What Is Rekeying Locks, and How Does the Process Work?

You may at some point encounter a situation in which it makes sense for you to change your locks in Toledo, OH. Perhaps you lost your keys and want to make sure you don’t have an unexpected visitor. Maybe you’ve recently moved into a new house, or had to terminate an employee at your place of business.

While changing your locks is certainly an effective means of preventing unwanted intrusions, the simpler and cheaper solution is to rekey them instead.

Here’s a quick overview of the rekeying process and how it differs from changing the locks in Toledo, OH.

How does rekeying work?

The process of changing a lock involves swapping out an old lock with a new one. Rekeying, on the other hand, means changing the working key of the lock to be a different key, without having to replace all of the lock hardware.

Rather than taking out the entire lock, you’re instead able to take the lock apart and replace a few of the tumblers or key pins inside. This is a cheaper and more efficient way of getting the same results you’d get from entirely replacing the lock.

How does rekeying work, exactly? Well, every series of key pins in a lock will correspond to specific key pins on your keys. By replacing those pins with different ones, you set a new key to operate the lock, meaning the old key will no longer work. This only takes a few minutes for a Toledo, OH locksmith to accomplish when using the right tools and a current matching key, though if no current key is available the locksmith may be able to pick it open for an additional charge.

Rekeying the lock rather than changing the lock does not make it any more or less secure—it’s simply a cheaper and faster alternative. The security of the lock depends on how many pins are inside of it, so as long as you swap out all the old pins for new ones, it will remain as secure as it ever was.

Why rekey?

As we already mentioned, rekeying will almost always be cheaper than entirely replacing the locks. This is because key pins are quite inexpensive. With rekeying, you’re really only paying for the labor, versus the labor and parts associated with changing locks.

In addition, rekeying allows you to keep the same hardware in place in your doors, which can be particularly valuable if you have old, historic, hard-to-find locks or door hardware that you would like to preserve to keep their character and charm. Replacing a lock entirely can be extremely difficult if you have very old, classic locks in place that aren’t commonly available on the market today.

While it is possible to do this kind of work yourself, we strongly recommend working with a professional locksmith to get the job done to make sure it’s done correctly and reliably, so you can guarantee your security.

For more information about rekeying your locks, contact the team at Toledo Lock & Key LLC today.

Categorised in: Rekey Locks

This post was written by Writer