LOCKSMITH SERVICE

Emergency Entry

Locked out is the call we get most often, and the first thing almost everyone asks is whether the lock will have to be drilled. Usually not. On most doors the aim is to open it without damage and leave the lock you already have working, and drilling is a last resort rather than a first move. Where a lock does have to be replaced, we will tell you before we start and tell you what it will cost.

What happens when you call. We agree a price on the phone before we set off, so the cost is not being decided while you are standing on your own doorstep in the cold. There is no call-out fee — you pay for the work, not for our arrival — and if we cannot resolve the problem we came out for, there is no charge for the visit.

Say straight away if someone is inside. If a child, an older relative or a pet is on the other side of the door you cannot open, tell us the moment you call. It changes what we bring and how quickly we come. Please do not put a shoulder to the door: a forced door frequently ends up neither opening nor closing properly, and you can turn a lock problem into a door problem in one go. If a young child has turned a key on the inside, they can very often turn it back if someone stays calm and talks them through it.

What not to do while you are waiting. Do not start on the lock with whatever is in the car. Forcing a cylinder or levering at the door usually turns a straightforward opening into a replacement, and it damages the door as well as the lock. If a key has snapped off, leave the broken piece exactly where it is — pliers, wire and superglue almost always push it further in, and in most cases we can get it out and keep the lock you have.

Lost keys are a different question from a lockout. If a set was dropped somewhere with nothing to connect it to your address, the risk is low. If the keys went missing with a bag, a wallet or a jacket that also held a letter, a parcel label or a driving licence, treat it as urgent and deal with it the same day. The useful part is that it is normally only the cylinder that needs changing rather than the whole lock, so it is a smaller and cheaper job than most people expect.

Timber doors and uPVC doors fail in different ways. On a timber door the lock is usually a mortice lock sitting inside the door, and opening it is about the mechanism. On a uPVC or composite door the problem is very often the door rather than the lock: if you had started having to lift or lean on the door before the key would turn, the door had dropped out of alignment and the multipoint mechanism was being forced every time it was used. Telling us which of the two you have, and what it was doing before it stopped, genuinely speeds the job up.

Our hours, honestly. We work from 7am to 7pm, seven days a week. We are not a 24-hour service and we would rather tell you that plainly than have you waiting on a doorstep at two in the morning for somebody who is not coming. Within those hours we give you an honest arrival time when you call, not an optimistic one.