Residential Locks

Locks have the purpose of keeping intruders out and keeping your home or business secure. The lock is there to protect you and your belongings, it provides a peace of mind when you are not home securing the property. Getting a lock that is right for your home is important. However, with so many options available in the market, it is hard to determine which lock would be the best choice for you.

Deadbolts are a type of lock that is a necessity as a security measure for each home. They are extremely difficult to break through and can prevent most types of force entry attempts. The reason for that is the long throw bolt which is normally around 6 inch that goes into the door frame. When getting a deadbolt or any other type of lock for that matter, it is recommended to get those with a 6 pin cylinders to make them harder to pick or bump.

Another popular lock mostly on older homes, is the Mortise. What makes this type of lock so unique is the fact it is installed inside the door itself which makes it harder to tamper with it. Among other types of heavy duty locks is the jimmy proof deadbolt. The way that is built prevent intruders from attempting to "jimmy" the door opened as well as sliding a card to unlock it.

When it comes to interior doors, there is no need to use heavy duty type locks, and that is why lever handle locks are perfect for these types of settings. These types of locks are mostly used for bathrooms or bedrooms inside a home. If you are looking to go overboard and worry about style as well, a lockset would be you best choice. They offer the flexibility, durability and often available in a variety of designs and styles to compliment most types of doors.

For more information about lock selection for your home, contact Premier NW Locksmith Reno (775) 538-2159.

About Cylinder Locks

The most common type of locks that residential homes will have where a key is required to gain entry would be a cylinder lock. However, most cylinder designs are flawed in a way that many intruders nowadays came up with various methods for defeating them such as a bump key for example. This type of special key was meant to be used only by professional locksmith technicians and companies in order to assist customers in an emergency lockout type of situation. However, with the ease of access in today's world, many intruders have adopted this type of method to break-in to homes.

There are many ways to avoid these types of situations by choosing the right cylinder type lock. A strong lock-set is a good way to start in order to prevent from intruders breaking in to your home. It has been proven that a strong lock which may cost significantly more than the average type of lock would be able to defeat bump keys or at least make the intruder's life much more difficult that he would give up on the lock much sooner.

There are many types of strong locks in the market and normally they can be identified by the following qualities. Deadbolt locks for example who are equipped with steel chips can get the job done! Not only a deadbolt lock is considered as an added security measure by itself, but the ones that come with steel chips would be able to resist drilling which is one of the more popular break-in method intruders like to use.

Another type of deadbolt is the one equipped with a one inch throw. The throw is in fact the piece that extends from the lock all the way inside the door from. This type of deadbolt will come in handy in a situation where an intruder would try to force the door open. Because of the extended length of the deadbolt's throw, the chances of him to succeed would be very minimal.

Another way to go is with a double cylinder deadbolt which require a key from both sides. This type of lock would help in a scenario where an intruder would try to break a window close to or part of the door in order to reach in for the knob and unlock it from the inside. With a double cylinder deadbolt, this will not be possible.

Last but not least, key-less entry and digital type locks. The latest technology in home security which allow the user to enter his home by using a keypad entering a unique code. This will eliminate the use of keys and most of these locks are available without a cylinder, so an intruder would not be able to use the traditional methods for breaking in to a home.

For more information, give us a call or visit Premier NW Locksmith Reno.

Lock Re-key

I remember a few years ago I got a call from a customer who needed to re-key all the locks in his home. Like most locksmith technicians, once I got to the customer's home, I inspected the locks that needed to be re-keyed for compatibility making sure I could key them all the same. Most of the time its not a big deal, but In this case, the customer had four doors where each one of them had a Titan deadbolt and a Corbin entry lock. 

The first step for me was pulling all the locks. Before starting re-pinning all the locks, I did a little testing. I noticed that I was able to use the new key I made for the Titan deadbolt on the Corbin cylinder, but only when the plug was out of the sleeve. I then had an idea to grind the bottom surface of the blade about 1/32" and the key seemed to fit in the Corbin Plug even after re-pinning and assembled it. I finished re-keying all the other cylinders, put them back in the door and the customer was satisfied since now he had to worry about only one key instead of two.

Luckily, I got this idea from a Reno locksmith co-worker of mine who recommended me to always have a set of around six keys made for each common lock manufacturer before any re-key job. That way, the next time I will face a similar job, I would come prepared and save some time. It seemed that in this area, the most common lock manufacturers are Schlage, Kwikset, and Multilock, so now I have a set ready for each one of them which will save me the time of cutting them on job location.