Storefront Door Locks in San Rafael
Aluminum deadlatches, hookbolts, cylinders and closers on Fourth Street glass doors, $155 to $469.
$155–$469
Typical price
21 min
Avg. arrival
24/7
Availability
Walk Fourth Street and nearly every shop hangs the same door: a slim aluminum frame around a sheet of glass, with the lock buried in a stile barely two inches across. That hardware is its own trade. Deadlatches, hookbolt deadlocks, mortise cylinders with the right cam, paddle handles, thumbturns, and the closer at the head. A bakery by the film center, a nail salon at Northgate, a market in the Canal, a bait shop on the way to China Camp. Marin Lock & Key carries those parts on the van and repairs or replaces them so the door locks the way the lease and the insurer assume it does.
The door is checked for droop before any part is blamed. The usual complaint on a stile door is a key that turns while nothing locks, and in most cases the lock is innocent. The door hangs on a pivot at the top and a pivot at the bottom. The bottom pivot wears, the door settles a few millimeters, and the latch misses its pocket in the strike. Adjust or replace the pivot, move the strike, and the door locks again. Where the deadlatch itself has worn short of full throw, it is replaced, and the mortise cylinder is either repinned or swapped for one with the correct cam and tailpiece. A thumbturn on the inside lets whoever closes lock up from the shop floor rather than from the sidewalk with a bag in the other hand.
Storefront work is named between $155 and $469 per door, hardware included. A deadlatch swap or a new mortise cylinder is $155. A hookbolt deadlock with a restricted cylinder, a paddle handle and a closer adjustment on a heavy door reaches $469. The $89 service call is inside the figure. Repinning a storefront cylinder after a member of staff leaves is $26 to $43 per cylinder. After 8pm the visit carries $55, before 7am $90, both named on the call.
You call and describe the door: a photograph of the door edge and one of the lock face. The full figure is named on that call. The van leaves and calls from the gate, or from the curb outside the shop, after the text with the name and the window. Fit: the alignment check, the repair or the replacement, the keying, a closer test through a full swing, and a receipt naming the brand and model in case the landlord asks. The receipt repeats the figure, card or tap before you open.
“The aluminum door on our restaurant on Fourth Street had a hookbolt that would not throw unless someone lifted the door. The call named $338 for a new hookbolt, a cylinder and a closer adjustment. He came at eight, before service, reset the door in its frame so the bolt lands where it should, and the card was charged $338. He did not propose replacing anything that did not need replacing.”
Every job is priced from the list below. The full figure is named on the call, before the van leaves the yard, and the receipt repeats it.
- Daytime (7am–8pm)standard rates
- Evening (8pm–12am)+$55
- Overnight (12am–7am)+$90
FAQ
Storefront Door Locks: quick answers
I lock the shop, pull the handle, and the door opens anyway. What has gone?+
Most often nothing in the lock. The bottom pivot has worn, the door has dropped, and the latch is landing beside its pocket instead of in it. Occasionally the deadlatch has worn short. Both are normal on a Fourth Street door that swings a few hundred times a day. The pivot is reset, the strike is moved, and any worn part is replaced so it holds through the winter.
There is a roll-down grille in front of the door. Can both run on the same key?+
Nearly always. If the two cylinders share a keyway they are repinned to one key at the van. If they do not, the grille cylinder is swapped for one that matches the door, and a copy is cut for each person who closes up.
A cook walked out with the key to the restaurant by the film center.+
The mortise cylinder in the stile is repinned in about ten minutes at $26 to $43, and keys are cut for whoever remains on the closing rota. The rest of the door is untouched, and the key that walked out now opens nothing.
Related
More commercial services
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.