Locksmithing and Security

If you’ve bought or are renting a newly built apartment, it’s quite possible that you and everyone else in your building are out at work all day. Which means that the entire building might be unoccupied during the day. (Unless you’re rich young professional, in which case there’s a porter or concierge.)

We are seeing more and more break-ins where the thieves have been able to make as much noise with power tools (e.g. chain saws!) as they like.

Have you considered a neighbourhood watch. Or seeing if you can get everyone in the building to contribute towards CCTV cameras?

If you do either of these, ensure that they’re prominently signed. And ensure that any camera are prominent and that their fittings are hidden or very robust.

The “French” doors you usually find in the UK are not French at all, as you’d probably expect. As you close proper French double doors they fit together by one door having a rounded edge profile and the other door having a cupped edge profile. When they’re properly sized and when the wood is properly seasoned, prepared and painted so that it doesn’t expand or shrink too much, this is an excellently draught-proof arrangement. Naturally it’s getting harder and harder to get proper doors that are properly fitted.

Here in the UK, “French” double door fit together with rebates. The edges where the doors meet have L-shaped profiles. This is nearly impossible to draught-proof.

Fitting locks (deadlocks or sashlocks) to either countries’ arrangments is challenging. Normally a rebated door will have a rebated lock. The lock will either be specially shaped or will have an adapter such that the bolts and keeps (boltholes) can still be placed centrally, across the rebate.

A lazy or ignorant fitter might be tempted to fit the lock off centre so that they don’t have to deal with the step shape of the rebate. Unfortunately this means that the bolt keeps will find themselves in the thin and fragile sticking out part of the other door. And the lock case will be too close to the face of its door and easily broken out and opened.

Even when fitted properly rebated doors won’t be secured particularly well by a deadlock or sash lock. Most deadlocks and sash locks, for example, lose their BS (British Standard) rating when used between rebated double doors.

You really need to fit mortised bolts as well. Mortised means that the bolts are inside the door rather than screwed to its face. They are also known as rack bolt or star-key bolts because a star shaped key that goes into a small hole is used to wind the bolt in or out.

Or, Avoiding Being Ripped Off, Part 2

If you look in the Yellow Pages (and in other places) for a locksmith (or plumber, etc.) you will find a whole bunch of large adverts at the front of the section. These are the adverts of the “nationals”. Think about how much money they’ve spent on those adverts all over the country: how are they going to recoup that money? From you.

Ask yourself if they are going to employ a large workforce of locksmiths ready to get to anywhere in the country in a reasonably short time. No they’re not. In fact they’re not going to employ any locksmiths (or plumbers, etc.) at all. They will either be franchises or they will be call centres. And in the case of locksmiths they won’t be franchises, they’ll be call centres. Ask yourself how they’re going to recoup the cost of the call centre. From you.

These national call centres are simply going to farm the work out to their list of local locksmiths. And that will be a local locksmiths only if you’re lucky; it could very well be the nearest botcher with a nothing but a drill if you’re unlucky. The “nationals” themselves won’t be at all unhappy if “their” locksmiths tend to drill everything as it increases their margin. Some nationals, although not all thank goodness, even get cross when locksmiths pick locks open to resolve lockouts and lock sales are lost.

So why take pot luck on which local tradesperson or botcher is called? Why pay a margin to a call centre? Call a local locksmith directly yourself.

How can you tell they’re local? Look at the phone number. Or if it’s an 0800 number look at the fax number. If you’re considering a locksmith that appears to be called FastLocks (Battersea) but the telephone numbers are Leicester or 087… numbers you could be forgiven for suspecting they’re not really based in Battersea.

If you’re thinking of putting an electric release on your own front door, think about its strength. If you’re thinking of putting an electric release on a communal front door, think about its reliability.

The electrics can either be in the lock or they can be in the keep. It’s a tiny bit more expensive to have the lock version — for example the wire has to be of the right kind and protected in the right way as it will be constantly moving as the door is opened and closed. But the extra expense of an electric release lock is well worth it. It might be 50% more expensive, but it will be at least 300% better.

Electric release keeps tend to be weak and trouble-prone. If the electrics are done correctly, however, an electric release lock — like a Cisa — will go on for decades.