ORONA Lifts
A Spanish cooperative from the Basque Country, one of the largest independent lift manufacturers in Europe.
Manufacturer
- Spaincountry of manufacture
Strengths
- In-house drive manufacturing
- European certification
- Renovation solutions
What to know about ORONA lifts
ORONA grew out of the Basque Country's cooperative model: the company is owned by the people who work there. For the client, something else matters more - its own drive, rather than a lift assembled from third-party components. The group brings together several dozen companies and operates beyond Spain, with businesses in France, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
The technical basis is a gearless drive. No machine room is needed: equipment that used to occupy a separate room above the shaft is housed within the shaft itself. For the building that means freed-up space; for operation, lower consumption. ORONA's archive materials put a figure on it: replacing a geared traction machine with gearless technology can save up to 50% of energy. The second item in the same programme is LED car lighting.
Renovation is a separate line of the manufacturer's business and the main reason it gets chosen. You cannot widen the old shaft in a 1970s building, the pit is often shallow, and the machine room is cluttered with junk and pipes. The equipment is selected to fit the existing dimensions, not the other way round - exactly the situation where a standard catalogue size no longer helps.
To be honest about the downsides: this is not a cheap lift. Supply comes from Europe, so noticeable time passes between signing and installation, and non-standard components have to be ordered as originals - an equivalent from the open market will not always do. If the project is on a tight budget and under time pressure, we usually suggest something else.
Lift types to choose from
Passenger lifts
For residential buildings, offices, hotels and public buildings.
Goods lifts (freight elevators)
For warehouses, factories, shopping centres and kitchens.
Hospital (bed) lifts
For hospitals and medical centres: sized for stretchers and intensive care beds.
Panoramic lifts (glass elevators)
A glass car as an architectural feature of the building.
Quick answers
ORONA: frequently asked questions
Does it make sense to install ORONA in an ordinary nine-storey block instead of a cheaper lift?
It does, if the building counts costs beyond the moment of purchase. A gearless drive uses noticeably less energy than an old geared traction machine, and the freed-up machine room can be put to other use. But the difference in supply price is real, and if residents struggle to raise the funds, it is fairer to look at Bulgarian or Turkish options.
Can ORONA be fitted into the existing shaft of an old building?
In most cases, yes - that is exactly what the manufacturer's renovation solutions are for. We visit the site, take the actual shaft dimensions, pit depth and headroom, and check the condition of the embedded parts and the floor slab. The specific version is then selected based on these measurements. Without a survey, any answer would be guesswork.
What about spare parts after installation?
Consumables - guide shoes, rollers, contacts, door operator parts - usually pose no problem. Electronics and non-standard components are harder: they are shipped from Europe, so same-day replacement is not possible. That is why, on sites where lift downtime is critical, we advise stocking the most frequently needed parts from the outset.
Who maintains the lift after installation?
We do. Supply, installation and ongoing maintenance are handled by one company, and that is not a formality: the crew that assembled the lift knows the specific controller, the VFD settings and the particulars of that shaft. We work mainly in Western Ukraine, from our office in Ivano-Frankivsk and our branch in Lviv, but we also travel further afield.
Other manufacturers
See also
How to choose a lift: a step-by-step guide for clients
What determines the choice of lift: building type, number of floors, rated load, drive type and whether there is a machine room. Practical guidelines and common mistakes.
7 min readHow much lift replacement costs and what makes up the price
Why the price is not quoted over the phone, which items actually make up the cost of a lift replacement, what drives the cost up and which benchmark you can check in the open register.
9 min readWe'll price your equipment free of charge
Choose what you need: an engineer will contact you within one working day, select a model and calculate the cost.
- Lift enquiry Passenger, goods, hospital, panoramic →
- Escalator enquiry Escalators and moving walks →
- Other enquiry Platform lifts, modernization, maintenance, spare parts →
Or just give us a call: +38 (050) 585-39-28 ·+38 (063) 283-31-48 ·+38 (096) 901-76-50