There is usually a reason, and it is usually one of four.
- You just moved in and you have no idea how many copies of that key are out there. Short answer, neither does your landlord.
- A roommate moved out and did not hand everything back.
- A set of keys vanished somewhere on the walk back from Dolores Park and you would rather not spend the week wondering where.
- Somebody got in, or tried to, and the lock is now evidence of how easy it was.
Rekey or replace
These are not the same job and the difference is money.
Rekeying keeps the lock on your door and changes its insides so the old keys stop working. Gadi pulls the cylinder, swaps the pins, cuts you new keys on the spot. It is faster and it is cheaper, and if your hardware is decent it is the right call. It is also how you get five different doors onto one key, which is the request we hear most from people who just signed a lease.
Replacing means new hardware. That is the answer when the lock is worn out, when it was never any good, when the finish is wrong for a door you just refinished, or when the thing on your door is a builder grade knob that anybody could get through.
If we can rekey it we will say so, even though replacing pays better. Telling you to buy hardware you do not need is how a locksmith gets one job out of a customer instead of ten years of them.
One key for the whole place
The entrance, the rear door, the garage, the street gate, the storage cage downstairs. If the cylinders are compatible they can all be keyed alike, and you walk around with one key instead of a janitor's ring. For a landlord with a small building we can also set up a master key, where each tenant opens only their own unit and you open everything.
What we install
Grade 2 and Grade 1 deadbolts, usually Schlage or Kwikset, stepping up to commercial locksets on doors that take real punishment. Smart locks too, and you will get a frank opinion on which models survive a building with a heavy street door and which ones we keep getting called back to.
Most rekey calls we take are a whole flat or a whole house rather than one lonely door, so the number people hear is for the set. A single cylinder on its own is a much smaller job and a much smaller price.
