San Rafael neighborhood · 24/7
Lucas Valley locksmith service, up the valley of gated houses and ranches where the driveway is the longest part of the visit
The valley running west from 101 along Lucas Valley Rd: Eichlers at the lower end, then ranches and gated houses on large lots, driveway gates with a keypad and an intercom, detached garages, guest houses and barns, a cell signal that fades past the last streetlight, and the longest arrival in the city.
26 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Twenty-six minutes is the honest number and it is the longest on the map. The van leaves 101, passes the Eichlers at the lower end, and follows the road up the valley to where the numbers on the gate posts are the only numbers there are. The figure does not change with the drive: a house lockout is $125 to $215 at the top of the valley as it is on Fourth Street, and the drive up the hill is inside it. The first question on the call is the gate. Nearly every driveway here closes with an operator and a keypad, sometimes an intercom to the house, and the person locked out of the house is often on the wrong side of the gate too, with the remote in the kitchen. The technician says on the call whether the operator can be released without damage and comes through the pedestrian gate on foot if it cannot.
The gate and the house are frequently on different keys and different lists. The gardener has the gate code and no house key; the house sitter has the house key and last year's code; the previous owner's code still works because the house was rekeyed at purchase and the keypad was not. Bringing them together is a rekey at $26 to $43 per cylinder, with the pedestrian gate latch on the house key, and a fresh code list at the keypad. The count on a Lucas Valley property runs long: house, guest house, detached garage, barn, pump house, pool gate. A smart lock at $185 to $469 goes on the door from the drive so a code can be issued and retired without a key going up and down the valley.
Power goes out here before it does in town, and a gate operator without a battery stays shut. The release key on the motor housing is the answer, and where it has never been seen the technician finds the release at the gate. Cell signal drops past the last streetlight, so the call from the gate may come from the house landline or from a text sent before the last bend. A van that cannot turn at the top of the drive stays at the bottom and the case is carried, which adds minutes and nothing to the figure. Evening calls carry $55 between 8pm and midnight and $90 overnight, named inside the figure on the call.
Give the gate code or say you will meet the technician at the gate, say how long the driveway is and whether a van can turn at the top, and say whether the number is on the gate post or nowhere. A light left on at the gate is worth more here than anywhere else in the city.
FAQ
What people ask before the figure is named
How long until the van reaches my part of San Rafael?+
Twenty-one minutes is the average across the city, which is long and narrow along 101 rather than compact. Downtown and Fourth Street usually see the van in 15 minutes, Gerstle Park, Dominican and the Canal in 17, Sun Valley and Fairhills in 19, Terra Linda and Marinwood in 21. Peacock Gap and Point San Pedro run about 24, because there is one road in along the water, and Lucas Valley about 26, because the driveways there are the longest in the city. San Anselmo is about 22, Larkspur 21, Corte Madera 22, Mill Valley 28 and Novato 30. The thirty-minute window in your text comes from where the van is and what 101 is doing at that moment, not from the average.
Does the figure change after eight, on a weekend or on a holiday?+
Weekends and holidays are charged at daytime figures. Arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $55, and arrival between midnight and 7am adds $90. Both are inside the figure named on the call. A $125 house lockout is therefore named as $180 in the evening and $215 overnight, and that is the figure the card is charged. A daytime figure with an evening addition produced at the door is not how it is done here.
What is inside the figure, and what could change it?+
The $89 service call, the labor, the parts fitted, the drive up the hill and any evening or overnight hour, named as one figure before you decide. A gated driveway, a keypad, stairs, a buzzer panel or a garage level do not alter it. The only addition is a second job you ask for once the technician is there, such as rekeying the guest house after the main door has been opened. That is named as its own figure and started only after you say yes.
Will my lock be drilled?+
Only after the non-destructive methods have been tried and you have agreed. Apartment cylinders, residential deadbolts, the mortise sets in Gerstle Park, aluminum storefront hardware and most car doors open with picks, decoders, bypass tools or an air wedge and go on working afterward. Drilling comes up when a cylinder is high-security, already damaged, or seized by a broken key or the salt air near the Marina. In that case the technician explains the mechanism, names the replacement part and its cost, and the total stays at the figure named on the call.
What proof is needed, and can a housekeeper or a property manager act for the owner?+
For a house or condo: photo ID with the address, or ID plus a lease, a utility bill or addressed mail on your phone if the ID shows somewhere else. For a car: ID plus registration or an insurance card, digital is fine. For a shop, office or suite: ID plus a lease, a business license, or confirmation from the property manager or the company. A housekeeper, a gardener or a property manager holding keys on the owner's behalf may authorize the work if the owner confirms by text or email to the technician, or if the manager's name is on the lease or the management agreement. The receipt can then be addressed to the owner or to the manager, whichever the owner prefers. Without one of those the door stays closed. The rule that keeps a stranger out of your house is the one being applied.
The house is behind a gate with a keypad and an intercom, at the end of a long driveway. What should I say on the call?+
Say so, and say how the technician gets through the gate: a code, a call from the gate to your phone, or someone coming down to open it. If the gate itself is the problem, say that too, because a keypad that has lost its code and a gate lock that has failed are different jobs, and the figure is named for the right one. The drive from the gate to the door is inside the figure whatever its length. On the way out the gate is closed, the code is not kept, and nothing is left on the driveway.
Our Gerstle Park house still has its original 1910s hardware. Does it have to be replaced?+
Rarely. The hardware on those houses was built to be taken apart and put back. A mortise case can be cleaned, its springs replaced and its levers re-tensioned on the porch, and the cylinder rekeyed so the old keys stop working while the brass plate and the glass knob stay where they have been for a century. 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 in the door, so nothing is cut fresh. Describe the door on the call and the figure is named for the likely route; if the other route is needed once the case is open, the technician says so and the figure stays as named.
Do you come into the Fourth Street garages, the Civic Center lots, the ferry lot and the Marina?+
Yes. Car lockouts, key cutting and fob programming are done in the garages off Fourth Street, the lots at the Marin Civic Center and Kaiser, the Larkspur ferry lot, the Northgate structure and the lots at the Marina and China Camp. Say which lot, which level and roughly where the car sits. For a gated garage under a condo building, have someone able to let the van in or meet it at the entrance. The ferry lot at half past five in the 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 full figure, the same figure on the receipt
Calls answered 24/7 across San Rafael and the Marin towns beside it. The $89 service call, the labor, the parts and the drive up the hill are inside the figure named on the call, and the receipt repeats it.