Palo Alto neighborhood · 24/7
South Palo Alto and the Eichler tracts, for atrium gates that shut behind you and sliding glass doors that were never built to lock
Greenmeadow, Fairmeadow, Green Gables and Charleston Meadows south of Oregon Expressway: Eichlers with a slab front door, an atrium gate and a glass wall onto the garden, ranch houses on the streets between the tracts, Mitchell Park and the library, and the lots along Charleston and San Antonio.
4.9 / 5· 176 reviews from Palo Alto, Stanford & the towns beside them
22 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Twenty-two minutes down Middlefield Road brings the van into one of the largest runs of Eichlers anywhere, and the calls are what those houses produce. An Eichler was designed to be entered through an atrium, and the atrium gate is where lockouts happen: it latches on its spring behind someone watering the ferns, and the house key is on the counter beyond the glass. That is $129 to $219, and the gate latch is picked before the house is even looked at. The slab door inside the atrium often has a knob and nothing more; a deadbolt on it, with a strike that reaches the post rather than the thin jamb, is a replacement at $125 to $329. Because the front door sits inside the atrium, a smart lock at $189 to $479 goes on the gate as often as on the door.
The garden side of an Eichler is glass, and the sliding doors along it came with a latch that was never a lock. Each slider gets a secondary lock, a pin through the frame or a bar in the track, in the same visit as a rekey; that is the line that makes the house safer, and it costs less than any door on the house. A rekey of every cylinder is $27 to $45 each, and on an Eichler the count is short: gate, slab door, garage side door. Eichler owners are particular about what shows on the house, so the hardware and its finish are named on the call and nothing arrives that does not belong on a 1955 door.
The ranch houses between the tracts bring the self-latching door from the garage and a front deadbolt from another decade, rekeyed to one key. Mitchell Park, the library and the lots along Charleston and San Antonio bring car lockouts at $105 to $199 and a fob programmed at $89 to $195. Evening calls carry $55 between 8pm and midnight and $90 overnight, inside the figure said on the call, and the $89 service call is already in that figure.
Say whether the house is an Eichler and whether the trouble is the atrium gate, the slab door inside it or a slider on the garden side. Give the tract and a cross street; the curved streets in Greenmeadow and Fairmeadow are slow to find by number alone.
Most requested in South Palo Alto & the Eichler tracts
Nearby
The next district over, the same van and the same figures
FAQ
Asked about South Palo Alto & the Eichler tracts
Twenty-two minutes down Middlefield Road, and then what?+
Then the tract. Greenmeadow, Fairmeadow and Green Gables curve, and the numbers do not run in the order a stranger expects, so the last few minutes are the ones that go wrong. Give the tract name and a cross street on the call and the van comes straight to the drive.
The atrium gate has shut and my key is on the kitchen counter. Is the gate opened, or the front door?+
The gate, nearly always. Its latch is the simpler mechanism, it takes a minute or two, and the slab door inside is not touched at all. Once the atrium is open the house door is usually the easy part. If the gate is bolted rather than latched the technician says so before starting, and the figure holds.
Are there calls at the Mitchell Park and Charleston lots?+
Regularly. Keys locked in a car at the library or the community center, or a fob that stopped being heard on a hot afternoon, are handled beside the car at $105 to $199 and $89 to $195. Say which lot and what the car is facing; the lots off Charleston and San Antonio all look alike.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
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.