5 replies to this topic

[iheartchairlifts]

Hey everyone,
My name is Mark, and I'm working on a project for one of my classes. We are looking at the feasability of opening a small scale ski/sledding hill in our area and I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction as far as finding out the costs of buying/installing a ski lift. I've found a lot of useful, interesting information so far, but I'm coming up with nothing so far in terms of costs to buy, install and maintain one of these things. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[shoemaniii]

what's the vertical and slope length? this would have an impact on purchase/install/running costs.

new or refurbished double chairlifts can cost 1 - 2 million to if they are code compliant. however if there are no state, federal or insurance inspectors to deal with, the cost could be greatly reduced - but your personal liability will increase if there is an incident.

you'll have a few lift operators to train, then pay to run the thing.

you'll need a few OEC certified patrollers for trail monitoring, slope injury response, rope evac equipment/training.

you'll need a coupla lift maint types for general daily inspections, responding to lift glitches, and also for periodic in-season greasing/brake testing/misc mech/elec checks.

i know of one lift that serves both skiers and tubing, but it runs slow (tubing passengers can't load at more than 250fpm). it's a short lift tho.

have no idea on electrical costs per KW in your area

a handle tow, or two in series, would be cheaper by far and no rope evac worries.
bobp

[iheartchairlifts]

For the sake of arguement, lets say 1000 x 300 double chairlift, code compliant, refurbished. Do they make lifts much shorter than that?


Electricity's cheap, let's say 2.5 cents kw/h.

doing a quick search of ski patrol salaries, it looks like about 12.00, I was thinking a couple bucks less than that for lift operators, let me know if I'm off anywhere. Is there any special certification the lift maintenance guys would need?

basically, from what I've read so far it looks like the project would make more sense with just surface lifts, but it would be nice to have some ballpark figures for the chair lift.


as far as a handle tow, does around 10,000 used sound about right?

thanks all

[SkiBachelor]

I believe I saw a used handle tow on eBay that was 500 feet long for sale for $50,000.

[iheartchairlifts]

http://www.saminfo.com/marketplace/ka_deta...ts&keyword=

found some used lifts here, wasn't sure about the cost of installation

[chasl]

iheartchairlifts, on Apr 17 2008, 08:45 PM, said:

http://www.saminfo.com/marketplace/ka_deta...ts&keyword=

found some used lifts here, wasn't sure about the cost of installation

Carefull, those lifts will probably need a lot of money to bring them into compliance. The initial cost will probably be less than the cost to bring them up to the new code.