From your description and questions it is appearant you are not in the elevator trade, probably the home owner. Far be it for me to tell a home owner that you can't work on your own equipment, but for safety reasons please don't. Also any person who describes how to do this is opening themselves up for liability. I can tell you by your description, your elevator probably settled down onto the limit. In order to run it up you'll have to get into high voltage, thus the safety concern. Also, valves to tend to leak. Normal yes, proper no.also the settling problem can be caused by other reasons. Please contact a local elevator company and let them do what we are trained to do.

TMD,
Boa is offering you sound advice. Your elevator is in need of repair. Call several local companies and ask them what they would charge to diagnose your equipment. Give the same information you provided here.

The safety of you and your family is our only concern. There are many hazards to be aware of when working on an elevator. And if you look through the posts in the section called "SAFETY TALK" on this forum you can see that elevators feel no remorse.

Even worse TMD, I have worked on elevators that almost seemed giddy at the opportunity to take a finger, a foot, a life. Some designs, usually due to space constraints, are inherently more dangerous than the norm. The only wheelovator I ever worked on for example had no pit, so no place to go.

With this elevator there is no pit either. So it could only have sunk down an extra 2 or 3 inches. The manuals that come with these elevators should really provide more information other than call technician. I live somewhat out in the country and worry about getting stuck and having to wait hours for someone. I have already taught the wife how to manually open the door latches if they wont open which has happened before. They don't even mention this in the manual.

The way this elevator seems to work is there is a hydraulic pump to move the elevator up and a bleed valve to bring it back down. So would a technician would manually turn on the hydraulic pump. Is there is a switch manually turn on the pump? Would a technician have to jumper a relay?

There is a reason that the manuals DON'T come with more info..its to stop people like you killing yourself or someone else by stuffing around with something they know nothing about. And whats more you are not heeding the advice of several experienced people here which goes to show that you do not care about ANYONES safety.

TakeMeDown, please call an elevator company for help.

what city/state are you located in? Maybe I can recommend a good elevator company.
A good valve should not leak/down drift.

I concur with all, you need to get a company out there. NWOV products are all discontinued. TK Access bought them about 4-5 years ago then TK closed down 3 years ago so parts and support are getting harder and harder to come by.

Do not make it worse trying things yourself, you are correct, there is a very small pit on this = NO REFUGE SPACE. If this is a sudden loss of hydraulic pressure when you are under it there is a break that will stop it, but it only needs to come down a foot to smash your skull or if your on top of it to throw you off the side of the car.

There are methods of running it up but that is not going to help you. If a Hydraulic elevator drifts it is certainly a leak somewhere, the piston packing seal, the piping or worse, in the valves itself. You'll never see it since it will drain back into the tank. It will keep happening until the root cause is found, that is for sure.

If you mess around and try to get this to pump on its own and burn out the valve body, I can tell you right now you are looking at a $2k repair and waiting 4 weeks (If you are lucky) for the part. O' rings and packing seals are easy but you're going to have to get a company out there.