Sound familiar?Leonards Beach
- The call
- The whole key ring went missing somewhere between the grocery store and the bus. You got back in with the spare, but a set of keys is out there, and you would sleep better knowing they open nothing.
Your roommate moved out last weekend. Rent is settled, the room is empty, and the key is still on their ring.
In plain words
The choice between rekeying and replacing comes down to the condition of the lock and what you want from it. A cylinder that turns smoothly, sits firmly in a solid deadbolt and matches the look of the door is worth keeping, and rekeying gives it a new key for a fraction of the effort of replacement. Replacement earns its place when the hardware is worn, low grade, damaged, a mismatched keyway that cannot join the house key, or when you want a keypad or a heavier deadbolt anyway. A locksmith looks at each door and tells you which one applies.
Lock Rekeying · Leonards Beach
How the visit goes
Scene 1
Doors that belong to someone else
A few openings around a home are not the occupant's to change, and sorting them out early avoids awkwardness later. In a condominium, the lobby, the garage, the locker room and the mailroom are the corporation's doors, and the suite door itself may need to remain on a system the building can access in an emergency. In a rental, the landlord has a say and must be given a key. A shared side entrance in a semi-detached or a duplex serves two households. The locksmith asks about each of these, confirms who needs to agree, and keeps them separate from the doors that are plainly yours.
Scene 2
Resetting a user-rekeyable cylinder properly
Some residential deadbolts and handle sets are built so the owner can change the key with a small tool, a working key and the new key. They save a bench session, and they also go wrong in a particular way: without a working key of the correct type, or with a key from the wrong keyway, the reset stalls partway. The locksmith carries the reset tool and the reset procedure for these cylinders, confirms the keyway matches the new house key, and completes the change so the cylinder accepts the new key and rejects the old one. If the mechanism has been damaged by a forced reset, it is replaced with a standard cylinder and pinned to match.
Scene 3
New keys, counted and tried in every door
You finish the visit holding the only keys that work, and you know exactly how many there are. The locksmith cuts the agreed number from the fresh pinning rather than copying one from another, so each is as true as the first, and tries every one in every door it should open before handing them over. Count them, decide who in the household gets one, and put the spare somewhere you will remember. If a door was left on a separate key on purpose, that key is tagged so it does not get mixed into the house set. The whole set fits comfortably on one ring.
In the van
- Graded bottom pin kit
- Pinning tweezers and tray
- Key tags and keying record
- Plug follower
- Cylinder shim
What shapes the quoteBell Ewart Lock Services
- Interior doors added to the plan
- Bedroom, office or storage-room locks brought onto a key are lighter work than exterior deadbolts, but each is still a cylinder to pin and test, and the count includes them.
- Type of lock on each door
- A standard deadbolt, a knob or lever set, a mortise lock in an older door, a padlock and a smart lock's override cylinder each come apart differently and take different time on the bench.
- Number of keys cut
- Keys are cut and tested individually, so the total depends on how many the household or the tenants need. Say the number when you book and the quote reflects it from the start.
FeesSame any hour
Ask us anything about locks
How many new keys will I get, and can I get more later?
As many as you ask for, cut on site from the fresh pinning and tested in each door they should open; two or three is typical for a household. More can be cut later. When you do, bring one of the locksmith's originals to be copied rather than a copy of a copy, since every generation strays slightly from the intended depths. If any key is a restricted type, additional copies come from the record kept for that system rather than from a hardware store.
How long does a rekeying visit take?
It scales with the number of cylinders and how many need attention beyond pinning. A single deadbolt is a short bench job; a whole house with five or six exterior cylinders, a couple of swaps for mismatched keyways and a set of spares to cut and test takes a good deal longer. Tell the locksmith how many doors you want included when you book, and the visit can be planned realistically rather than guessed at.
Do the old keys really stop working?
Yes, at every cylinder that was rekeyed. Once the bottom pins are changed, a key cut to the old combination lifts them to the wrong heights and the plug will not turn. The locksmith proves this at each door by trying the old key after the new one, because any door missed from the list would still answer to the old key. That is also why the walk around the property at the start matters: every door meant to be included has to be on the list.
Change or Rekey Locks
- Lock Replacement & UpgradeThe keys the seller handed over came in a sandwich bag: six unlabelled copies for two locks of different makes from different…
- Vintage Mortise Lock ServiceThe key turns freely in the round cylinder on the door, all the way around and back, without the bolt shifting at all.
- Smart Lock InstallationArthritis has made the small house key hard to grip and turn, especially with gloves on in January.
- Gate & Building Entry LocksBetween the front gate, the side gate and the one behind the shed, there are three different padlocks, three different keys, and…
- Mailbox Lock ReplacementAfter a winter of road spray and salt, the little lock on the mailbox door has gone stiff, then gritty, then almost immovable.
Leonards Beachinformation
SimcoeOntario
Lock Rekeying · Innisfil, Bell Ewart, Big Bay Point, Cedar Harbour, Cookstown, Innisfil Park, Killarney Beach, Nantyr Park, Stroud, Alcona, Alderslea, Bear Point, Belle Air Beach, Big Cedar Point, Cedar Mount, Churchill, Crescent Harbour, De Grassi Point, Glenwood Beach, Lefroy, Mooselanka Beach, Peninsular Park, Sandy Cove, Tent City
- Town
- Leonards Beach, Simcoe
- In business
- 24 years
- Hours
- Open 24/7
- Nights, weekends and holidays, same fees
- Phone
- (249) 315-0368
- Visits
- On-site assessment preferred. Request a visit or call.
2021 census: what it means at the door
Every square is one home in a hundred.
- 35 in 100 homes · mixed ages
- 90 in 100 homes · mostly houses
- About 35% of homes in Innisfil were built in 1980 or earlier, according to the 2021 Census.Mixed housing stock keeps a locksmith versatile. A morning might be a heritage mortise lock rebuilt and an afternoon a smart lock paired to a phone on a steel door. The same care goes into both, with tools and parts for each.
- Single-detached houses make up about 90% of homes in Innisfil (2021 Census).Families in houses hand keys to children, cleaners, dog walkers and neighbours. A locksmith can set up a keypad on the side door for the household and keep the front door on a conventional key, so access matches how the family actually comes and goes.