Locksmithing and Security

I’ve had two weeks where almost every job suffered some kind of bugger factor and required a followup visit. Nobody’s fault; these things just happen; and they come in waves. You’ll have a week where you open five fire-safes and then you won’t see another for six months. You fit eight London bars in as many days, double your stock of them and then don’t get another request for weeks. But hey – the odd thing would be if there were no odd things.

Today, however, the gods were smiling. Initially it didn’t look good. It was pouring down and the door that needed opening had a lever lock and was set in an exposed wall. However I’d just bought a new, lined and hooded, hi-viz jacket that was still enjoying its waterproof flush of youth. I managed to park the van right outside, so I only needed to rust one expensive pick at a time. It turned out to be an uncurtained lock, which means that it could be picked in the traditional (easy) way. However–even better–the xxxxxxx keys which had been having a bad run and had not opened anything in months did the job.

Then I saw that the retaining screws had been completely burred over, meaning the lock wasn’t going to come out, and I’d have to make a return visit with the left-handed drill bits to drill the screws out (I’d neglected to put them back after using them in the workshop). But no. When I gave the screws an experimental whack with the sacrificial chisel the heads broke right off they were so rusty; and then they turned out not to be the retaining screws at all. Having wiped a cumulo-nimbus-worth of rain off my glasses, I saw they were just faceplate screws, with decent retaining screws underneath. And it wasn’t the old nasty Yale lever lock with plastic “springs” that I initially thought it might have been–was just weathering making it look so old–it was a newish Yale lever lock with a drop-in replacement available.

And the establishment turned out to be an inn. I was served a bowl of goulash, half a loaf of bread and a tankard of ale, by the fire, as well as my fee of course. (The tankard was small and it was the last job of the day.) Tra-la-la.

Imagine, heaven forbid, a bent postal worker, e.g. working in your local sorting office, who sees an envelope with an address on it (surprise, surprise) and can see or feel a key inside. Pretty tempting eh? You might also want to check out this Channel 4 programme

If you’re sending keys through the post, you must disguise their outline. We always cut around the key into some corrugated cardboard and tape the key in the hole, and we obscure the key’s keyring hole. And we then wrap that in paper and tissue paper.

You’re probably lucky if you make the even more basic mistake (and another locksmith sending me a key did this!) of putting the key, on its own, in an ordinary envelope. Let’s see now: key = sharp & metal, envelope = fragile & paper ⇒ key leaving envelope somewhere on journey (and hopefully before our putative bent worker sees it).

I’ve just been to replace a lock. The lock I was replacing was the worst fitting I’ve ever seen. They hadn’t drilled out the cylinder hole to the correct diameter so there was no room for the security sleeve that normally wraps around the cylinder, they had recessed the keep into the frame on the wrong axis, which meant that they’d then had to recess the lock too deeply into the door in two axes, all of which meant that the back of the lock was impinging the end of the cylinder.

And to make matters worse, this was one of the most expensive and interesting locks on the market–a Chubb Ava auto-deadlocking rimlock–or 4L67. This is a very nice lock: it can’t be slipped; it’s strong and it’s almost unpickable. The key is very unusual looking; although if you have a Ford or a Jaguar or a motorcyle chain lock from Abus, you would recognise the style of key. It starts life as a cylinder and then has flats machined on it at different angles. These flats rotate unsprung discs inside the cylinder. Chubb use this lock on their high-security filing cabinets. It’s one of the few rimlocks achieving the BS3621 lock standard.

So, if your rimlock (your “Yale”) looks like an ordinary Yale at first glance, but has a square bolt and a key with no teeth, treat it nicely, don’t lose your keys and don’t get locked out, both of which would be very expensive.

Oh, and Chubb don’t supply the cylinder on its own! You always have to replace the entire lock.

How much of an appetite do readers have for locksmithing suggestions, I wonder. After all, you don’t want to go through a flight length checklist as you leave. But here’s a one-off check for right now if you have your keys; and it’s something to check again when you move into a new place. It concerns any kind of pin tumbler like the venerable Yale latch.

There’s a greater than one in ten chance that your latch key (your “Yale”) has a deep cut near the bow end. That’s no problem if the lock is working smoothly. However, if the lock is stiff or if you need to “jiggle” your key before it will start to turn, there’s a not insignificant risk that your key might snap off in the lock one day.

If your situation is the “jiggle” one, you could just try being careful (and sober); otherwise there isn’t much you can do except replace the cylinder and get good keys or sort out why the lock is stiff.

Close on the heels of the plea not to choose uPVC doors, comes a story of 14 uPVC windows.

The manufacturers of these accursed uPVC products tend to discontinue them after only a few years. And whereas wooden doors and windows can be kept in service for twenty years or more, once your uPVC window or door has failed (and it will) you won’t be able to repair – only replace.

I’ve just been to a job where the keys to the espag handles (espangnolette handles) on the uPVC windows were lost two occupants ago. Yes: the manufacturer has discontinued them and I can’t even get a key blank. All 14 handles will have to be replaced.

Your insurance policy might ask for for patio doors, etc. to be fitted with mortised rack bolts. Unlike the most obvious kind of bolts which would be fitted to the face of the door, mortised bolts are fitted within the door itself. From the outside all you see is a little hole into which you put your “star” key and which you then turn to extend or withdraw the bolt.

Rack bolts are very strong but there are a couple of points you should bear in mind.

Keep an eye on your builder and check that they don’t drill the key hole right the way through, as on one door I saw the other day! The whole idea is negated somewhat if there’s a keyhole on the outside!

Although they are strong when deployed, their winding mechanisms (the “rack”) are not strong. If you can’t operate the bolt with light finger pressure, stop. If you force it, you will strip the teeth off the rack. If that happens in the locked position then you will face an expensive exercise getting it open again. If the door is warped or swollen, try relieving the pressure on the bolt by gently pulling on the door handle while trying to wind the bolt in or out. If it’s getting more and more difficult to operate, get it seen to before it breaks.

No more than a couple of turns of the key are needed. Any more and, again, you will tend to strip the teeth. Try it with the door open while feeling or watching the bolt; note how many turns are needed.

If your rack bolts are fitted to windows, they might be the short variety. These aren’t much good as the bolt is so short. If you have to fit these (usually because the frame is too small for the regular size), make sure they aren’t recessed any more than they need to be. Recessing is when you chisel a shallow depression in the door edge for the bolt’s faceplate, and in the frame for the keep. I recently visited a property where there was already a 3 mm gap between the window and the frame, and where the fitter had gone on to recess the bolt and the keep each by 2 mm more than needed. Result? The bolt wasn’t actually engaging at all!

I’ve stopped using ERA products. Their high-end nightlatch isn’t too bad, however. It does have one major design fault, though.

The bevel on the latchbolt is the wrong shape. Because it’s a latch, i.e. it locks as you pull the door to, one side of the latchbolt is sloped. Well on this latch it’s not sloped enough. Instead of being smoothly pushed in as the door is shut, the latchbolt resists being pushed in. The result is that gradually, the lock is hammered off the door.

This can be compounded if an inexperienced carpenter or locksmith has not secured the lock to the door with screws placed in the outermost fixing holes of the lock, but instead has used the innermost holes that ERA, also inexplicably, provide.

So if you recognize that you have this lock, once a month you should put a smear of heavy grease — car grease will do nicely — on the bevel of the lock’s bolt where it hits the keep’s strike. The lock will be on the door and the keep will be on the frame (unless your fitter was really incompetent). In the picture above, the bolt is at the left and the flat is facing us; the bevel is behind. The extra little dingus sticking out of the lock on the left is the anti-slip device that stops the commonest way of opening a latched front door without a key.

I’ve just returned from a visit to a door that’s five years old and is going to have to be replaced.

So, it’s time for my regular plea to any of you chosing a door. Although, pricewise, a uPVC (or aluminium) door and frame with a multi-point lock strip (MPL) might initially seem a good idea, it will go wrong and sure as eggs are eggs, replacments for your MPL strip will no longer be available. And, no, you can’t usually replace parts of a strip; it’s all or nothing and anywhere between £60 and £200 in parts costs.

If you have a nice wooden door with a good latch lock and a good deadbolt it will last longer. It can be painted when you get fed up with the colour. When the weasels find a way to defeat your locks you can replace them or augment them with better ones. When the locks eventually wear out you will be able to find replacements rather than having to butcher the door in order to fit a second-best alternative MPL or having to replace the entire door.

If you have a uPVC door you’ll have none of the above flexibility.

Chubb as a company disappeared long ago. Very cleverly it sold its brand name in several pieces. Chubb safes went one way. Chubb fire went another. And Chubb locks went to Assa.

The agreement to use the name on locks is expiring and, in a burst of madness, the use of the name isn’t or can’t be renewed. So the name is disappearing from locks. We are assured that the locks will still be made in the same way and at the same place and carry the same model numbers. But the branding will be distributed among Yale and Union, which are also brand names owned by Assa.

Let’s hope they do remain available. Because among all the really, really tawdry rubbish comprising 90% of the output from China that shortsighted “manufacturers” foist upon us, Chubb’s, as far as I know, was made outside China, and remained well made.

Have you ever had to fill in one of those interminable Answers To Questions when selling a property?

If I was buying a property, one of the questions I’d like answered is, “Are there any doors with locks to which no key will be handed over?”

I’ve just been to a job where a new owner was faced with seven doors where there were locks but no keys. Luckily they were all open and were all straightforward locks to rekey.

So, amongst the 1001 things to worry about when buying, I do suggest a one thousand and second worry: that you ask your solicitor to add such a question.