The original hydraulic elevators required holes for the jacks exactly as deep as the total rise of the elevator. So, a hydraulic elevator in a four-story commercial installation would require a set of bore holes over forty feet deep, starting beneath the four-foot pit under the elevator shaft. Such systems are expensive to install – particularly in areas with shallow bedrock – hard to repair, and prone to leaking hydraulic fluid into the groundwater.

今天, many hydraulic elevators have moved to a roped design, 哪一个, through a simple application of physics, allows the use of a shorter hydraulic jack – one that doesn’t need to disappear into the ground. Thus, the “holeless” designation.