Booked work, on your day
Lock change in Villena, and doors put right after the winter
New cylinders, worn locks repaired, multipoint mechanisms put right, and doors that the swing from frost to summer heat has pulled out of line.
When a lock change is the right job
- You have moved into a home, rented or bought, and do not know who else holds a key.
- A key has gone missing, or a tenant, a cleaner or a builder kept one.
- The cylinder is worn: the key needs wiggling, or only works from one side.
- The cylinder stands proud of the door and could be snapped. An anti-snap one fixes that.
- A multipoint lock on a newer door has started to grind when you lift the handle.
A break-in is a different job with different priorities: see high-security locks and repairs after a burglary.
And when it is not
Many locks we are called to change are not broken at all. The door has moved, and the bolt no longer meets its keep. In Villena that happens with the seasons, and the fix is in the door, not the lock.
We check that first and tell you. It is cheaper, and you keep a lock that works.
The cold is the reason doors drift here
- −15.2 °C
Recorded at the Villena AEMET station on 29 January 2006. Metal contracts, timber dries, and a lock oiled in summer can be stiff by January.
- 45.6 °C
The town’s summer record, August 2021. The same door expands again, and the gap the bolt needs closes up.
- 526 m
Villena’s altitude. Inland and high, 57 km from Alicante, it has long, cold, windy winters the coast never sees.
How a booked lock job goes
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Photos first
Send the door and the lock on WhatsApp, from both sides if you can.
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A day that suits you
We book a slot. Weekends are possible.
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Look, then price
We check whether it is the lock or the door, and agree the price before starting.
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Keys in your hand
New cylinders come with their own set of keys. Every one is handed to you.
Problems we put right
- Keys that turn only after a push or a pull on the door
- Cylinders worn smooth or stiff with grit and old oil
- Multipoint mechanisms that grind or will not throw the hooks
- Old surface locks on flat doors from the sixties
- Keeps and strike plates that no longer line up
- Handles and plates that have worked loose
Town houses and flats, mostly
This is work on the front doors of flats and houses across Villena’s barrios and in Sax, Biar, Beneixama, Cañada and Camp de Mirra (full coverage). Gates, padlocks and stores out in the countryside are covered on the page about farm stores and outbuildings.
If the door will not open at all, that is a door opened without forcing it first, and a lock repair after. To book, use whichever way on the contact page suits you. Before you book, two guides might answer your question: frost and the lock and a new old house in Biar.
Lock or door? The questions we get
Is it the lock or the door? My key only turns if I push the door hard.
Usually the door. When the bolt rubs against the keep, the lock is fine but the door has moved: hinges sagged, or the frame swollen or shrunk with the season. Adjusting the keep or the hinges fixes it, and saves a lock that did not need replacing.
My cylinder sticks out past the handle plate. Should it be anti-snap?
A cylinder built to break at a sacrificial line if someone tries to snap it, leaving the part that locks the door intact. If your cylinder sticks out of the door or the handle plate, it is worth asking about. We tell you honestly if yours is already fine.
I have just bought a house. Should I change the cylinders?
Yes. You cannot know how many keys the previous owners, builders or agents handed out. Changing the cylinders is quick and leaves the doors, handles and locks as they are.
Can you do it on a Saturday morning?
Planned work is booked on a day that suits both of us, and weekends are possible. The price is agreed when we have seen the door, before any work begins; payment by cash, card or Bizum.
Send us a photo of the lock
Both sides of the door if you can. We reply with what it probably needs and a day we can come.
Open 24 hours · 7 days