Lock Replacement & Installation in Palo Alto
Deadbolts, levers, mortise bodies and sliding-door locks fitted from the van, $125 to $329, grade named first.
$125–$329
Typical price
22 min
Avg. arrival
24/7
Availability
There is a point where a rekey stops being the honest answer. A deadbolt that reaches the strike only when the door is lifted with a knee. A knob that spins on its spindle and moves nothing. A keypad deadbolt on a rental near campus that has eaten three sets of batteries and now refuses every code. A detached garage in Crescent Park whose side door is held by a padlock and a hasp screwed into the trim. For those doors Tall Tree Lock & Safe carries deadbolts, knobs, levers and handlesets on the van, in finishes chosen to sit quietly beside the hinges and the knocker already there.
Old hardware is the first question on a Palo Alto door, and the answer is usually to keep it. A Professorville door from 1915 has a mortise pocket that a modern cylindrical lock cannot use without a filler plate, so on those doors the replacement is a new mortise lock behind the original trim, and the brass stays. Then the tape measure comes out: thickness, backset and bore vary from house to house more than owners expect. An Eichler front door is thin and flat and wants a lock chosen for that. A condo above University Avenue may hang a hollow metal door that needs through-bolts. A door already bored for the new lock is done in twenty to thirty minutes. One that is not is bored or plated first, and the fit is shown to you before a screw goes in. New keys are cut on the van, and if you want one key for the whole house the new lock is pinned to match the doors you already have. For a rental, a lever outlasts a knob; for an older hand, it is easier to turn.
Fitted, with the hardware, a lock is $125 to $329, and the $89 visit is inside. The $125 end is a Grade 3 residential deadbolt on a prepared door. The higher end is a Grade 2 deadbolt, a lever set, a handleset with its deadbolt, or a mortise lock behind original trim, and includes any boring the door needs. Evening work carries $55 inside the figure and overnight $90. A restricted cylinder, a fire-rated door or an odd preparation is said at the start, when you send the photographs, not at the end.
You call and describe the door: a photograph of the lock face and one of the edge. The figure per lock is said on the call. The van leaves Midtown, and a text names the technician and the window. The old lock comes off only after the door has been measured, the new one goes on, the strike is set, keys are cut, and the door is closed against its weatherstrip and thrown, because a bolt tested on an open door has told you nothing. The receipt repeats the figure, lock by lock.
“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
Lock Replacement & Installation: quick answers
Which deadbolt suits a ground-floor apartment door near the Caltrain station that opens onto a shared walkway?+
Grade 2, on a strike with long screws. Grade 3 is what the bagged deadbolts at the hardware store are, and it is fine for a door nobody but the family walks past. A door on a shared walkway is passed by strangers all day, and Grade 2 is the honest minimum. Grade 1 is for a door that has already been forced; on any other door it buys little.
I already bought a lock at the hardware store on Middlefield Road. Is fitting it a different job?+
Fitting your own lock is labor only, and the labor figure is said on the call. Send a photograph of the box and of the door edge, and you hear whether it will fit before the visit rather than after the old lock is off. The packaging, the instructions and every spare key go back to you.
Everything else on our Old Palo Alto door is original brass. Will a new deadbolt spoil it?+
It need not. Where the door carries a mortise set, the replacement is a mortise set too, and the original knobs, plates and escutcheon are kept. Where a separate deadbolt is wanted, several makers offer small rosettes and aged brass or dark bronze finishes made for those houses. Photograph the knob and the plate and send them with the call, and the closest finish rides out on the van. A door that never had a deadbolt is bored in the same visit, and you are shown the hole before anything goes into it.
Related
More residential 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.