Record the edition and the agency.
Platform lifts and stairway chairlifts follow a separate ASME standard, A18.1, whose current edition ASME lists as 2023; see the ASME A18.1 guide. Accessible elevator features are reviewed in the ICC A117.1 guide, and the building code’s elevator provisions in the IBC guide.
Gather every document that describes the elevator
Collect the architectural plans, sections, and enlarged hoistway and pit details, the structural framing at the hoistway, pit, and machine beam, the elevator specification and any elevator design brief or supplier layout, the electrical drawings for the machine room or control space, the fire alarm drawings for recall and shunt trip, and the mechanical drawings for machine room ventilation and hoistway venting.
Supplier layouts often arrive late and use different floor heights than the architecture. Upload them as soon as they exist.
Trace each elevator across disciplines
| Review question | Sources to compare | Decision to record |
|---|---|---|
| Code and edition | Code analysis, elevator specification, supplier documents | Confirm one elevator code edition and the agency that enforces it. |
| Hoistway construction | Wall types, structural plans, elevator brief | Check every document describes the same shaft wall system. |
| Pit and overhead | Pit details, sections, foundation plans, supplier layout | Confirm the pit and overhead are dimensioned and detailed consistently. |
| Travel and stops | Sections, floor levels, elevator specification, supplier layout | Reconcile travel and served floors with the building levels. |
| Fire service interfaces | Fire alarm drawings, sprinkler drawings, electrical one-line | Find recall, shunt trip, and sprinkler conditions shown in one discipline only. |
| Machine space | Architectural, electrical, and mechanical plans | Check the machine room or control space is sized, powered, and ventilated in every source. |
The elevator review checklist is the working log, the contract requirements continue in the elevator specifications guide, and recall interfaces in the NFPA 72 guide.
Example: three shaft walls in one building
Published finding. In Groundbook’s published school science building review, architecture specified stud framing for the elevator shaft, structure showed precast concrete, and the elevator brief required masonry. The same review found that the brief required a pit that the drawings did not detail and that the brief’s travel was less than the floor levels indicated.
Architecture specifies stud walls, structure shows precast concrete, and the elevator brief requires masonry.
The architect, structural engineer, and elevator designer resolve the wall system, pit, and travel together. The findings came from reading the brief with both disciplines, not from a code calculation.
Review elevator coordination with Groundbook
Upload the current drawings and specifications to Groundbook, and state the edition, amendments, and review scope in your instructions. Add the ASME A17.1/CSA B44 edition the project uses from a copy you are licensed to use, where the license permits uploading it, and the jurisdiction’s published amendments. See how Groundbook works with local and licensed codes.
Compare each elevator across the architectural plans, sections, hoistway and pit details, structural framing, elevator specification and brief, supplier layouts, electrical, fire alarm, sprinkler, and mechanical drawings. Flag conflicting shaft construction, undetailed pits, travel that differs from floor levels, and fire service interfaces missing from a discipline. Use the supplied A17.1 edition and cite both sources.
Groundbook links each potential finding to the sheets and documents involved.
Document review does not design the elevator, check its machinery, or replace the elevator contractor, the designers, or the elevator inspector.