Lock Replacement & Installation Balwyn

Rekeying keeps the lock body on your door and changes its internals so that a different key operates it. Every previously cut key stops working. Replacement removes the hardware entirely and fits new hardware with new keys. If your concern is who holds a key, rekeying answers it. If your concern is that the lock itself is worn, damaged, insecure or wrong for the door, replacement answers it. Paying for new hardware when a rekey would have done is one of the more common ways people overspend on locksmithing.

• Rekey when the hardware is sound but the keys are out of your control
• Replace when the mechanism is worn, damaged or failing
• Replace when the existing hardware is unsuitable for how the door is used
• Replace when parts for an obsolete lock are no longer obtainable

Locks tend to warn you before they fail outright. The key needs jiggling or lifting to turn. The cylinder feels gritty. The latch retracts slowly, or does not fully return. The key comes out with a black residue on it. A deadbolt that once threw smoothly now needs shoulder pressure on the door. Any of these on an external door is worth attending to, because the failure itself usually happens at the least convenient moment.

New installations — a deadbolt on a door that only has a latch, a lock on a previously unsecured internal or garage door, hardware on a newly hung door — are about accuracy more than anything else. Boring the cylinder and latch to the right depth and alignment, morticing the strike plate flush, and confirming the door still closes cleanly afterwards is what separates a lock that works for fifteen years from one that binds within a season.