Stainless steel for elevator design and equipment

Nowadays, all major lift and escalator manufacturers, their partners and contractors offer stainless steel cladding elements and accessories in a wide variety of designs.

Stainless steel sheets and plates are used for:

• Elevator doors
• Wall and ceiling cladding of lift cabins
• Floors
• Pressplates
• Control and display panels
• Handrail systems
• Architraves
• Shaft cladding

Inox steel is also a very suitable material for any cladding in the lobby, entrance, or reception area of buildings (residences, hotels, airports, museums, etc.).

mirrorINOX – our range of stainless steel finishes and colours for lifts and escalators

For the lift and escalator industry, mirrorINOX offers one of the most comprehensive product ranges in the decorative stainless steel segment which includes a wide variety of finishes, textures and colours, as described below:

• Grit-polished stainless steel sheets: polished in longitudinal and perpendicular directions, HAIRLINE, Scotch Brite, vibration polished, Angel-Hair, brushed in different roughness grades and others
• Bead-blasted sheets of various surface roughnesses
• Mirror-polished sheets, for example, Super Mirror No.8, also in colour
• Embossed, patterned and hydroformed sheets, also in an unlimited variety of colours and finishes
• PVD/TiN-coated sheets in the following colours:

Black-TiN (Charcoal, Anthracite, Onyx, Nero, Noir)
Champagne-TiN (Champagner, Champagne Nickel)
Gold-TiN (Gold Prestige, Oro, Or)
Brass-TiN (Messing, Ottone, Laiton)
Bronze-TiN (Quarz Bronze, Bronzo)
Rose Gold-TiN (Prestige Rosy Gold, Rosso, Rosa, Rame)
Other colours and colour tones are available on request

• PVD/TiN coating for small parts such as railings, handrails, handrail supports, sign holders and other accessories in the colours mentioned above
• nanoINOX® AFP/ETC-coated stainless steel plates with unique AFP (AntiFingerPrint) and ETC (Easy-To-Clean) functional properties in the transparent CLEAR nanoINOX® AFP/ETC version and a wide range of colours such as:

Champagne Classique nanoINOX® AFP/ETC
Gold Rosé nanoINOX® AFP/ETC
Abyss Black nanoINOX® AFP/ETC
Abyss Black Matt nanoINOX® AFP/ETC
Black Electrum nanoINOX® AFP/ETC
Blue Electrum nanoINOX® AFP/ETC
Green Electrum nanoINOX® AFP/ETC
White nanoINOX® AFP/ETC
uniqueSURPHACE®
and many other colours and customised solutions on request

The nanoINOX® AFP/ETC coating not only contributes to the aesthetics. It increases the robustness and thus the service life of the inox surfaces, as well as their hygiene conditions. Such surfaces are easy to clean and provide significant savings on cleaning and maintenance costs, which in turn add value to the product and the application/project.

While the purely constructive elements are largely made of less decorative materials such as steel and aluminium, architects and designers prefer our high-quality materials with their functional surfaces in addition to alternative materials such as wood, stone, composites or glass (in panoramic lifts) for:

• Door and shaft cladding
• Handrails
• Control and display panels

Thus creating an image of the lift and escalator that leaves a lasting impression on the visitor and passenger.

The benefits of stainless steel elevators

Inox metal applications in lifts and escalators are characterised by their:

• Functionality
• Robustness
• Durability
• Hygiene aspects
• Environmental friendliness

In addition, the different types of stainless steel grades and finishes grant architects, designers and builders an almost unlimited number of possibilities and creative solutions for indoor design and decoration.

Why is stainless steel the best metal for elevators?

Due to their exposed position and close contact with passengers, lifts are "the business card" of every building. An excellent finish, high quality materials and an aesthetic and functional surface inside and around the lift give the user an impression of timeless modernity, being up to date with technology and quality, as well as a feeling of comfort and safety, and increase the property’s image, prestige and value – public or residential buildings, company offices, shopping malls, etc.

Stainless steel in the form of custom-sized sheets or parts and accessories is the ideal material for a variety of applications in the lifts and escalators industry.

Stainless steel has many advantages and properties:

• Very good resistance to high temperatures, moisture and corrosion
• Attractive, high-quality appearance
• Long service life and durability
• Robustness against mechanical and chemical influences
• Good resistance to weather conditions, UV radiation and high and low temperatures
• High hygiene standards, which can be further improved by applying the nanoINOX® AFP/ETC coating. This makes cleaning more effective and ensures that the surface becomes even more hostile to germs and bacteria
• Low cleaning and maintenance costs
• Low water and cleaning agent consumption = environmentally friendly
• Fire protection due to the fire resistance of the material
• Sustainability: stainless steel consists of 80% recycled material and is 100% recyclable itself.

It is therefore not surprising that all leading elevator manufacturers use stainless steel as a material for their passenger and cargo lifts and escalators. Furthermore, the use of inox steel in lifts is advised and, in some cases, even required by building regulations in many projects and buildings in:

• Public areas
• Private and social residential buildings
• Offices
• Business and shopping centres
• Medical facilities

mirrorINOX stainless steel products and finishes offer optimal solutions for all these requirements.

The advantages of stainless steel escalators

When it comes to the materials, the most important requirements for the construction of stainless steel escalators are important aspects such as:

• Safety
• Fire protection
• User comfort
• Visual appearance
• Durability
• Hygiene
• Cleanliness
• Ease of maintenance

As an integral part of many buildings, especially shopping malls or business centres, the escalator is often located in the centre of the entrance area as well as of each floor and is used by almost all visitors and seen close up. For this reason, visual and haptic impressions of the surfaces are also playing an increasingly important role.

The metal and surface quality as well as the design aesthetics are therefore decisive factors to stand out in today's competition.

This is where the advantages of the stainless steel finishes from mirrorINOX described above come into play and can offer escalator manufacturers and architects new, highly attractive solutions in the design and construction of escalator elements.

Stainless steel from mirrorINOX is also the optimal material here, fulfilling all the above-mentioned requirements and more.

On this page, you will find examples of escalators whose cladding elements have been made from our stainless steel sheets.

mirrorINOX: expertise in the manufacturing of high-quality stainless steel lift and escalator materials

Even before mirrorINOX was founded, our staff worked for many years with lift and escalator manufacturers and provided advice and assistance to architects, designers and manufacturers during the implementation of many larger and smaller projects.

This extensive experience and expertise are combined with the latest technology, the most modern production lines and customised stainless steel products for elevator and escalator construction. These include:

• Super Mirror No.8 and other mirror-polished sheets for wall and ceiling cladding,
• R11 anti-slip sheets for lift floors,
• Our transparent CLEAR nanoINOX® AFP/ETC protective coating or the coloured nanoINOX® AFP/ETC coating with AFP (AntiFingerPrint) / ETC (Easy-To-Clean) properties

to name just a few. In addition to our nanocoating, our range of stainless steel surface treatments for lifts, escalators and other architectural applications also includes many interesting solutions such as polishing, brushing, bead blasting, PVD/TiN coating and many others. We are happy to provide our customers with further information and advice on stainless steel materials and their processing.

As elevator and escalator applications, our stainless steel finishes welcome millions of passengers and passers-by every day in commercial and residential buildings, airports and railway stations, hotels and cruise ships – in short, wherever people and architecture meet.

Through their appearance and function, they contribute to the reputation and image of the building, its architect, builder and, of course, the proprietor.

The ever-increasing number of satisfied mirrorINOX customers from this and other industries is clear evidence that our quality, performance, reliability and, last but not least, prices are rather up-lifting.