Locksmith in Gerrards Cross

Day One in a New House

Most of the calls from SL9 that are not emergencies start the same way: a family has completed on a house, often having moved for the schools, and wants to know that nobody from the last twenty years still has a key. With a large detached home that means more doors than most people count, so the first job is a walk round with a notepad. Front door, back door, side door, the door from the garage into the utility, the garage itself, the garden office, the shed and the side gate all go on the list, and each is either rekeyed or replaced. The moving house lock change guide sets out the thinking; the lock replacement and rekey service page sets out the options. Where the old cylinders are sound they are rekeyed from £45; where they are plain, unrated euro cylinders they are replaced with something better.

One Key, and Nobody Else Can Copy It

That something better, on most Gerrards Cross houses, is a keyed-alike set on a restricted profile. Every external cylinder is replaced with an Ultion or Mul-T-Lock unit cut to a single key, so one key opens the house, the garage and the outbuildings; and because the profile is restricted, further keys can only be cut by the registered locksmith against authorisation, not at a kiosk. A household with a cleaner, a gardener, an au pair and teenagers knows exactly how many keys are in circulation and can cancel one without replacing every lock. A keyed-alike set starts from £95; restricted keys are £25 upwards from the key cutting service. The cylinders themselves are TS007 3-star anti-snap, which is what the policy wording usually asks for on a multipoint door; the anti-snap locks explained guide shows what that rating means.

Garages, Garden Offices and Sheds

Nearly every survey in SL9 finds the same thing: a front door with a good cylinder and a garden office on the lock the supplier happened to fit. Garages with a side door, garden rooms full of computer equipment and sheds full of bikes are the easy way onto a property and the easy way off it with something valuable. Kenny brings them up to the standard of the house with closed-shackle padlocks, proper cylinders or a BS3621 deadlock on a timber outbuilding door, keyed to the same key as the house where the owner wants that.

Edwardian Villas and the Older Timber Doors

The villas around Gold Hill and the older streets keep heavy timber doors with a rim nightlatch and, too often, a mortice with too few levers to satisfy an insurer. The BS3621 five-lever deadlock is fitted into the edge of the stile behind the existing furniture so the face of the door does not change, the nightlatch is kept or replaced on the same footprint, and the visible escutcheon is chosen to suit the age of the door. Fitting starts from £120. The BS3621 and home insurance guide explains why insurers name the standard and what happens at claim time if the lock does not meet it.

Newer Builds: Gearboxes and Cylinders

On the newer detached houses and the infill developments towards Fulmer and the Chalfont St Peter border, the doors are uPVC or composite on multipoint locking, and the two faults are the same as anywhere: a plain euro cylinder that a snapping attack goes through in seconds, and a multipoint gearbox that has stopped lifting the hooks so the handle has to be forced. The cylinder is swapped for a 3-star anti-snap unit in about 20 minutes, from £95; the gearbox is replaced and the door realigned with the door left on its hinges, from £85; see the uPVC door repair page and the uPVC door will not lock guide for the symptoms.

Locked Out in SL9

Gerrards Cross has an unusually high share of high-security cylinders on its front doors, many of them Ultion and Mul-T-Lock units Kenny fitted himself, and that changes the lockout conversation slightly. A standard cylinder or a five-lever mortice is picked, with the lock left intact, as happens on roughly 95% of doors across the patch. A 3-star cylinder is built to resist exactly that, so it may have to be drilled, in which case its replacement and a new set of keys are fitted from the van before Kenny goes. Either way the price is from £85 by day and from £110 in the evening or at night, and the locked out of your house guide explains what to check before you ring.

Coverage From Ickenham

Gerrards Cross, Fulmer and the Chalfont St Peter border are a few miles up the road from Long Lane, which puts SL9 towards the quick end of the usual 30 to 60 minute window, whatever the hour. Neighbouring Beaconsfield, Chalfont St Peter and Denham are covered from the same van. For a whole-house rekey on completion day, a restricted-key system, a BS3621 upgrade on a villa door or an emergency locksmith in Gerrards Cross at two in the morning, ring 07904 594452; the price is fixed on the call and every starting figure is on the pricing page.