Shafting
Buildings may have maintenance shafts for passage of pipes and ducts between floors. Climbing these shafts is known as shafting. The practice is similar to buildering, which is done on the outsides of buildings.
Regular use of a shaft can wear down insulation and cause other problems. To fix these problems, hackers sometimes take special trips into the shafts to correct any problems with duct tape or other equipment.
A dangerous variant of shafting involves entering elevator shafts, either to ride on the top of the elevators, or to explore the shaft itself. This activity is sometimes called elevator surfing. The elevator is first switched to "manual" mode, before boarding or exiting, and back to "automatic" mode after, to allow normal operation (and avoid detection). Switching elevators, getting too near the ceiling (or under the elevator) or the counterweight (or cables), or otherwise failing to follow safety precautions can lead to death or injury, which tends to inconvenience both the individual at fault and the hacking "community". Crackdowns may increase in both frequency and harshness, both legally and with respect to physical access to coveted locations.
Some shafts (such as those intended for but lacking an elevator) are accessible by use of rope but are not actually climbable by themselves.
Read more about this topic: Roof And Tunnel Hacking