Change Locks in Temple City, CA

What does it mean to change locks, and should you rekey or replace?

When people ask us to change locks, they usually mean one of two jobs, and they often don't know which one they need. That's fine. Sorting it out is the first thing we do on the phone.

Rekeying keeps your existing lock hardware and changes the inside of the cylinder so that the old keys no longer work and a new key does. Replacing means taking the lockset off the door and putting a different one on. Both give you the same result where it matters most: the keys that were floating around before are now useless.

The right choice depends on the condition of the hardware, what you want the door to look like and how much security you want. A sound lockset from a reputable maker is often a good rekey candidate. A worn, loose or mismatched set is usually better replaced. A bargain-bin lockset that was put on a rental twenty years ago may not be worth the effort of rekeying at all.

You don't have to know this before you call. Tell us what you have, what happened and what you want the door to do, and we'll tell you honestly which way we'd go. If rekeying is the sensible answer, we'll say so, even though a replacement is a bigger job. If you want the full picture on each, our pages on lock rekeying in Temple City and lock replacement in Temple City go deeper than we will here.

Why change locks after buying a house or moving in?

If you've just bought a home in Temple City, or you're moving into a rental, you have no real way of knowing how many keys exist for the front door. The previous owner had copies. So did their relatives, the neighbor who watered the plants, a past contractor, a former tenant, maybe a real estate lockbox visitor. Nobody is accusing anyone of anything; the point is simply that you can't account for them.

Changing the locks after you move in takes that question off the table. From the day the work is done, the only keys that open your doors are the ones you hold. It's one of the more sensible first-week tasks for any new homeowner, and it tends to cost far less than people expect compared with the rest of a move.

Here is what we usually suggest looking at when someone calls us as a new homeowner or after moving:

• Front door and any side or back entry doors, since people forget the ones they rarely use.
• Garage entry door from the house into the garage, which is often keyed differently or not locked at all.
• Deadbolts, which are sometimes keyed separately from the knob or handle set.
• Sliding door and patio door locks, if they use a keyed lock.
• Mailbox locks, if the mailbox is yours to control.
• Any shed, gate or detached-structure padlocks that came with the property.

How do we change your locks, step by step?

The process is simple, and we explain each part as we go so there are no surprises when the work is finished.

1. You call (213) 577-1366. A real person answers, around the clock, and asks what's going on: new house, lost keys, a breakup, a tenant who moved out, or just a general tidy-up.
2. We ask about the doors: how many, what brand or style if you know it, and whether the locks currently work smoothly. Photos of the hardware help but aren't required.
3. A technician comes to your address in one of our mobile vans, sent from the same company that answered your call, not a third-party dispatch.
4. On site, we look at every lock before touching anything. We check the cylinders, the strike plates, the alignment of the door and how the bolt seats.
5. We tell you what we recommend, rekey or replace, door by door if the answer differs. You decide. Nothing gets started until you agree to the plan and the cost.
6. We do the work. For a rekey, that means pulling the cylinders, changing the internal pins to match new keys and putting everything back. For a replacement, we remove the old lockset, fit the new one and adjust it so it operates cleanly.
7. We test every lock with the new keys, from both sides of the door, and check that the old key no longer works.
8. We hand you the keys and talk through whether you need extra copies, and what to do if you misplace one.

Rekey or replace: how do you decide?

There is no rule that fits every house, but some patterns hold up. Here is how we think through it at the door.

• Rekey when the lockset is in good shape, you like how it looks, and the main goal is to cut off old keys. This is usually the more economical route and leaves your hardware as it is.
• Replace when the lockset is loose, worn, damaged, or visibly low quality, or when the finish is badly weathered.
• Replace when you want a different style, such as matching new finishes throughout a remodel, or upgrading the grade of the hardware.
• Replace when you want to add a feature that your current lock can't give you, such as keypad entry or a smart lock.
• Rekey or replace depending on the mix when you have many doors. Some can be rekeyed to a single key so you carry one key for the whole house, while others may need new hardware.
• Upgrade to a stronger deadbolt when the existing one is thin, short or poorly installed, regardless of what you do with the rest.

What affects the cost to change locks in Temple City?

We don't quote numbers on a web page because the job isn't the same from one house to the next. What we can do is tell you exactly what moves the cost, so the quote you hear from us, or anyone else, makes sense.

The first factor is whether you rekey or replace. Rekeying uses your existing hardware and generally costs less in materials. Replacement adds the price of the new lockset, and the range between basic and high-security hardware is wide.

The second is the number of locks. Changing one front door is a different job from changing every entry point in a house. Many people also want all their locks on one key, which affects how we approach the work.

The third is the condition of the doors and frames. If a door is out of square, a strike plate is loose or the bore is damaged, there may be extra work to make a new lock sit properly. We tell you about this before we start, not afterward.

The fourth is timing. A scheduled visit during normal hours is a simpler job to plan than a late-night call, and after-hours service can carry a different rate. We'll explain how that applies to your call when you phone.

The fifth is what else you ask for: extra key copies, a stronger deadbolt, or a smart lock. Each is a separate line in the plan, and you can add or drop them. If you want to explore those, we have pages on deadbolt installation and smart lock installation.

We give you the figure before we begin work, and we aim to explain what you're paying for, so you're never guessing.

Changing locks around Temple City: bungalows, rebuilds and small apartment buildings

Temple City is mostly postwar single-family housing, and that shapes the work. Many homes are 1940s and 1950s bungalows and ranch houses on modest lots. Some of those still have their original hardware or a mix of replacements from different decades. Rekeying often makes sense where the lockset is solid and the door is in good order, and a full replacement makes sense where the hardware has worn out.

The housing market tied to the Temple City Unified School District has also led to teardowns and larger two-story rebuilds since the 2000s. On a street in north Temple City near the Arcadia border, you can find a worn original house next to a brand-new two-story home. The new builds usually come with builder-grade locksets, and builders often use a set of keys that the construction crew, the framers, the painters and the agent have all handled. If you've bought a rebuilt home there, changing the locks, either by rekeying or swapping in better hardware, is a sensible step before you move in.

Near Downtown Temple City and the Las Tunas Drive strip, and along the Rosemead Boulevard corridor, there are small apartment and condo buildings. For those, the common jobs are changing the lock on a unit after a tenant leaves and changing the mailbox lock so that a former resident's key no longer opens it. Landlords and property managers sometimes want a consistent approach across units; if that's you, see our page on locksmith services for landlords, and for mailbox work, mailbox lock replacement.

In the Longden Avenue area, many homes have been remodeled, and owners often want their new entry doors to match modern hardware. A lock change there is as often about style and function as about key control. We'll go through the options with you on site.

All of this sits within ZIP code 91780, and we serve it from our Westwood storefront and mobile vans. We're roughly 25 miles away, and we know the area well enough to ask the right questions on the phone.

Does heat affect door locks in Temple City?

Yes, and it matters when you're picking new hardware. Temple City sits in the central San Gabriel Valley, with hot, dry inland summers and very little marine influence this far from the coast. That kind of seasonal heat swing makes wood doors on postwar homes expand and stick.

A door that swells in August can make a deadbolt bind. People then blame the lock and decide to replace it, when the real fix might be a small adjustment to the strike plate or the door itself. We check this before we sell anyone new hardware. If your key is hard to turn only in hot weather, tell us. It may point to alignment rather than a failing lock.

When we do change locks on these older doors, we pay attention to how the bolt lines up with the strike, how much clearance the door has, and whether the bore is clean. A well-fitted new lock should turn smoothly in July and January. If a door is rubbing badly enough that it affects the lock, we'll tell you straight and explain what we can and can't fix. Some jobs belong partly to a carpenter, and we'll say so.

If a lock has already gone stiff or started to fail, you might want lock repair in place of a change, and we'll let you know which route makes sense.

Why call Wilshire Lock & Key to change your locks?

We've been in business since 1987, and that means we've seen most of the old hardware that turns up in houses like the ones in Temple City. We know how it ages and what's worth keeping.

We have a storefront at 10740 Wilshire Blvd in Westwood and mobile vans that come to you. You're dealing with one company from the first phone call to the finished job, with no dispatch middlemen passing your address along. David, the owner and lead technician, oversees the work, so there's someone accountable for how it's done.

We answer the phone 24 hours a day, every day of the year, at (213) 577-1366. A lock change is often not an emergency, but sometimes it is: a lost set of keys, a break-up, a moved-out roommate or a worrying incident. Either way, you'll talk to a person.

One more thing worth knowing. California requires locksmith companies to hold a BSIS LCO license, and you should ask any locksmith you're considering for it. That's a fair question for any company, including ours.

What should you have ready when you call?

You don't need to prepare much, but a few details let us give you a better plan from the start.

Tell us how many doors you want to change and whether they're entry doors, a garage entry or sliding doors. If you know the brand on the existing lock, mention it. If you can send a photo, that helps us bring the right parts.

Let us know why you're changing them. A new purchase, a move-in, a lost key and a tenant turnover each lead to a slightly different plan. Also tell us whether you'd rather keep the hardware you have or you're open to something new.

If you're locked out right now, say so first. We can help with that before anything else, and our page on house lockouts in Temple City explains how that works.

More locksmith help in Temple City

• Deadbolt Installation in Temple City
• Gate Lock Repair in Temple City
• High Security Locks in Temple City
• Key Duplication in Temple City
• Lock Installation in Temple City
• Lock Rekey in Temple City
• All services in Temple City

Change Locks near Temple City

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