Lock Replacement & Installation in San Rafael
Deadbolts, levers, handlesets and sliding-door locks fitted from the van, $119 to $319.
$119–$319
Typical price
21 min
Avg. arrival
24/7
Availability
Some locks are past saving. A bolt that stops short of the strike no matter how the door is lifted. A knob that turns freely while the latch stays put. A keypad deadbolt on a Loch Lomond rental that has gone through three sets of batteries and now refuses every code. A guest house door in Dominican secured by a hasp any hand could lift. For those, Marin Lock & Key carries deadbolts, knobs, levers and handlesets on the van, in finishes chosen to sit beside the hinges and the knocker already there rather than announce themselves.
Measuring comes before unscrewing. Door thickness, backset and bore differ from house to house more than owners expect. A 1910s door in Gerstle Park may have a mortise pocket that a modern cylindrical lock cannot use without a filler plate. An Eichler front door is thin and flat and needs a lock chosen with that in mind. A newer condo at Peacock Gap may hang a hollow metal door that wants through-bolts. Where the existing preparation suits the new lock, the swap takes twenty to thirty minutes a door. Where it does not, the door is bored or filled and you see the fit before the lock is mounted. Keys are cut at the van and matched to your other doors if one key is the aim. A lever is kinder to a hand that finds a knob difficult, and on a rental it outlives one.
Fitted, the range is $119 to $319 per lock, hardware included. A Grade 3 residential deadbolt is $119. A Grade 2 deadbolt, a lever set, a handleset with a matching deadbolt, or a bore opened up for a modern unit reaches $319. The $89 service call is inside the total. Evening work carries $55 and overnight $90, both named on the call. Restricted cylinders and unusual door preparation are named at the outset rather than found at the end.
You call and describe the door: a photograph of the lock face and one of the door edge. The full figure per lock is named. The van leaves and calls from the gate, after the text with the name and the window. Fit: measuring, removal, mounting, strike adjustment, key cutting, and a test with the door closed against its weatherstrip, since a bolt that throws with the door open has proved nothing. The receipt repeats the figure, lock by lock, card or tap.
“The front door of our 1915 house closed behind me while I was watering the porch ferns, keys on the hall table. The call named $148. The text with the technician's name arrived while I was still on the porch, and the van was at the curb in seventeen minutes. He opened the original mortise cylinder without a mark on the brass, checked that the latch still caught, and the card was charged $148. The figure named on the call was the figure on the receipt, to the dollar.”
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
Lock Replacement & Installation: quick answers
Which deadbolt suits a ground-floor apartment door in the Canal that opens onto a shared walkway?+
A Grade 2 deadbolt on a strike screwed into the stud. The Grade 3 locks sold by the bag at the hardware store are built for bedroom doors, not for a door strangers pass all day. A Grade 1 lock is money well spent on a door that has been forced once already, and money wasted on most others.
I already have a lock in a box from the hardware store. Is fitting it a different job?+
It is the same visit at a labor-only figure named on the call. Whether the lock in the box fits the door is said before the old lock comes off, not after. Spare keys, the box and the instructions all stay with you.
Everything else on our Gerstle Park door is original brass. Will a new deadbolt spoil it?+
It need not. Several current makers offer the small rosettes and the aged brass and dark bronze finishes those houses used, and where the door has a mortise set the replacement can be a mortise set too. Bring one of the old knobs to the van to compare. If the door was never bored for a deadbolt, the hole is cut in the same visit and you see it before the lock goes in.
Related
More residential 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.