What Does a Smoke Curtain Cost? (And Why That's the Wrong First Question)

If you're asking what a smoke curtain costs, here's the honest answer: it depends.

It depends on the size of the unit. It depends on how many units are going into the project. It depends on how far a distributor has to travel to install them, how many trips that installation takes, and how many testing trips come after. It depends on what additional scope gets added to the contract once a contractor gets their hands on it.

So yes — it depends. But that's not the most interesting answer, and it's not the most important question.

The Question You Should Actually Be Asking

If you're an architect or a building owner, the real question isn't how much a smoke curtain costs. It's how much it's costing you to avoid one.

Here's what I mean. When a project requires elevator smoke protection, there are a few paths to get there. You can use an elevator smoke curtain. Or you can build an elevator lobby — a dedicated rated space that separates the elevator from the rest of the floor.

A lot of architects default to the lobby. Sometimes that's the right call. But sometimes it happens because a rep or distributor pushed curtains on a previous project, it went sideways, and now the attitude is: never again. I understand that reaction. But I think it's costing people more than they realize.

That Square Footage Is Not Free

Every time I see an elevator lobby on a set of drawings, I see square footage that someone chose to give up. In a hotel, that might be a room. In an office building, that's leasable square footage. In a hospital, it's clinical space.

Here's a simple example. Take a five-story hotel with a single elevator lobby at each floor. If you could eliminate that lobby at one floor and add one hotel room in its place — even a small one — what does that actually cost you over time?

Run the math. One room. Seventy percent occupancy. $150 a night. That's roughly $190,000 in revenue over five years. Per floor. And that's a conservative number at a modest rate.

Now multiply that across floors, or across a higher ADR, or across a hotel in a market where rooms go for $250 or $300 a night. The number gets uncomfortable fast.

This isn't an argument against elevator lobbies. Sometimes the design calls for one and it's the right answer. What I'm arguing against is defaulting to a lobby without doing the math, because a bad experience with a curtain vendor left a bad taste.

So What Does a Smoke Curtain Actually Cost?

Now that we've covered the question behind the question — here's the actual answer.

An elevator smoke curtain, installed, typically runs somewhere between $6,000 and $12,000 per opening. That range moves based on manufacturer, unit size, contractor, and whatever scope creep ends up in the final contract.

There are multiple manufacturers in the market today. Some are excellent. Some are adequate. And some I wouldn't touch regardless of price.

If you're specifying or sourcing elevator smoke curtains and want a straight answer on what makes sense for your project, reach out at thesmokecurtainguy.com. That's what I'm here for.

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This post started as a voice dictation — me talking through what I know after 20+ years in the field. It was edited and formatted with AI assistance. The knowledge and opinions are mine.

— John, The Smoke Curtain Guy