Owners and licensees of elevators in residential buildings and long-term care homes must report outages. Here are FAQs for elevator owners. Owners and licensees of elevators in residential buildings and long-term care homes must report elevator outages lasting more than 48 hours to the Technical Standards and Safety Authority (TSSA).
Ontario Regulation 209/01: Elevating Devices Section 38.1 requires owners to report elevator outages to TSSA. As of Summer 2022, owners are required to report elevator outages lasting 48 hours or longer within 30 days of the elevator being returned to service.
An elevator outage report must be submitted within 30 days following the elevator’s return to service if the outage was 48 hours or longer.
Use TSSA’s Residential Elevator Availability Portal to report an elevator outage. You will need to create a user ID and password using the information found on a recent invoice from TSSA.
Only elevator owners—not elevator contractors or elevator users—can report an outage.
The requirement to report elevator outages was established to measure elevator availability in Ontario. TSSA, the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services (MGCS) and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs (MMA) commissioned Retired Superior Court Justice Douglas Cunningham to author an independent study to define and assess the state of elevator availability in Ontario. The requirement stems from the study which states that “the first step in any amendment to policy and/or regulation is a definition and measurement process for (elevator) ‘availability.’”
Ontario Regulation 209/01 Section 38.1 includes a requirement for TSSA to publish specific items from the reported data on its website.
Report outages is a regulatory requirement. Failing to report an elevator outage constitutes a violation of the regulation. TSSA may issue orders requiring the elevator owner or licensee to report the outage. If inspection orders are needed due to non-compliance with reporting requirements, TSSA will bill the elevator owner or licensees for the inspection.
Yes. All elevator outages lasting 48 hours or longer must be reported to TSSA within 30 days following the elevator’s return to service. This applies to projects to upgrade, replace, or modernize an elevator.
If the shutdown lasted 48 hours or longer, it must be reported. The incident will also need to be reported to TSSA separately as the data collected for outages and incidents are different. Refer to the Elevating Device Incident Reporting Guidelines or Elevating Device Incidents Involving Floods.
Yes, if the elevator shutdown lasted 48 hours or longer.
Yes, if the elevator shutdown lasted 48 hours or longer.
No, contractors cannot report elevator outages. Only the owner or licensee can report an elevator outage.
Outages can only be reported by a person who has a user ID and password to access the TSSA Residential Elevator Availability Portal. You can control who reports an outage by deciding who has an ID and who doesn’t.
When you report an elevator outage, TSSA provides some of its data to assist with the reporting requirement. A link is provided to allow you to change some of this data. If you did not use the link, you can search for your outage report and make the required changes. If you are unable to change the data, please email us at customerservices@tssa.org.
The system will not allow anyone but the device owner or licensee to report an outage for the device. If you recently purchased the building or took over the property management, TSSA’s records might not have been updated to reflect the change in owner or licensee. Please contact TSSA at customerservices@tssa.org to confirm that the ownership change has been processed.