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.
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 $179 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
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
What people ask before they call
How long until the van reaches my part of Palo Alto?+
Twenty-two minutes is the average across the city, because the van is based in Midtown and Palo Alto is compact. Midtown itself sees the van in about 14 minutes, Old Palo Alto in 16, 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. Los Altos runs about 27 and Mountain View about 29, and Palo Alto Hills takes longer than any of them because of Page Mill Road. The window in your text comes from where the van is at that moment, not from the average.
Will the lock be drilled?+
Only when the mechanism leaves no other way, and only after you agree. Residential deadbolts, apartment cylinders, the mortise sets in Professorville and Old Palo Alto, aluminum storefront hardware, and most car doors and safes open by picking, decoding, manipulation or bypass, and go on working afterward. Drilling becomes the question when a cylinder is high-security, already damaged, or seized by a snapped key. In that case the technician explains what the lock is doing, names the replacement part and its grade, and the figure stays where it was said on the call.
What does the figure on the call include, and what could move it?+
The $89 service call, the labor, the parts fitted and any evening or overnight hour, as one figure said on the call. A side gate, a long driveway, a garage level or a building lobby does not change it. The only thing that adds to it is a second job you ask for after the technician arrives, such as rekeying the back door once the front door has been opened. That is quoted as its own figure and started only when you say yes.
Is it more after 8pm, on a weekend or on a holiday?+
Weekends and holidays are charged at daytime figures. Arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $55, and between midnight and 7am adds $90. Both are already inside the figure said on the call. A house lockout that would be $129 during the day is said as $184 in the evening and $219 overnight, and that is the figure on the receipt.
Can a housekeeper, a property manager or a landlord act for the owner?+
Yes, with confirmation. For a house or an apartment: photo ID with the address, or ID plus a lease, a utility bill or addressed mail on your phone. For a car: ID plus the registration or an insurance card, digital is fine. For a shop, an office or a lab: ID plus a lease, a business license, or confirmation from the property manager or the company. A housekeeper or a property manager holding keys on the owner's behalf may authorize the work if the owner confirms by text or email, or if the manager's name appears on the lease or the management agreement. The receipt can be addressed to the owner, the manager or both. Without one of those the door stays closed.
Our Professorville house still has its original hardware. Does it have to come out?+
Almost never. The mortise sets on the houses south of downtown were built to be taken apart, cleaned and put back. The case comes out of its pocket, the springs are replaced, the levers re-tensioned, and the cylinder rekeyed so old keys stop working, while the brass plate and the glass knob stay on the door. A latch that no longer catches is usually a worn strike, not a failed lock. If the case is beyond repair, a new mortise body is sized to the pocket already cut, so nothing new is cut into the door. Describe the door on the call and the figure is said for the likely route.
Our Eichler has a sliding glass door and an atrium door. What can be done with them?+
Quite a lot. The sliding doors on the tracts in Greenmeadow, Fairmeadow and Green Gables take a proper keyed lock or a secondary foot bolt without any change to the glass or the track, and the atrium doors take a standard deadbolt bore if they do not have one already. The van carries the sliding-door locks and the narrow-stile hardware those doors need. The technician measures the stile and the track before naming the part, and the glass is not touched.
Do you come to the Stanford Shopping Center lots, the Caltrain lots and Town & Country?+
Yes. Car lockouts, key cutting and fob programming are done in the Stanford Shopping Center lots, the Caltrain lots along Alma Street, Town & Country Village, the garages downtown and the lots at Stanford Hospital. Say which lot and roughly where the car is. For a gated garage under an apartment building, have someone ready to let the van in. The Shopping Center on a Saturday afternoon is honestly slower, and the window in your text will say so. The figure does not change for any of it.
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.