Dumb Waiters

We are able to supply a full and extensive range of Dumb Waiters from leading manufacturers. Each Dumb Waiter possesses an extremely impressive lift capacity and is fully serviced and well-maintained to give maximum reliability and sustained performance.

Our specialists can also give you professional and impartial advice on any structural preparation required in advance prior to installation – if the need arises.

About Dumb Waiters
Large Victorian homes, in which domestic servants were once employed, may still have a Dumb Waiter - a handy little lift used solely for transporting goods usually carried by a person but used for convenience and speed. Food prepared in the kitchens by the servants would have been sent upstairs, via the Dumb Waiter, to the Butlers for serving.

Dumb Waiters today
Today, a Dumb Waiter can be found in restaurants, hospitals, hotels and laundry businesses, to name a few. They can be installed at a certain level for easier loading. The positioning will depend on what it is going to be used for. For example, waiters loading up a Dumb Waiter may find waist-high installation beneficial. A Dumb Waiter loaded from floor level to accommodate a trolley might be ideal for small hotels that deal with piles of daily laundry.

Advance preparation of the area or shaft into which the Dumb Waiter is to be installed is vital before installation of the lift can begin. At Crane Tech, we can easily install one for you.  

Dumb Waiters – so many BENEFITS:

Used for speedy transportation of goods between floors

Inexpensive to purchase

Very reliable

Can be positioned at different heights to suit users

Can take weight up to 150kg on average but 500kg is not uncommon

Dumb Waiters compliant with South African Standards
We are pleased to offer you a bespoke service if the size and capacity of the Dumb Waiters offered are not suitable for your needs. Any work our specialist engineers do for you on your Dumb Waiter will be fully compliant with South African legislation and covered by warranty.

Dumb Waiter servicing & maintenance
Our team of specialists is fully qualified and vastly experienced and will quickly provide you with information and quotations for any type of Dumb Waiter servicing.

Impartial advice on Dumb Waiters
Our helpful Customer Advisors are always standing by to professionally and impartially advise upon an appropriate lift solution for individual site and customer requirements.

A dumb waiter is a smaller version of a traditional passenger lift, designed to carry food, cutlery or other similar items between floors. It was first invented to help servants carry meals and dirty plates between the dining room and kitchen in the Victorian times. Today it plays a similar role in many hospitality locations.

It can be extremely simple and straightforward to have a dumb waiter installed in any location. They are invaluable in the process of streamlining the tasks of a busy restaurant or hotel. They are relatively cheap and will quickly pay for themselves in the precious time saved when employees would usually have to carry meals or dishes between floors themselves. They are also useful in decreasing the potential risk of injury to staff or damage to plates for example. An employee carrying a number of dishes up and down a flight of stairs could easily trip and cause a lot of damage. The dumb waiter provides a safe alternative, and is considerably cheaper and easier to install than a service lift.

A good example of a location that would benefit from a dumb waiter is a smaller hotel. Large hotels tend to install service lifts in order to carry trolleys laden with laundry and other items between floors. The cleaning service of a hotel must be extremely fast and efficient, but many smaller hotels can’t justify the installation of a service lift. A more suitable and cost-effective alternative would be to install a dumb waiter. The average capacity of a dumb waiter is 150KG, which is perfectly suited to carrying the normal items used in a hotel between floors. Cleaning a hotel can potentially be a tedious and drawn out task, but it can be facilitated with the installation of a dumb waiter. It would save precious time, as well as allowing employees to avoid the stairs and potential danger.

There are many factors to consider when installing a dumb waiter. The dimensions of a building must be taken into account when designing the lift shaft, and the expected capacity of the car must also be considered. Other aspects such as the location of the loading point of the car must be taken into account. The loading point is usually made at about waist level to allow easy loading and unloading. Aspects such as décor and controls of the lift can also be considered to ensure the lift fits perfectly with its surroundings, and is suited ideally for its task.