Martinez neighborhood · 24/7
The waterfront and the marina: gates, boat sheds, and the padlock that does not last a winter down here
The flat ground between the tracks and the water: the marina and its parking, boat sheds and lay-up yards, storage buildings and small workshops with steel doors in steel frames. Thirteen minutes from the van, and much of this work is a lock hanging in the open rather than one screwed to a house.
~14 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
A padlock down here lives outdoors for its whole life, and the cheap ones fail in a way people misread. The body is plated steel, the keyway faces upward and fills with whatever the weather brings, and the shackle is exposed on both sides. By midwinter the key goes in, turns, and the shackle stays put, which reads as a broken key and is actually a seized body. What goes back on is a brass or stainless body with the shackle sitting down inside it so nothing can get a bar behind the loops, a keyway with a cover that flips shut, and a shackle sized to the hasp rather than to whatever the rack had. That is inside the $119 to $315 replacement range, and where you have three or four of them they come back on one key so nobody carries a bunch.
The hasp is the part nobody looks at, and on shed after shed it is the weakest thing in the assembly: two screws into soft wood, a staple that turns with a pull, and a good lock hanging off it doing nothing useful. Carriage bolts through the frame with a plate on the inside face cost very little and change what the lock is worth. Same principle at the gates: a chain running through a fence that was never braced, or a keyed latch on a post that has moved with the ground under it. The post gets sorted first, because a code or a cylinder cannot hold a gate that no longer lines up.
The buildings are the other half of it. Steel man-doors in steel frames on storage units, workshops and the yards along the tracks, with a heavy cylinder, a closer and often a bar on the way out. A business lockout is $135 to $245. Commercial cylinders and door hardware are $152 to $449 per opening, exit devices $289 to $739 per door, and a door that has been forced over a weekend is $165 to $429, taking in the frame, the strike and the cylinder that absorbed it, itemized on the receipt in language an insurer can use. Early starts are ordinary out here and are charged at the ordinary daytime rate, since a yard that cannot open at six loses a shift rather than a morning.
Then the parking. Keys go into the water off a dock more often than anyone would guess, and a key that is gone is gone rather than lost. A replacement cut and coded beside the vehicle is $149 to $399, a fob paired at the space is $95 to $189, and a bike or scooter key made on site is $119 to $275. A car lockout is $99 to $189. Nothing about the hour changes how the job is booked, only the figure: $45 inside it from 8pm to midnight, $85 from midnight to 7am, and the $89 service call counted once and never added afterward.
Say what the lock is hanging on: a gate, a hasp on a shed, a roll-up, or a door in a frame. If it is a padlock, say whether the key still turns in it, because a key that turns and does nothing is a different job from a key that will not go in. Give a dock letter or the nearest building rather than a street number.
Most requested in Waterfront & Marina
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Waterfront & Marina
The padlock on the shed worked all summer and now the key turns and nothing happens.+
That is the body rather than the key. A plated lock hanging in the open takes water into the keyway and the mechanism, the internals bind, and the key still rotates because it is only lifting a stuck part. It is opened or cut off and replaced with a body that sheds water and shields the shackle, inside $119 to $315. Ask for it on the same key as the gate while the van is there.
Can the shed, the gate and the dock box all take the same key?+
Yes, and it is the usual request down here. Padlocks with a replaceable core, or new ones cut to bitting you already carry, come onto one key during the same visit at $27 to $44 a cylinder rather than as a second appointment. Count them before you call, including any you have stopped using, so one figure covers the lot.
A door on the yard was forced over the weekend. What happens first?+
The building gets closed again before anything else. Repair after a forced door is $165 to $429 and covers the frame around the strike, the strike itself and the cylinder that took the load, with the parts named separately for whoever has to file it. If the door cannot be made secure the same visit, you are told that at the door rather than after the van has gone.
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.