About
A locksmith whose rate before you commit.
One van out of Midtown, any hour, across Palo Alto, Stanford and the towns beside them. Locks are picked open before anything is drilled, and the figure said on the call is the figure on the receipt. Here is how a visit runs.
Tall Tree Lock & Safe is a mobile locksmith for Palo Alto, Stanford and the towns beside them. The name is the city's own: Palo Alto means tall tree, after the old redwood by San Francisquito Creek, and the mark is that tree in a ring. There is no shop, because a lock is not something you carry to a counter. The van is based in Midtown and holds what Palo Alto doors take: mortise cases and cylinders for the houses of Professorville and Old Palo Alto, sliding-door and atrium-door locks for the Eichlers in Greenmeadow, Fairmeadow and Green Gables, keypad and app locks for the rentals in College Terrace and the apartments downtown, gate and garage cylinders for the lots in Crescent Park and Barron Park, aluminum deadlatches and hookbolts for the glass doors on University Avenue and California Avenue, exit devices and readers for the offices and labs in Stanford Research Park, and blanks and programmers for most cars on the road. Calls are answered 24/7.
Every job begins with the lock as it is. It is picked, decoded or manipulated open, and the original hardware is kept and rekeyed whenever the mechanism allows, which on most Palo Alto doors it does. A drill is used only when the lock leaves no other way, only after the customer agrees, and never for a higher figure. The figure is said on the call and includes the $89 service call. A house lockout runs $129 to $219, a rekey $27 to $45 per cylinder, replacement hardware $125 to $329 per door, a car key $155 to $419, a safe opening $195 to $539. Arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $55 and between midnight and 7am adds $90, both inside the figure before you decide. Master key systems and access control are quoted after the doors have been counted. Once said, the figure is the one on the receipt.
Coverage begins in Midtown and reaches outward. Old Palo Alto sees the van in about 16 minutes, Professorville and Stanford in 18, Downtown and the Eichler tracts of South Palo Alto in 22, Crescent Park in 22, College Terrace and East Palo Alto in 23, Barron Park and Menlo Park in 25. Across Palo Alto the average is 22 minutes. Los Altos and Mountain View are served at the same figures in 27 to 29 minutes, and Palo Alto Hills honestly runs longer than any district below Foothill Expressway, which is said on the call rather than discovered at the door.
The Tall Tree Standard
Four things that hold on every job, from a Professorville porch to a lab door on Page Mill Road.
- Arrival, by district
- 14 to 25 minutes from Midtown
- The visit
- $89, already inside the figure
- Hardware on board
- Deadbolts, mortise parts, sliding-door locks
- Keys
- Cut and programmed at the door
- Calls
- Answered 24/7, nights and holidays
Where we work
Palo Alto, Stanford & the towns beside them, any hour
Pick your area for its own arrival time and the jobs we run there most.
24/7 — nights, weekends & holidays
One call, one figure, and the lock kept whole
Calls answered 24/7 across Palo Alto, Stanford and the towns beside them. The $89 service call, the labor and the parts are inside the figure said on the call, the lock is opened without drilling wherever it allows, and the receipt repeats the figure.