Locksmith tips for new homeowners

1. Assume the key population is unknown

Think about who has plausibly held a key: previous owners, the estate agent, contractors, domestic staff, a tenant before that, a neighbour who watered plants during a holiday. None of them is a threat individually. Collectively they are an unanswerable question.

Rekeying answers it in one visit. The locks stay on the doors, the pins change, every existing key stops working, and you know exactly how many keys exist because you are handed all of them.

2. Count every door before you book anything

Walk the property and list every lock, which is the same walk-round that starts any home locksmith visit: front door, back door, any side door, the garage pedestrian door, the door from the garage into the house, security gates, outbuildings, gate padlocks.

People rekey the front door and forget the rest, which leaves the question exactly as open as it was. It also affects the quote — a locksmith can price the visit properly if they know what they are coming to.

3. Decide about one key versus several

Where cylinders are compatible, several doors can be re-pinned to answer to the same key. For most households this is a genuine daily improvement over carrying four.

The trade-off is that a single key opens more if lost. For a family home it is usually worth it. For a property where different people need different access — a granny flat, a home office, a tenant — a structured arrangement is better than one key for everything.

4. Look at the frames, not just the locks

Take a look at the strike plate on your main door. If it is held by two short screws into the door lining, that is the weakest part of the whole assembly regardless of how good the lock is.

Longer screws that reach the structural stud, and a reinforced strike plate, are inexpensive and make more practical difference than upgrading a cylinder that was already adequate. It is worth doing at the same visit as the rekey. Upgrades of this kind fall under security lock upgrades.

5. Check what your complex or estate requires

If you have moved into a complex or estate, ask the managing agent about external hardware rules before you change anything visible. Some specify finish or style, and some operate restricted key systems your door is expected to sit inside.

Also ask what happens with gate remotes and access tags from the previous owner. Those are managed by the development rather than by you, and they need deactivating by whoever runs the system. Gates, security gates and household hardware all sit under residential locksmith services in the area.

6. Find out what your insurer expects

Some policies specify lock standards on external doors. It is a quick question to ask now and an unpleasant one to discover later.

It is also worth photographing your locks and keeping the paperwork from any work done — useful for a claim, and useful when you eventually sell.

7. Do the cheap things

Do not leave a spare key outside. Every hiding place you can think of is one that gets checked, and a key under a pot is a key in a known location.

Learn how your doors actually lock. On a multipoint mechanism, lifting the handle without turning the key often leaves the door on the latch only. A lot of break-ins involve a door that was closed rather than locked.

The walk-round nobody does in the first week

There is one job worth doing on a new property that costs nothing, takes ten minutes, and prevents a disproportionate share of the calls we take. Walk the whole property and work every lock, including the ones you have no intention of using.

The front door and the back door will be fine, because somebody has been using them. What you are looking for is the scullery door, the garage side door, the gate onto a servitude, the store at the end of the garden, the pedestrian gate beside the driveway. Those are the mechanisms that seize unnoticed.

Finding a dead lock on a Saturday morning is very much better than finding it on a night when the main gate is already out. Anything stiff is lock repair and a broken key later, and both are cheaper today.

What the previous owner could not tell you

A handover produces a set of keys and an assurance, and the assurance is worth very little through no fault of anybody involved.

A house in Bryanston that has been standing thirty years has been through owners, tenants, agents, gardeners, painters and a builder or two. The person handing you three sets could not tell you how many exist if they wanted to, because nobody kept a record and copies cost a few rand.

That is why re-pinning is the standard first-week job here rather than an anxious one. It changes the internals of the locks already on the doors so every previously cut key stops working, and you are handed a counted set. The full explanation is on the lock rekeying in Bryanston page, and it is a single visit.

Complexes: find out the rules before you buy anything

If your new home is in a complex or an estate, there is a conversation worth having in the first fortnight, and it will save you buying something twice.

Ask the managing agent or trustees, in writing, what may be fitted to any door visible from common property. Many developments specify finish or style, some specify brand, and a few run a restricted key system every unit is expected to join. Fitting outside that specification can mean removing it again at your cost.

Ask two more things while you are there: who to contact out of hours if you are locked out and the complex gate is involved, and whether the gate remote or tag can be deactivated if it is lost. Save those numbers somewhere that is not inside the flat. It comes up constantly across the complexes and estates we work.

Numbers worth having before you need them

There is a short list of contacts worth assembling in the first fortnight, and the reason is that every one of them is difficult to find at eleven at night.

A locksmith, obviously, saved rather than searched for one-handed in the dark. If you are in a complex or an estate: the managing agent, a trustee, and the guardhouse, because a lockout behind a boom needs somebody to authorise a vehicle at the gate. If you are not: whoever holds your spare set, and how far away they actually live rather than roughly where.

Keep all of that somewhere that is not inside the house, which in practice means a phone. It is the single cheapest piece of preparation available and it is the difference between a short wait and a long one on the night it matters. What happens once somebody arrives is on the house lockout page.

The first-year jobs, in order

Beyond the first week there is a short list worth working through across the first year, and it is deliberately short because most properties do not need much.

Reinforce the strike plates on the external doors that matter, with screws that reach structure rather than the architrave. Fit a hookbolt to the patio slider if there is one. Have the security gate and pedestrian gate locks looked at, because those are the mechanisms that seize unnoticed and they are almost always the oldest hardware on the property.

Then stop. A locksmith who wants to replace every cylinder on a house is selling rather than advising, and on most properties here three or four items covers everything genuinely worth doing. The reasoning behind that order is set out under high-security hardware.

What not to spend money on in the first year

Worth saying plainly, because a new property attracts a certain amount of advice: most of what gets recommended to new homeowners is not necessary.

You do not need every cylinder on the house replaced. You do not need a high-security lock on an internal door, on a door already behind a sound security gate, or on anything a passing car can see clearly. You do not need an alarm integration to solve a key problem, and you do not need to replace hardware that is simply old rather than worn.

What you do need is the key question answered, the frames checked, and the two or three concealed doors looked at. That is a short list on almost every Bryanston property, and anything longer deserves a specific reason. The order is set out under high-security locks.

If the property came with a safe

It happens more often than people expect, particularly on the older Bryanston housing stock: a safe built into a cupboard or bolted to a slab in the garage, and no combination with it.

Owners tend to live around it for years, which is understandable and also a waste of a perfectly serviceable safe. Opening one is normally quicker and less expensive than the assumption that has kept it shut, and it can then go back into use with a combination you actually hold.

It is worth doing in the same period as everything else on this list rather than eventually, for the same reason as re-pinning: you have no way of knowing who else knows the combination. And if the safe is empty, it is better to know that than to wonder. It is covered on the safe locksmith page.