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Devehissar Alvesta AB (formely known as ​DEVES​ & "Bildeve", later Deve Schindler in the 1990s) was a Swedish hydraulic elevator manufacturer.

History

The company was founded in 1924 in Ängelholm as Bilaktiebolaget Dahlberg & Viebke as a car dealership by Carl Gösta Dahlberg, Algot Viebke & Albert Nilsson.[1] They started to manufacture automobile elevators in 1930 and bought a workshop in Munka-Ljungby, just outside of Ängelholm, to concentrate their manufacturing there. Deve later developed a lifting table and in 1944 for a bakery in Sundbyberg and later develope coffin elevators. They went to make proper hydraulic elevators in 1949 and a proper elevator manufacturing plant were built in Alvesta in 1956. The elevator company was split from the car dealerships in 1980 and renamed to Devehissar i Alvesta AB while the car dealerships kept the name Bildeve. Deve was the largest manufacturer of hydraulic-only elevators in Scandinavia, making 1300 elevators per year in 1990.

Deve started to manufacture their own fixtures in 1976, known as TKID.

DEVE Hydraulic Lifts in Australia was esablished in 1986.

They also installed platform lifts with a company named Kibæk. The company was acquired by Schindler in 1990 and became Deve Schindler before it changed name to Schindler Hiss AB in 2000.

After Schindler's acquisition of Deve, parts of its plant in Alvesta were sold to other companies, not only to that known from elevators. One part of Deve's plant became owned by Italian manufacturer of hydraulic elevator components GMV in 1993, and was named GMV Sweden AB[2]. Another part of the plant was bought by Kjell Johansson, former Deve engineer, and became part of his new company, Hydroware, which, like GMV and in past Deve, also manufactures hydraulic elevator components[3].

Notable distributors

Company name Country(s) Notes
Geijer-Hissi OY Finland
Hedinn Lyftur h.f. Iceland Later became Hedinn Schindler.
Reber Schindler Heis A/S Norway Formerly Brøderne Reber Later became Reber Schindler. At that time, the DEVE logotype was apparent in their elevators.
Valmet Finland Formely ValmetSchlieren, Later became ValmetSchindler & ValmetOTIS. ValmetOTIS often used OTIS Series 1 fixtures and DEVE hydraulic parts.

Notable installations

Sweden

  • Västberga Allé 28, Stockholm
  • Wedavägen Centrum (Willy's), Södertalje


More notable Deve installations within Sweden can be found here

Norway

  • AMFI Kanebogen Shoppingcenter, Harstad (1979)
  • Havnegaten 7, Holmestrand
  • Rådhusveien 1, Finnsnes
  • Evjenvegen 34, Tromsø
  • Tromsø Langnes (TOS) Airport, Tromsø
  • Vestregata 27-31, Tromsø
  • Storgata 22, 23, 31 and 46, Finnsnes
  • Storgata 135, Porsgrunn
  • Gjøvik Library, Gjøvik

Australia

New South Wales

  • 41-43 Goulburn Street, Liverpool, Sydney
  • Liverpool Hospital Health Services Building, Sydney
  • Liverpool Station, Sydney
  • Pennant Hills Station, Sydney (replaced with Liftronic MRL traction units)
  • Regents Park Station, Sydney
  • The Grace Hotel, Sydney (shuttle elevator from 11th to 12th floor)
  • 160 Pacific Highway, North Sydney
  • Holsworthy Station West Parking deck, Sydney (and many stations & parking decks located at train stations - many of these are set for replacement by Liftronic with their Unitronic FST2 MRL Traction units)
  • 56 Kitchener Pde, Bankstown, Sydney
  • Hornsby TAFE (K Block), Sydney
  • WSI TAFE Nepean (Building I and K), Kingswood
  • Neeta City Shopping Centre, Fairfield, Sydney
  • Westfield Warringah Mall, Sydney (replaced into Schindler elevators in 2016)
  • Kingsford Smith International Airport Terminal 3 (Qantas Terminal), Sydney

Queensland

  • Westfield Garden City, Brisbane (lifts 4 and 6 replaced into Schindler 5500)
  • Westfield Chermside, Brisbane

Victoria

  • MCG Footbridge, Melbourne
  • Dandenong Railway Station, Melbourne

Other countries

  • Yliopistonkatu, Helsinki, Finland
  • Hótel KEA, Akureyri, Iceland
  • Times Square Shopping Centre, Sutton, United Kingdom
  • Denbies Wine Estate, Dorking, United Kingdom

Cruise ferries

  • M/F Aurora (ferry cruise ship) (1991-1992, branded as Reber-Deve-Schindler)

Elevator fixtures

Main article: List of Deve elevator fixtures

Trivia

  • Deve elevators in Sweden usually have their serial numbers starting with letter "K". It had two range of numbers depending if it was the Alvesta works (higher numbering) or the Stockholm office (lower numbering) that manufactured and delivered the elevators to customers.
    • The Alvesta works covered Southern Sweden and Norway while the Stockholm works covered Central and Northern Sweden and Åland. It is currently unknown which works that delivered elevators to other places and distributors.
  • Even before the acquisition, Deve had a close partnership with Schindler and sometimes used Schindler's parts, especially automatic doors. [4]
  • Deve had never made any traction elevators. They have only made hydraulic elevators, mostly holeless hydraulics with a special designed "upside-down" piston with chains.
  • Schindler Sweden's headquarters resides in Deve Stockholm's old office building in Danderyd, Sweden.

Gallery

Notes and references

  1. Brinck, J, Å, O (red.). 2005. Ängelholmsboken 2006. Skåneförlaget & Ängelholmsbygdens lokalhistoriska förening. ISBN 91-87976-25-0
  2. Polish GMV website (Archived)
  3. Google Street View for Fabriksgatan street in Alvesta, when Hydroware headquarters are located - there were, in 2011, partially visible Deve-Schindler sign near the Hydroware headquarters building.
  4. DEVE with Bumpers, Hydraulic elevators @ Klockargatan 17, Haninge - YouTube

External links

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