Locksmith to re-key whole house or buy new locks?

[JEDI]

a friend of mine had a tennant living in the basement of his house. the tennant moved out on good terms, but my friend wants to change the locks anyway.

he has 4 doors for a combined 3 deadbolts and 4 door handle locks.
Door handle lock:

originally he was thinking of going to Home Depot and just buying 7 new locks and having the Home Depot locksmith key them all the same.

i suggested hiring a locksmith and have him re-key everything to save time + effort.

What would you do ATOT?

 

[sixone]

Locksmith. It's stupid to throw away perfectly good locks, when there's a less expensive alternative.

 

[Ronstang]

Locksmith. It's stupid to throw away perfectly good locks, when there's a less expensive alternative.

That really depends upon the quality of the locks currently in the house versus the quality of the locks you would buy. You can replace locks yourself in no time at all. You can buy Jumbo packs of locks in contractor packs all keyed the same for not a whole lot of money. Switch to the higher grade locks and the price goes up quickly.

If he has contractor grade locks in the house now I cannot see how re-keying them by a locksmith is going to be cheaper in any way. If he does have the cheap contractor grade locks it might be the time to upgrade to new locks anyway.

I would definitely do some checking before assuming a locksmith is cheaper. By the time you factor in the service call plus time on the job I cannot see it being cheaper in either case.

 

[sixone]

If the place is empty, he should be taking the locks to the locksmith, not paying for a service call.

 

[Shawn]

When I bought my house I just bought a bunch of locks that were already keyed to the same key. Didn't have to have any of them rekeyed and they were pretty cheap.

 

[deadlyapp]

We keep two sets of locks for the house that my friend and I rent. That way you can just take one set to be rekeyed and install the other set. It doesn't cost that much more to buy a second set anyways.

 

[sdifox]

switch to smartkey

 

[BoomerD]

re-key.

 

[FreshCrabLegs]

Re-key yourself (friend.)

~$9.00

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/doors-...locksets-re-keying-kit-for-schlage-65272.html

 

[waffleironhead]

menards charges $3 per cylinder to re-key locks. You take them in to them. they need to be a brand they sell though. I'm guessing HD and lowes do the same.

If he is set on replacing the locks, most brands have sets on the shelf that are keyed alike. A flat of six handle sets will all have the same keys in them.

 

[Grouchyoldguy]

I re key my own. Decent locks (Schlage, Kwikset etc.) are easy and multi lock (six or seven I believe) key alike kits are under $20 from ebay or Home Depot. Check YouTube for how to videos.

 

[randomrogue]

Good locks - rekey
Bad locks - buy better locks or rekey

 

[paulney]

Good locks - rekey
Bad locks - buy better locks or rekey

^^ This

On a side note I had so much hassle with HD and Schlage locks. I wanted to buy a deadbolt and a quick-release lock for the front door and have them work with the same key. Couldn't find a complete set in the style I wanted, so I bought 2 separate boxes: deadbolt and quick release.

The boxes say: you can easily re-key it with the special Schlage blue key. Fine. Go home, install everything, then come back to the store for the blue key. They don't have it, and no other HD stores around have it. They have not even heard about it. Some great Schlage dealer, right?

"Well" - they tell me - "bring one of the locks and a key you want it to be re-keyed to, and we'll do it". All right. Go home, take out one of the locks and bring it back. They tell me: "Sorry, we can't re-key it once you took it out of the store. Has to be unpacked and never left the store, because we don't have locksmith license".

Are you kidding me?

Make a little ruckus and force them to take back the useless lock and give me a refund. Go get another identical box and have them re-key it right there in the store. Some dude mucks around with it for a few minutes and says: "I can't do it. For some reason it won't open up. Let's go get ANOTHER lock!"

Really?

Anyways, on the third lock he finally managed to pop out the cylinder and replace the pins. Another $5 for that.

I wonder if Lowe's experience would have been better.

 

[0roo0roo]

to rekey he has to take the thing out, at that point you might as well slap another in, locks and knobs are cheap, buy a set, unless you have super high grade locks I don't see how the labor cost is justified.

 

[randomrogue]

Good locks are not cheap. I'm not an expert on any of this whatsoever but I fired an employee who had keys and the cost of replacing those good locks was prohibitively expensive. Re keying was a no-brainer.

 

[WinXP]

Schlage did away with the locks to be rekeyed with the blue keys. They had to much of a problem with them freezing up when rekey done improperly. If you buy dead bolt an knob combination together, look on back of package an it has a key number. Just match them up to another package an you will have match set with same keys.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Rekey. So much cheaper. But your friend might be paranoid.

 

[alkemyst]

With upper end door fixtures it's going to be the best bang for buck to have a dude come out and re-key.

If you have the $10 specials from WalMart, then just replacing them is going to be cheaper.

 

[Cookie]

When I change rental locks it's $50 per lock to replace, or $3 per lock to re-key. (Actually the last time I took in a lock to be re-keyed they did it for free, on the verbal condition that I continue to buy locks from them when I need replacements)

 

[SKORPI0]

Rekeying your Kwikset Smart Key Lock - takes seconds to do. :thumbsup:

http://www.kwikset.com/smartsecurity/re-key-technology.aspx

 

[JTsyo]

When you say rekey, does that mean getting new keys made or changing the kind of key that would open the lock?

 

[alkemyst]

When you say rekey, does that mean getting new keys made or changing the kind of key that would open the lock?

It's pretty clear he means the latter.

You re-pin the lock and thus a different/new key is needed to open it.

 

[waggy]

great!

I been wanting to get the same key for back and front doors. both have deadbolts too. i hate having so many keys on my key chain.

 

[jagec]

Rekeying your Kwikset Smart Key Lock - takes seconds to do. :thumbsup:

http://www.kwikset.com/smartsecurity/re-key-technology.aspx

Sure, but then you have Kwikset locks.

Fine to protect the cardboard doors that get used in developments, but not really "security".

 

[EagleKeeper]

If the place is empty, he should be taking the locks to the locksmith, not paying for a service call.

This ^^
$5/lock is what is cost me vs $100 service $10/lock