Locksmithing and Security

I’ve probably mentioned before what a nice lock the Ingersoll SC71 is. It’s very unusual in that it’s a 10-lever cylinder rimlock. It’s also very secure. Just about no-one can pick it; and it’s very tough to open destructively.

One niggle and one cautionary note though: the quality of the lock body seems to be deteriorating; and the cost of a replacement cylinder sometimes causes people to adapt a cheaper cylinder and use it in place of a new Ingersoll cylinder.

It’s possible to come across old Ingersoll SC71s that are still working after 20 or more years. But these days the lock bodies seem to last less than 10. However, for those 10 years it’s still an excellent lock.

If you have an Ingersoll lock, then before congratulating yourself check the cylinder to ensure that someone hasn’t replaced it with an inferior one. The genuine Ingersoll cylinder is quite unique. It has a slightly domed front, the keyway is wave-shaped and symmetric, and the key is double sided in that, unlike, say, a Yale which would have teeth only down one edge, an Ingersoll key has teeth down both edges (and to help you insert it the right way round, the hole in the bow is offset).

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.

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.

Or, Avoiding Being Ripped Off, Part 1

It’s worth making a note of what locks you have. If you have a multi-point lock, it’s also worth ensuring that you are completely familiar with the handle up and handle down behaviour of both the inside and the outside handle.

For example if you know that your latch lock is a reasonably-recent Yale (or ERA or Legge or Union) with no inside keyhole then if you lock yourself out and a so-called locksmith turns up saying, “I know they quoted you £70 but that’s a special lock and we’re going to have to x and then y, and it’s going to cost you £175″, you will be able to put them right or refuse to pay anything and call someone else.

Perhaps you know that you have a multi-point lock and that although the outside handle won’t withdraw the latch, the inside handle will. In that case, if the wind or the dog should slam the door while you’re outside chatting to the postman, and a so-called locksmith turns up saying, “That’ll have to be drilled, and therefore it’s going to cost you …”, you may be in a position to say, “Why?” and “Oh no it shouldn’t.”

So what locks might genuinely provoke a sharp intake of breath and be more costly to lock yourself out with? That would include Ingersolls, Bramahs, Cisa dimple cylinders, most dimple cylinders in fact, most Banhams and Yale or ERA latches with big chunky escutcheons outside and keyholes in their inside handles. (What is a dimple cylinder? Unlike typical cylinder keys where there are valleys and peaks along the edge of the key, these keys have dimples in their faces.)

One more example of a special lock would be a Chubb Ava latch. These are mildly unusual and can be quite expensive to lock yourself out with. The key is very distinctive: it is cylindrical with flats at various angles. And inside there is a roundish plastic knob with a keyhole in its centre.

Some keys can be copied by anyone with a key cutting machine and some can’t. Those that can’t be (or shouldn’t be) copied are called restricted or protected key systems.

If you have to give keys out to friends or relatives or builders, or to nannies, au pairs or dog walkers, it’s nice to know that when those keys come back to you they are very unlikely to have been copied.

The downside is that when you do finally want another copy for yourself, it will be time consuming and expensive to get it. It may not even be possible. Restricted key systems are frequently specific to a particular locksmith, and if that locksmith has gone out of business getting copies is going to be from difficult to impossible.

If you are having a restricted key system fitted, make sure that you are told where key blanks can be got from if the locksmith, heaven forbid, goes belly-up.

If you are moving into a place, have a good look at the keys. If they are stamped with a locksmith’s name or with a longish number¹ they may well be restricted — ask, or try ringing the number and enquiring about getting key copies.

It’s much easier to come up with restricted key systems for pin tumbler cylinder locks than for lever locks. It is therefore your cylinder lock (the “Yale”) that is the more likely to be restricted. It is, however, possible to find a restricted key system lever lock (the “Chubb”); look at the stem of the key; if it isn’t cylindrical, it might be restricted.

¹ 1, 2 or 3 digit numbers stamped on a key don’t count. They are used to distinguish regular key blanks: 1A is a Yale 5-pin, 453 is a Profit blank, etc.

Customers quite often ask me what the best lock would be. However, quite often we are standing next to a door that the big, bad wolf wouldn’t even have to huff over — one small puff and it would be open.

The physical strength of the the door and frame are just as important as the lock. This is especially true around here (London) where nearly all break-ins I attend are literally that: smashing the door in.

A solid door is better than a hollow door or a panelled door. Raised moldings can make it look nicer; panels simply make it easier to burst through. If you must have panels — of wood or of glass — you really need to consider a mesh or a grille on the inside. If grilles or meshes over panels are aesthetically unacceptable then you need to consider a monitored alarm or a big dog.

I’m sometimes asked to fit another mortice deadlock, but in a door that’s too thin or too insubstantial. I’m afraid that cutting a big hole in a door that’s less than 44 mm thick, or that’s hollow, simply makes it easier to burst open.

Are the door or frame cracked or split, especially around the locks and their keeps? Minor cracks and splits can be dealt with via strengthening plates and bars. Major cracks or splits really require the attention of a good carpenter.

You’ve probably cottoned on to this already, but in case you just moved in or have been lucky so far …

Many of the more lunatic manufacturers of the folding sliding doors you sometimes find opening onto a rear garden, fit an ordinary euro-profile-cylinder to lock the lever that operates the top and bottom bolts of the folding hinge.

Of course, one day you forget you’ve left the key in the cylinder, open the doors, and snap. Your key gets broken off in the lock. And you’ve a gouge mark in your door.

Do something similar to what hotels used to do with their keys in the days before keycard/digital locks. Tie a large, very soft (you don’t want this breaking your glass) ball or something to the folding sliding door keys.

When you’ve moved into a new place and are contemplating the pile of keys you’ve acquired, put the ones that don’t seem to be for anything into a drawer somewhere (unlocked). But make sure that the keys that go in your pocket or purse are the complete set of front door keys. The most likely time to suffer a lockout is during the first two or three days of having moved in.

Apart from coming across intriguingly locked cupboards, mystery keys might operate locks from the inside. If you’ve got a rim lock with a key on the outside and a key on the inside, don’t assume that the outside key also fits the inside lock. If the outside cylinder was ever compromised and changed, its key will no longer operate the inside lock; and hopefully the inside key was kept.

If someone double locks the door as they leave, while you are still on the inside, you’ll be grateful you kept the inside key. You won’t have to yell to passers by from your window, throw them your key and keep your fingers crossed that they don’t just run off with it.

I might just have mentioned this before, but don’t lock your safe’s spare key or bypass key in the safe. Go and get it out now and put it somewhere else.

If you have two safes and are determined to put your spare keys in a safe, at least consider putting the spare for one inside the other. That way there’s at least a chance that when you lose or break one safe’s only living key, you have a working key to the safe where the spare is stored.

As you’ll guess, yesterday I attended a safe where “the key’s inside”. I don’t really mind as it’s all work of course. However, I wanted an example of this particular lock, and was a mite peeved that there was no need to put a replacement lock in.