Panic Bars & Exit Devices in Palo Alto
Exit devices fitted or repaired for restaurants, shops and back-of-house doors, $305 to $789 per door.
$305–$789
Typical price
22 min
Avg. arrival
24/7
Availability
An exit device has one job: to let a room full of people out with one push, in the dark, without a key. Tall Tree Lock & Safe fits, rebuilds and replaces them across Palo Alto, on the kitchen door of a University Avenue restaurant, the side door of a gym on El Camino Real, the rear door of a Research Park lab, the community room of an apartment building near the Caltrain station and the hall on California Avenue with two hundred people inside on a Saturday night. Rim devices, mortise devices and vertical-rod devices, with the outside lever trim, the closer and, where the door needs it, the alarm.
A bar that is hard to push, or a latch that no longer catches, is more often a tired part than a dead device. A worn cam, a strike that has crept, a rod that has stretched a quarter inch: each is put right with a rebuild kit and an adjustment for a fraction of a new device. When the device really is done, the new one is chosen from four measurements taken at the door: the width of the leaf, its swing, its handing and the fire label on its edge. On a vertical-rod device the rods are trimmed so the top and bottom latches release together. Every device, new or rebuilt, is pressed at the center and at both ends before the technician packs up, because a crowd does not push in the middle, and neither does the inspector. Lever trim keyed to your building, a closer that carries the door to the latch, and a local alarm for a door that staff keep propping can be added in the same visit.
Exit device work sits between $305 and $789 per door, hardware included, with the $89 visit inside. A rebuild, or a new rim device on one standard door, is the $305 end. A fire-rated pair with vertical rods, lever trim and an alarm is the $789 end. Rim devices ride on the van; fire-rated and vertical-rod devices usually come from the supplier in a few days, and you hear which case is yours on the call rather than with the door open.
You call and describe the door: a photograph of the hardware on it now. The figure per door is said on the call. The van leaves Midtown, and a text names the technician and the window. The door is measured, rebuilt or refitted, aligned, and pushed with the door closed; the technician leaves a short note of anything else on that opening an inspector might raise, and the note is not a line on the bill. The receipt repeats the figure.
“Our 1912 house has its original mortise lock on the front door, and the key broke off in it while I was bringing in groceries. The figure said on the call was $149. The technician picked the cylinder open around the broken piece, drew the fragment out with a hook, and the brass plate never came off the door. He asked whether I wanted a new cylinder and I said no, so he rekeyed the old one and cut two keys on the van. $149 on the card, receipt in my email before he had pulled away.”
Every job is priced from the list below. One figure is said on the call, with the visit, the labor and the parts inside it, and the receipt shows the same figure.
- Daytime (7am–8pm)standard rates
- Evening (8pm–12am)+$55
- Overnight (12am–7am)+$90
FAQ
Panic Bars & Exit Devices: quick answers
The fire inspector gave our California Avenue restaurant fourteen days on the kitchen exit.+
Fourteen days is plenty. If the door wants a rim device, it is on the van and the work is done the day you call. If it is a fire-rated pair with vertical rods, the parts come from the supplier inside a week and the door is done the day they arrive. The figure is said on the call, and you can put it in your reply to the inspector the same afternoon.
Our lab door in Research Park has to stay locked from outside and open freely from inside for the badge holders.+
That is what an exit device with electrified trim, or with a reader beside the outside lever, is for. Inside, the bar always opens the door with one push, whatever the reader is doing. Outside, the lever stays dead until a badge or a key is presented. Power and the reader can be tied to the access control already in the building, and the mechanical cylinder in the trim is kept on a restricted key.
On warm nights the kitchen staff prop the alley door with a crate. Is there a hardware answer?+
A bar-mounted alarm. The door still opens on one push from inside, as it must, and it sounds after a few seconds held open, which ends the crate habit within a week. Put a keyed lever on the outside as well, and the early delivery can come in on its own key with the alarm untouched.
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More commercial services
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.