Martinez neighborhood · 24/7
Muir Station: level ground, mixed housing, and the key no shop has a blank for
The flat part of town on the south side, where a bungalow, a fourplex and a house divided into two flats stand on the same block, and a larger share of these doors are rented than owned. Seventeen minutes from the van, a minute under the citywide average.
~17 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Doors here change hands more often than anywhere else in Martinez, and that sets the pattern of the work. Between residents a rekey is $27 to $44 per cylinder, with the second and third at the low end because the van is already at the curb, and a two-room flat is usually a deadbolt and a knob set so the whole thing is twenty minutes on site. Who books it matters and it is settled on the call rather than at the door. Being let back into the place you pay for is yours to arrange and needs identification tying you to the address. Changing what is bolted to the door belongs to the owner or the manager, and a short written message from either is enough.
The other call from these blocks is the one people expect to be impossible. A key to an old lock is lost, the house has no spare, and the hardware store has no blank on the rack that even resembles it. There are three roads out and you hear which applies before anyone drives out. The lock can be read and a key cut to it, which is the cheapest answer and works more often than owners assume. A modern cylinder can go into the existing case, leaving the outside of the door unchanged and putting the door on a key that any machine can copy afterward. Or the case is genuinely finished and the whole set is replaced at $119 to $315. The middle option is what most of these end up as.
Houses divided into flats bring their own fault, and it is worth naming because it gets missed at every inspection. A door that used to stand between two rooms is now an exterior door: a hollow leaf, a light latch, and a strike held by two short screws into casing rather than into framing. It will pass a glance and it will not hold a shoulder. Fitting a proper bolt and a long strike that reaches the stud behind the casing is inside the $119 to $315 range, and after a door has actually been forced the repair is $165 to $429, taking in the split casing, the strike and the cylinder, itemized for a manager or an insurer.
The ordinary lockout is the rest of it. A door pulls shut behind somebody carrying groceries up from the curb, which is $125 to $229 with the $89 service call already inside it and the lock opened intact rather than drilled. Identification is asked for at the step in the same words of a tenant as of an owner. Evening from 8pm carries $45 and overnight from midnight $85, said once on the call and not revisited at the door, and ninety days on the labor goes on the receipt whoever is paying.
Say whether you own or rent and whether the door that stopped you is your own or one the building shares, since that decides who signs. If a key has been lost and there is no spare, describe it: flat with a jagged edge, or long with a single bit on the end, because that is what settles whether a new one can be cut or the cylinder has to change.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Muir Station
I rent here. Can I have the lock rekeyed myself?+
A lockout on your own door, yes, with identification shown at the step. Repinning or changing a cylinder is a change to somebody else's property, so that instruction has to come from the owner or the manager, and a short written message covers it. Say which situation you are in when you call and the visit goes to whoever can approve it, which saves a trip that helps nobody.
The only key to an old lock is gone and no shop can match the blank.+
That is usual rather than unusual with hardware of this age, and it is not the end of the lock. The mechanism can often be read and a key cut to it. Where it cannot, a modern cylinder goes into the existing case so the door looks unchanged and any machine can copy the key afterward. Full replacement at $119 to $315 is the last of the three, not the first.
Our flat was made out of half a house. Is the door good enough?+
Worth checking, because a leaf that used to be an interior door is hollow and its strike is usually screwed into casing rather than framing. That combination holds a latch and not much else. A solid bolt and a long strike reaching the stud sit inside $119 to $315 and take about an hour. It is the one thing on these conversions that is worth doing before something happens rather than after.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say whether the key meets a keyhole or a cylinder, and the rest of the call is quick
Martinez and the towns around the strait, around the clock. What sits in the edge of the leaf decides the work and the work decides the number, which is settled on the phone with the $89 visit and any late hour already inside it. It reads the same on the receipt. Ninety days on the labor, a rebuilt bronze case covered the same as a new lock.