Can I Use the Same Key for All the Locks in My Home?

Wouldn’t it be convenient to have the same key for every lock around your home? If you’ve ever wondered how to get all of your locks keyed the same, read on. It’s usually possible—but you should also consider the safety implications involved. If rekeying your locks isn’t the right choice, there are some other options for convenience, safety and security.

Should you rekey your locks?

First, it’s important to note that it may not be possible to rekey all of your locks for one key, especially if you have locks from different manufacturers. Certain lock types may not use the same type of key, either. Before you have your heart set on having a single key for all of your household locks, make sure it’s possible first. This may require calling a locksmith for an evaluation.

If you can rekey your locks for the same key, here are some pros and cons to consider:

• Convenience: The biggest reason clients want to rekey their locks is that it’s convenient. It’s nice to be able to use just one key for front and back doors, interior doors, garage locks and more. When you carry around a lot of keys, that can become quite cumbersome and heavy. A single key is much easier to carry around.
• Easy access: In addition to being convenient, using a single key promises easy access throughout your home. Not only will your key ring be significantly lighter, but you won’t have to label or try to remember which key belongs to which lock.
• Lost keys are a bigger hassle: One major drawback to using a single key is that if someone in your household loses their key, you’ll need to rekey every single lock that uses the key. That means a single lost key incident can be exponentially more expensive than if you used different locks and keys.
• Cannot partially restrict access: Finally, using the same key everywhere means you can’t partially restrict access to your home. For example, perhaps you’d like to let a neighbor drop off items or packages to your porch or garage. With a single key, they could let themselves into the rest of your home, too.

Other lock and key options

There are a couple of other options that you can try if you can’t or don’t want to rekey all of your locks. First, if it’s not possible to rekey all of the locks in your home, you can replace them with locks from the same manufacturer, then rekey those to use the same key.

However, keyless entry can help you get the best of all worlds: fewer keys, restricting access and no need to panic when someone loses a combination or key fob. You can simply recode the locks and enjoy safety and security as usual.

Now that you know how to make all of your locks use the same key, Toledo Lock & Key LLC can help you achieve your goals. Call us today to get a quote or get started with your new locks.

Categorised in: Lock and Key

This post was written by Writer