Carter County’s courthouse elevator remained out of service after a technician reported a control-board failure and abnormal voltage on the system.

Patrick, the elevator technician reached by phone during the meeting, said a rectifier that converts building AC power to the DC voltages the control board expects failed. "The rectifier takes your normal building AC power and converts it to DC power, and it's not converting to DC," Patrick said. "It's applying 120 volts to the circuit board, which is designed to run at 24 volts DC on parts of it and other parts as low as 5 volts DC, and putting 120 AC volts across. That's what blew ... the wire off the board." Patrick said he has ordered one rectifier and is working with a parts contact (Pam Anders at Vertical Express) to source two additional units; he planned to coordinate a return visit once parts arrive.

Commissioners discussed whether an engineer should come on-site rather than troubleshoot remotely. Patrick said an engineer had suggested flying in if needed but he was waiting to see if ordered parts would restore normal operation. He also noted that some elevator-control upgrades commonly quoted to the county would replace many components and could exceed $100,000 depending on the scope.

County staff and the technician discussed potential contributing causes such as building voltage spikes, transfer-switch behavior when a generator starts and the absence of a building-wide surge protector. Patrick recommended testing for stray voltage and said that outages per se do not usually cause rectifier failure, but voltage spikes can damage sensitive electronics.

Next steps: the technician will notify county staff when parts arrive and return to complete testing and repairs. Commissioners asked staff to monitor progress and to weigh quotes for a longer-term control upgrade if parts do not resolve the problem.