You moved in three weeks ago. The previous owner left a handful of keys, none labelled, and the bolt on the side door rattles in its housing.
Replacing an existing deadbolt is usually a matter of matching rather than cutting. The locksmith measures the cross bore, the edge bore and the backset, checks the door thickness, and picks a bolt that drops into the holes you already have. Where the old lock was a builder-grade unit, the replacement can step up to a heavier grade with a hardened bolt, a free-turning collar around the cylinder and a low-profile face that gives a wrench nothing to grip. The old strike is checked against the new bolt's instructions, and where it calls for it, a reinforced strike and long screws go in while the door is already apart.
Sound familiar?Alnwick/Haldimand
Deadbolt Installation · Alnwick/Haldimand
Scene 1
The last part of the first look is about the people, not the door. The locksmith asks whether this is the door the household leaves through, whether children, older relatives or anyone with limited hand strength use it, and whether it is a rental where the landlord holds keys. A door that serves as a way out gets a thumb-turn planned for it, so nobody has to hunt for a key to leave. A lever thumb-turn is easier for small or stiff hands than a knurled one, and a rental may need a note to the building manager. None of this takes long, and it shapes which box comes off the van.
Scene 2
A reinforced strike or strike box is centred over the pocket, squared to the edge of the jamb, and its outline is scored and chiselled to a depth that leaves the plate flush. Pilot holes are drilled, and the two holes nearest the door stop take 75 mm screws that pass through the jamb and the shim space into the stud behind, with shorter screws in the remaining holes. The long screws are driven by hand for the last turns so the heads seat without crushing the jamb. Where the jamb is thin or has been split by an earlier attempt, a full-length jamb reinforcer is fitted under the strike instead.
Scene 3
What you feel at the end is a bolt that travels its whole length into the frame with one turn and stops with a definite click, which is the deadlocking position that stops the bolt being pushed back from the edge. From outside, the key turns a cylinder that sits in a collar which spins if gripped. From inside, the thumb-turn moves the same bolt without a key. The locksmith shows you both, throws the bolt with the door closed so you hear it seat, and hands over the packaging with the model, finish and backset written on it for the day a matching lock is wanted on another door.
What shapes the quoteCobourg Lock & Key Co.
FeesSame any hour
A replacement into existing holes is generally the shorter visit, and boring a fresh door with a new strike takes longer, roughly an hour or two per door including the frame work and testing. Steel doors, keying alike, frame repairs after a forced entry and fitting a jamb reinforcer each add time. The locksmith can give a realistic estimate once the door and frame have been looked at.
The usual position is 140 to 150 mm above the centre of the knob, which lines the two locks up and keeps both within one reach. Manufacturers' templates assume that spacing, which helps a later keypad or handleset line up, though many handlesets still need their own lower hole drilled to that model's template. The height is nudged if it would land on glass, a decorative panel or a hollow spot inside an insulated door, and to make sure the frame behind it is solid.
Yes, on nearly any wood, steel-clad or fibreglass entry door. The locksmith marks a spot above the knob, clamps a jig to the door and bores a cross hole through the face and a smaller hole through the edge, then cuts a pocket and fits a strike on the frame. The main things checked first are the door's thickness, what is inside it at that height and whether glass sits close by.
NorthumberlandOntario
Deadbolt Installation · Cobourg, Brighton, Cramahe, Hamilton, Gosport, East Colborne, Coverdale, Norham, Codrington, Orland, Smithfield
Every square is one home in a hundred.
On-site assessment preferred · (289) 677-1674, open 24/7
