Services
Locksmith services in Washington, DC
Three categories of property, five common jobs, and a plain description of what each one involves before you commit to anything.
Everything in one place
Eight pages, grouped by what you are trying to fix
The first three cover a whole category of property. The last five are single jobs that come up often enough to deserve their own explanation. There is overlap between them, and each page points at the others where it makes sense.
- 01 Residential locksmith Everything on a home: front doors, back doors, basement entrances, interior locks, mailboxes and the hardware that fails first on a hundred-year-old frame. Home lock work
- 02 Commercial locksmith Business doors, where hardware has to meet egress rules, survive constant use and let the right people in without handing out keys to everyone. Business hardware
- 03 Automotive locksmith Vehicle doors, ignitions and keys, including what a locksmith can do at the roadside and what genuinely has to go to a dealer. Vehicle work
- 04 Lockout assistance Getting back into a home, a business or a car, and what changes about the job depending on where the keys ended up. Getting back in
- 05 Lock rekeying Changing which key a cylinder accepts without replacing the lock. The usual answer after a move, a lost key or a change of staff. Rekeying explained
- 06 Lock repair and replacement Diagnosing why hardware has stopped working, fixing what can be fixed and specifying sensible replacements for what cannot. Repairs and swaps
- 07 Car key replacement Cutting blades, programming transponders and fobs, and extracting keys that have snapped off in a lock or ignition. Replacement car keys
- 08 Smart lock installation Fitting keypad and connected deadbolts on doors that can take them, and saying so when a door needs work first. Keypad and connected locks
Not sure which page you need
Start from the symptom instead
Most people arrive knowing what happened rather than what the service is called. This is roughly how those map onto the pages above.
| What happened | Where to read |
|---|---|
| Just moved in and do not know who has keys | Rekeying |
| Door shut behind you with the keys inside | Lockout assistance |
| Key turns but the bolt does not move | Repair and replacement |
| Door needs a shove before it will latch | Troubleshooting guide |
| Only one car key left and no spare | Car key replacement |
| An employee left without returning keys | Commercial work |
| Want to stop carrying a key altogether | Smart locks |
Two more things
Mailboxes, and the van
Mailbox cam locks are their own small world of sizes. The van is where the key machines and the pinning bench live, which is why most of the work happens at your door rather than at the shop. 4 of the 8 are our own jobs; the others illustrate the hardware.
Questions and answers
About the services themselves
Do I have to know which service I need before I call?
No. Describe what is happening and we will work out which category it falls into. The pages here exist so you can read up afterwards, or beforehand if you prefer to arrive at the conversation informed.
Can one visit cover more than one job?
Usually, and it is worth grouping them. Rekeying the front door, adjusting a back door that has dropped and cutting spare keys are a single visit rather than three. Mention everything when you call so the van carries the right parts.
Do you supply the hardware or should I buy it?
Either. If you have already bought a deadbolt we will fit it, provided it suits the door. If you would rather we specified something, we will explain the differences between the grades and let you choose. See choosing a deadbolt for what those grades mean.
Is there a service you recommend people ask about more often?
Keying several locks alike. Households often carry three keys for one house because the locks were fitted at different times by different people. Bringing them onto one key is normally a rekeying job, not a replacement.
Keep reading
Where these services are carried out
Each area page describes the buildings and hardware common to that part of the city, and which of the services above come up there most.
Not sure which of these applies?
Describe the situation and we will point you at the right one, even if it turns out to be a job for somebody else.