Denver is revamping its elevator inspection process to address a “growing public safety crisis” caused by prolonged elevator failures and inspection delays, months after a Denver Post investigation found the city’s fire department was routinely rescuing people from malfunctioning lifts operating without valid permits.
The Denver Fire Department oversees the city’s more than 7,500 conveyances, but property owners pay third-party contractors to conduct inspections, which they then send to the fire department in order to receive certificates of operation.
Many of the worst elevators in the city, however, operated for years without valid licenses, The Post found in its investigation, leading to repeated rescues.
How Denver allows faulty or inoperable elevators to keep trapping people
As of Sept. 1, fire department investigators began conducting elevator inspections in place of third-party companies for new elevators coming online and those that have received alterations, the department said. The third-party contractors will continue to perform annual and five-year inspections.
The shift in oversight, first reported by CBS Colorado, comes in response to “widespread community concern” over residents — especially elderly or the disabled — being stuck in their apartments due to broken elevators that could not be certified for use, the department said.
“By bringing inspections under DFD oversight, the department aims to reduce delays, improve transparency and hold conveyances within the city and county of Denver accountable to a higher and more consistent safety standard,” fire officials said.
Mayor Mike Johnston said the new elevator inspection program serves another purpose: Bringing in money for the city.
Amid a $200 million budget deficit, Johnston, in his 2026 proposed budget, said conveyance inspections would add an estimated $2 million per year to the city’s coffers.
“Now our fire team will be able to come in and be a one-stop shop: provide the service, provide the inspection and provide any improvements that you need, which both saves the customer time and will be a new service that the city already is providing, but we’re not getting paid for,” the mayor said in a Sept. 15 speech outlining his budget proposal.
Full implementation of the new conveyance program is expected by June 1, the fire department said. The use of third-party inspectors will be limited to “exceptional cases,” fire officials said, and will require written authorization from the department.
The department said it is also working with conveyance contractors, elevator service companies and state officials to address the broader issues driving delays and outages. One main issue: a shortage of certified elevator technicians.
Cory Debaere, division chief of fire prevention, said in an interview that the department will be shifting inspectors from other divisions to conduct these inspections.
Third-party inspectors say they worry whether the fire department has the manpower and the expertise to adequately perform all these inspections. The city is conflating inspections with maintenance issues, they say. Nobody is making the elevator repair companies or the landlords actually fix problematic conveyances.
“It’s like they’re adding more to their plate and they can’t finish what’s already on their plate,” said Adam Eull, an inspector with National Elevator Inspection Services. “I feel like it’s gonna turn into a nightmare.”
He and other inspectors say they’ve already lost business with the new changes. Some fear that the fire department will eventually take over all Denver elevator inspections.
Therese Kerr, an independent private investigator who has worked on multiple cases involving repeated elevator failures at residential buildings, called the city’s moves a “good first step,” but warned that the department needs the staffing in order to do the job effectively.
“I’m hopeful this is a big change in the way the city is approaching enforcement,” she said.
The Post in July reviewed the 30 addresses with the most elevator entrapments. In 10 of those cases, or 33%, one or more of the elevators had expired certificates of operation.
Despite fire officials occasionally issuing landlords orders to comply, the same elevators continue to malfunction repeatedly, the newspaper found.
The fire department also admitted it hadn’t taken advanced enforcement action against noncompliant landlords in elevator cases for at least five years.
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