Lock Repair

Key stiff or needs wiggling: normally a worn key or a dry, dirty cylinder. Cleaning, dry lubrication and a freshly cut key from the original code solve most of these. Door needs lifting or shoving to lock: the door has dropped or the frame has moved, so the bolts are fouling the keeps. That is a hinge and keep adjustment, not a new lock.

Handle droops or feels loose: a worn spindle, a tired handle spring or a failing gearbox cam. Handle lifts but the key will not turn: that is usually the multipoint gearbox, and it is a part replacement rather than a whole-door job. Key turns but nothing moves: the cam or the lock body has failed internally.

Bolt throws but the door still opens: the keep is worn or misaligned. Lock rattles when the door is shut: worn keeps or compression gasket, adjustable in minutes. None of those require a new door, whatever a window company may have told you.

The majority of repairs are done in one visit with parts from the van: multipoint gearboxes for GU, Fuhr, Yale, Maco, ERA, Mila, Winkhaus and Avocet systems, euro cylinders, handles, spindles, keeps, strike plates, hinges and hinge packers, night latch bodies, mortice lock cases, door closers and letter plates.

Alignment work is the underrated part of the job. Re-hanging a dropped door, packing a hinge, moving a keep three millimetres or easing a swollen timber frame will fix a lock that appeared to be broken and will prevent the next failure. It also protects the new parts, because a mechanism forced against a misaligned keep will fail again within a year or two.

Some repairs are false economy and we will say so. A cylinder that has been drilled, snapped or attacked is finished. A mortice case with a cracked body is finished. Obsolete mechanisms where no spare is manufactured must be replaced with a modern equivalent. A lock fitted below insurance standard on a final exit door should be upgraded rather than nursed.

The test we apply is simple: if a repair will not still be working in a year, it is not a repair, it is a delay. You get told which category your lock falls into, with the reason, before any money is spent.

Lubricate cylinders with dry PTFE or graphite twice a year and never with general-purpose oil, which attracts grit. Check that the door closes without being lifted; if it needs lifting, book an adjustment before the gearbox fails. Replace keys that are visibly worn or bent rather than waiting for one to snap.

For rented property, an annual hardware check across all final exit doors is genuinely cheaper than the out-of-hours call-outs it prevents, and it produces the paperwork insurers like to see.