Change or rekey
Change or Rekey Locks
When a key is lost rather than stolen, the sensible response is usually a rekey rather than new hardware. When a lock is worn, it is the reverse. Knowing which situation you are in saves effort, and we will help you decide.
Which one do I need?
- Your basement tenant has given notice, and a new one arrives on the first.Lock Rekeying
- The back door has a deadbolt in name only: a short bolt, a thin brass strike held by two little screws, and a jamb you can flex with your palm.Deadbolt Installation
- The century home's original mortise lock takes a key the size of a spoon, sticks in humid weather and has worn its strike to a groove.Lock Replacement & Upgrade
- Someone painted the door years ago without removing the hardware.Vintage Mortise Lock Service
- You have just taken possession of the house and the previous owners handed over a keypad deadbolt with a code nobody wrote down and an app account you cannot get into.Smart Lock Installation
- Every time the courtyard gate closes, it slams hard enough to rattle the fence panels, and the deadlatch never quite drops into the keeper before the spring yanks it the rest of the way.Gate & Building Entry Locks
Change or Rekey Locks
New keys for the locks you have, or new locks where the hardware has worn out: rekeying, replacement, deadbolts, smart locks and older mortise hardware.
Lock Rekeying
Reading the keyway on each lock
Whether several doors can share one key depends on the cylinders, not the number of doors. Each lock has a keyway, the profile a key must match to enter the plug, and only cylinders with the same keyway can be pinned to the same key. The locksmith looks at the face of each cylinder and the profile of each existing key to sort the house into families.
Most homes carry one or two of the common residential keyways, sometimes with an odd one on a side door or a padlock. Anything from a different family is noted so you can decide whether to swap that cylinder for a matching one and bring the door onto the house key.