Orions Key Emergency Locksmith provides same day Lock Rekeying services for Vancouver Wa and surrounding areas.
If you’ve just moved into a new home or business, you’ll need to secure your new space. We can schedule for whenever is best for you, including immediate emergency rekey services.
Rekeying is a cheaper alternative to changing out all of your locks, and allows you to have them all on a single new key, so long as the locks are compatible.
There are few benefits to having residential locks on different keys. The only exceptions being things like: home offices, shops, rentals, and keyed locks on bedroom doors. But in most situations, you wouldn’t want a different key for your deadbolt and lower lock, or have your front door and back door on different keys. Even in lost key situations, they’d usually all be together on the same ring.
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What is rekeying?
Lock rekey, re-key, or rekeying, is changing the internal combination of the lock to match a new key. This is typically for security purposes, preventing all previous keys from opening the lock.
Most home and business locks use pin tumblers, 5-6 top pins and the same number of key pins or bottom pins.
How pin tumblers locks work:
When the correct key is inserted, the bottom pins will all be at the same level, creating a space between the top and bottom pins. This separation is what allows the key to turn.
When any incorrect key goes into the lock, some of the top pins will be too far down and some of the bottom pins too far up… pins will always be blocking the cylinder plug from rotating.
Rekeying for alignment issues:
There are instances where you’re rekeying back to the original combination as well. This would apply to worn keys and pins. Keys wear down over time, through usage, and having new copies made from old copies. The factory combination changes and no longer lines up with the pins.
At the same time, the pins in the lock wear down as well, but at different rates than the keys… especially those closest to the face of the lock, as they’re contacted 5-6 times each time the key is inserted and again when it’s removed.
Rekeying back to the original combination is something businesses might do, when function is the issue, but their security has not been compromised. These symptoms would be sticky or binding keys, or keys that either no longer work, or work only intermittently. This type of rekey would involve decoding the current key, code cutting a new version to factory space and depth, and rekeying the lock back to factory spec pins for the true combination.
Residential Re-key Services:
We rekey houses, apartments, mobile homes, campers, sheds, and all other homes.
Knob locks, lever locks, and deadbolt locks.
Commercial Rekey Services:
We provide basic rekey and master rekey services for businesses of all kinds. Factories, stores, shops, restaurants, and others.
What is Master Keying?
Masterkeying or master keying, is a convenience measure that allows several differently combined keys to operate the same lock.
When you have several locks and only want certain people to access certain locks, but also want the owner or manager to have full access with a single key; this is where master keying comes in.
The master key may open all the locks, but the janitor’s key only works the janitor’s closet, the kitchen key only works the kitchen locks, and the entrance key only open the entrance doors.