San Francisco · fog belt to sun belt · 24 hours
Your deadbolt is not broken. The ocean air seized it.
West of Twin Peaks the wind comes off the water carrying salt, and it settles in the one place nobody thinks to look: inside the cylinder. Four miles east, the identical lock on an identical door is unremarkable at twenty years. We work both halves of the city, and either way the figure is said on the call.
- West of Twin Peaks
- 3 to 6 years
- Sunset, Richmond, Parkside, Ocean Beach: the fog belt. A standard brass cylinder starts dragging inside three winters and is usually finished by the sixth.
- East of Twin Peaks
- 10 to 15 years
- Mission, Noe Valley, Bernal, Potrero: the sun belt. The same cylinder on the same door, out of the salt wind, runs two and three times as long.
Calls answered 24/7 · $89 service call, already inside the figure.
4.9 / 51,284 reviewsSan Francisco
What the ocean does to a lock, on a schedule
- Year oneThe key goes stiff in the winter and easy again in September. Nothing has failed yet; the corrosion is only starting to bite on the pins. Stripped, cleaned and lubricated properly on the visit, and it buys years.from $89
- Year threeThe key turns halfway and needs a jiggle, and everyone in the flat has their own private trick for it. The cylinder is worn and pitted now; cleaning stops helping and it wants replacing before it strands somebody.from $28/cyl
- Year sixThe bolt no longer reaches the strike and the door gets left on the latch, which is the point at which a lock problem quietly becomes a security problem. The whole lock comes off and a stainless one goes on.from $125
- Any yearThe blade snaps in the keyway, usually on a cold morning when someone forces a key that had been warning them for months. The broken half comes out, the door gets opened, and a new cylinder goes in on the same visit.from $135
Every figure on this list carries the $89 visit inside it. East of Twin Peaks the same clock runs at roughly half the speed, which is why an identical lock on an identical door lasts two and three times longer in the Mission than it does on Judah Street.
Prices
The whole list, nothing held back for the phone
All sixteen jobs and their ranges sit on this page, nothing saved for the phone. Describe what the key is doing and the range closes to one figure on the call, with the evening or overnight hour already folded in.
Emergency
from $115
Residential
from $28/cyl
Commercial
from $165
The cheapest line that fixes it is the one we quote. A cylinder that is only stiff gets stripped and cleaned rather than replaced, a door that has dropped gets its strike moved rather than a new lock, and three doors that want one key are a rekey and not four purchases. Say what the key is doing when you call (628) 363-2407.
What we do
Sixteen jobs, and half of them start with corrosion
A rowhouse cylinder that has taken six winters of salt, a blade snapped in a keyway on Taraval, a flat door on Valencia that shut behind somebody, a padlock on a Clement Street grille, a lobby door on Nob Hill, a car at the kerb on a hill. Pick the work and the range is on this page. Say what the key is doing on the call and the range becomes one figure.
from $115Emergency
Openings across all seven miles of the city, day or night, with the figure fixed on the call
- House Lockout$135–$249
- Car Lockout$115–$219
- Business Lockout$155–$279
- Post Break-In Lock Repair$195–$469
from $28/cylResidential
Rekeys, cylinders, deadbolts and keypads for rowhouses, flats and Victorians
- Lock Rekeying$28–$46 per cylinder
- Lock Replacement & Installation$125–$319
- Smart Lock Installation$185–$469
- Safe Opening$215–$559
from $165Commercial
Storefronts, grilles and small offices, on both sides of the fog line
- Master Key Systemscustom quote
- Panic Bars & Exit Devices$299–$769
- Access Control$165–$439
- Storefront Door Locks$169–$479
from $99Automotive
Keys, fobs and ignitions done where the car is already parked, hill or no hill
- Car Key Replacement$175–$429
- Key Fob Programming$99–$205
- Ignition Repair$189–$449
- Motorcycle Keys$119–$275
Coverage
Every district, and the towns over the county line
The van sits on Divisadero. Average arrival 18 minutes across the city, longer once you cross into Daly City, Colma, Brisbane, South San Francisco or Pacifica. Every area page carries its own minute.
On every job
Coast to Bay, One Figure
Four things that hold the same way for a Sunset rowhouse with a garage under the living floor, an Edwardian flat off Fillmore, a Mission storefront behind a roll-down grille and a loft in SoMa. The workmanship is warranted for ninety days, named on the receipt.
- 1One figure on the call, whether the lock seized or the door simply shut behind youOn the phone nobody knows yet which one it is, and you should not have to guess to get a price. The number quoted covers the visit, the labour and the parts either way: a cylinder full of corrosion that has to come out, a snapped blade that has to come back out of the keyway, or a door that closed behind you with a perfectly healthy lock in it. San Francisco plus Daly City, Colma, Brisbane, South San Francisco and Pacifica, 24 hours, holidays included.
- 2The receipt shows that same figure, whatever turns up inside the keywayA 1912 mortise set that has been painted over four times. A cylinder green with corrosion at the tailpiece. A bolt so swollen with rust it has not thrown fully since the spring. A landlord's second lock from 1987 that never matched anything. None of it moves the number. Your card is charged what you were told on the phone and an itemised receipt reaches your email before the van leaves the block.
- 3Opened without damage first, and a drill only after you say soPicks, decoders and bypass tools come out before anything destructive does, because a seized cylinder is often still openable and a lock that survives the visit is a lock you do not have to pay to replace. When one genuinely will not give, you hear what it is doing, what would go in its place and what that costs, and it is your call. Agreeing to a drill has never earned anyone here a larger number.
- 4Ninety days on the work, and the part is named before it goes onIf a cylinder is being replaced you are told the make, the grade and the finish while the old one is still on the door, because on the west side the finish is the whole argument: plain brass is a consumable there, and marine-grade stainless costs more once instead of twice. Ninety days on the labour, the maker standing behind the part, and both spelled out on the receipt rather than implied.
Reviews
What people say once the key turns again
Seized cylinders, snapped blades, rekeys and grilles, from Ocean Beach to Bernal Hill, with the figure people actually paid.
4.9/ 51,284reviews
San Francisco
“For about two years our front key needed a specific wiggle that only my husband and I knew how to do, and we treated it as a personality trait of the house rather than a fault. Then it stopped working for either of us. He took the cylinder off and showed me the inside, which was green. $214 quoted on the phone and $214 charged. He put on a stainless one and explained why the brass one lasted six years four blocks from the beach. No upsell, no lecture.”
“Key snapped clean off in the door at ten past eight in the evening, half of it still in the lock and half in my hand. $206 including the evening hour, told to me before he set off, and that was the number on the receipt. He had the broken piece out in a few minutes without drilling anything and fitted a new cylinder there and then. Said the blade had probably been under strain for a year, which matches how hard it had been getting.”
“We come into the house through the garage, so the door at the top of the garage stairs is the one we actually use, and it had a different key from the front. $166 to put both onto one key plus a new cylinder for the garage door, which was the one taking all the damp. He made me open both myself before he wrote it up. Handed the old keys back in a bag.”
“Bought a flat and wanted every key that had ever existed for it to stop working. Three cylinders, $124 for the lot. The interesting part was that he said the 1994 mortise lock on the front was in good order and did not need replacing, which is not what the last person told me. Apparently up here away from the ocean they simply last. He repinned it and it feels new.”
“Twenty to two in the morning, door shut behind me, phone in my hand and nothing else. $238 with the overnight hour already in it, said on the call so I could decide before I committed to standing outside. Thirty-one minutes, which he had told me to expect because I am over the county line. Opened it without a mark and cut me a key to keep in my bag.”
“Padlock on the shop grille would not open at half past nine at night after we had closed up wrong. $189. He cut it, opened the grille and put on a new one, and told me the old body was full of corrosion despite looking perfectly good from the outside. We are on the Mission side so I had assumed that was only a beach problem. Fast and straight about it.”
Why us
Which half of the city you live in decides the job.
The van is loaded for the half of the city you live in
Most locksmiths carry one set of stock for a whole metro. Seven miles across, this city is two different jobs. West of Twin Peaks the van carries stainless cylinders, extractors for snapped blades and the tools to strip and clean a lock that is not gone yet. East of it, the load is repinning stock and mortise parts for buildings from 1910 that will outlive everyone reading this. When you say the street, the right half of the van is already the answer.
Locks and keys, and nothing that runs on wires
Locks, cylinders, deadbolts, keypads, keys, gates and the doors they sit in. Buzzer panels, intercom wiring and elevator controls are electrical trades and we are not them, and you hear that in the first minute rather than at your gate. When the intercom is what has failed, the way in is the lock, and that is a job we can do tonight while the panel waits for a weekday.
The finish is named out loud, because on this coast it is the whole argument
A cylinder is not a cylinder. Within a mile of the ocean, plain brass is a part you will buy again in five years, and nobody says so at the point of sale. Before anything goes on your door you hear the make, the grade and the finish, what each one costs, and what it means where you actually live. Sometimes the honest answer is that your existing lock is fine and wants cleaning, and that is a cheaper visit, which is the point.
One van on Divisadero, and every minute measured from it
No shop and no counter. The van sits on Divisadero deliberately, on the line between the fog and the sun, which is why downtown is 14 minutes, the Marina 15, the Mission 16, Noe Valley 17, the Richmond 18, SoMa 19, the Sunset 21 and the Bayview 24. Eighteen is the average. Where an area runs slower it gets named as slower while you are still on the phone, not after half an hour of waiting.
How it works
From what the key is doing to a lock that turns again
- 1
You call and describe what the key is doing
Stiff, halfway and jiggling, snapped in the keyway, or fine and simply on the other side of a door that shut behind you. Give the street and the district, because that tells us which half of the city you are in and therefore what the lock has probably been through. Say if it is a shared gate or lobby door rather than your own.
- 2
The figure is said on the call, with the hour already inside it
One number covers the visit, the labour and the parts, with the $89 visit inside it and the evening or overnight hour folded in when the clock calls for it. If what you are describing is an intercom or a buzzer, you hear that now rather than after someone has driven out. You answer yes or no with the number in front of you.
- 3
The van leaves Divisadero and a text names who is coming
The message carries the technician's name and a thirty-minute window drawn from where the van actually is, not from a dispatch board. At the door, ID gets matched to the address, a lease page to the unit, or a registration to the plate, before a case is opened.
- 4
The lock is opened or replaced, and the receipt shows the figure you were given
Non-destructive tools first, so wherever the mechanism allows it the lock survives the visit. If it is being replaced you already know the make and the finish, because that conversation happened while the old one was still on the door. Card or tap on the spot, an itemised receipt in your inbox, and a written line for a landlord or an insurer when one is needed.
Free estimate
Four questions, then the same range this site publishes.
Not an emergency? Answer four questions and the published range for that work comes back on the screen, with nothing held behind a phone call. If it is urgent, the form steps aside and hands you the number.
- 1What went wrong?A lockout, a key, a lock change, or something else entirely.
- 2Where is the door?A house, an apartment, a car or a business.
- 3How soon?If it is right now, the form gets out of the way and you call.
- 4Where does the range go?A name and a number. Email and cross street only if you like.
Before you call anyone
Five things to ask before anybody writes down where you live
Search for a locksmith in San Francisco and a fair share of what comes back is a call centre in another state that sells your address to whoever is nearest, advertises a two-figure price, then collects three hundred once the door is open, usually after drilling a lock that would have picked in four minutes. The questions below take a minute between them, and anyone working straight answers all five without stalling.
- 1Ask for one figure with the $89 visit inside it and the hour of the night counted too. "Starting at" and "the tech will price it on site" are not prices, they are room left open for later.
- 2Ask what happens if the lock turns out to be seized rather than simply shut. If the number changes at that point, you were given a starting point rather than a price.
- 3Ask whether they also do buzzers and intercoms. Anyone who says yes to all of it is a handyman or is telling you what you want to hear, and you find out which at the gate.
- 4Ask which tools come out before a drill, and what hardware goes on if drilling wins anyway. Anyone leading with a drill has not thought about your door yet.
- 5Refuse cash only. A landlord, an insurer or your own records need an itemised receipt with a business name on it, and a figure written on a slip satisfies none of them.
FAQ
Asked on the way to the phone
Why would salt air kill a lock? It is inside the door.+
The cylinder is not sealed, and it does not need to be underwater to corrode. Marine air carries chloride, chloride settles on the pins and springs through the keyway, and the pitting starts on surfaces measured in fractions of a millimetre, where a fraction is the whole tolerance. That is why the first symptom is stiffness rather than failure: the pins are still moving, just not freely. West of Twin Peaks a plain brass cylinder usually starts dragging inside three winters. East of the hill, out of the wind, the same part runs ten to fifteen years.
My key turns halfway and then stops. Is that the lock or the door?+
Turn the key with the door standing open. If it still stops halfway, the cylinder is the problem and it is almost certainly corrosion or wear inside. If it turns freely with the door open and jams only when the door is shut, the lock is fine and the bolt is no longer lining up with the strike, which on an old San Francisco building usually means the frame has moved. The two cost different amounts to fix, so it is worth the ten seconds before you call: a cylinder is $28 to $46 to repin or $125 up to replace, and a strike realigned is part of the visit.
How long is the wait, honestly, by district?+
Eighteen minutes is the citywide average, measured from where the van sits on Divisadero, which is deliberately on the line between the two halves of the city. Downtown, Nob Hill and the Tenderloin run about 14 minutes, the Marina and Pacific Heights 15, the Mission and the Haight 16, Noe Valley and Bernal 17, the Richmond 18, SoMa and Mission Bay 19, the Sunset 21 and the Bayview, Excelsior and Portola 24. Over the county line it is longer and gets named as longer on the call: Daly City 27, Colma 28, Brisbane 29, South San Francisco 31 and Pacifica 34.
What decides where inside the range my job lands?+
Three things move a job inside its range. Which lock it is, because a flat door cylinder, a mortise set from 1910 and a padlock on a roll-down grille are different amounts of work. How much salt it has already taken, which in practice means how far west it lives, because a cylinder that can be cleaned and a cylinder that has to be replaced are two different jobs on the same door. And whether it can be saved at all or the whole lock is coming off. Once those are settled the figure is one number rather than a span, and that number is what appears on the receipt.
Is a call at three in the morning priced differently?+
A Saturday costs what a Tuesday costs, and a holiday costs what an ordinary week costs. Only the clock moves anything: $55 between 8pm and midnight, $95 between midnight and 7am. Both are folded in before you hear a number, so nothing new appears at the door. A house lockout that is $135 in daylight comes back as $190 at eleven at night and $230 at four in the morning, all of it still inside the published $135 to $249. Calls are answered 24 hours.
Can you get me through my building's street gate or lobby door?+
Yes, if you live there and can show it: photo ID with the address, or ID plus something on your phone tying you to the unit, such as a lease page, a rent statement or addressed mail. Getting a resident back in is a normal call and does not need anyone's permission. Changing the hardware is different. A shared gate, lobby door or mailroom lock is the building's, so a rekey or a replacement on one of those needs the manager, the landlord or the association to agree, and it is far easier to settle that before the van comes out than in a hallway afterwards.
Our buzzer stopped working. Can you fix it?+
No, and it is worth saying plainly rather than finding out at your gate. Intercom panels, buzzer wiring, door releases wired to them and elevator controls are electrical work and a different trade. What we do is the mechanical half: the lock in the gate, the cylinder in the lobby door, the keypad, the key. If the buzzer is dead and you are standing outside, we can get you through the lock and up the stairs tonight, and the panel itself is a call for your building on a weekday.
Is it worth paying more for a stainless lock on the west side?+
On the ocean side, yes, and it is the one piece of advice on this site given twice. A plain brass or plated cylinder within a mile of the beach is a consumable: three winters to stiffness, five or six to replacement. Marine-grade stainless costs more once and then stops being an annual conversation. East of Twin Peaks the argument mostly disappears, and paying for it there is your choice rather than our recommendation. Either way the make, the grade and the finish are named while the old lock is still on the door.
I rent. Do I need my landlord before you open my door?+
Not to get back into the place you pay for. Bring ID showing the address, or ID plus a lease page, a rent receipt, a utility bill or addressed mail on your phone, and give the building and the unit number on the call. Hardware is the other question: a rekey or a new keypad on a rented door needs your landlord's agreement, and on a shared gate or lobby lock it needs the building's. Both are simpler to settle before anybody drives out.
Do you cover Daly City, Colma, Brisbane, South San Francisco and Pacifica?+
All five, 24 hours, at the same prices as the city. The clock changes a figure; the address does not. What the address changes is the wait, which is why those minutes are printed above rather than buried. Pacifica sits right on the water and takes the worst salt in the whole service area, so a cylinder there lives an even shorter life than one on the Great Highway, and that is worth knowing before you buy the cheap replacement.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say what the key is doing, hear the figure, get back inside
San Francisco plus Daly City, Colma, Brisbane, South San Francisco and Pacifica, 24 hours, holidays included. Stiff, halfway, snapped, or a healthy lock on the wrong side of a closed door: one number comes back with the $89 visit and the hour of the night already inside it, and it is the number on the receipt.