Deadbolts

A deadbolt is a secure lock solution for added security to your home. It is mostly found as a secondary lock on many residential properties main entrance doors. It is a simple designed lock consisting a lock cylinder that is attached to the door with a locking mechanism of a large bolt that would normally slide into the door frame when in locking position. Most deadbolt's locking bolts would be thick and long enough to make it hard on an intruder to pry the door open. The deadbolt will have a rotating mechanism to retract the bolt in and out of the door frame opening.

There will normally be two types of deadbolts available in the market which are a single and double cylinder. A single cylinder deadbolt would require a key to operate from one side while from the other (interior side) there will be some sort of a thumb-turn or a knob that can be turned in two directions in order to lock and unlock the deadbolt. This is the most common deadbolt you will find in residential homes as a secondary lock to a knob or a lever set lock.

Unlike the traditional single sided deadbolt, a double cylinder type will require a key from both sides of the lock in order to operate it. This will provide an increase security solution for a home against intruders. This type of deadbolt come is in handy in a situation where a home has a door with glass inserts on it or is near a glass window. If there was a single sided deadbolt installed on a door in this case, an intruder could have easily break the glass and unlock the deadbolt from the inside. However, because a double cylinder deadbolt requires key to be used in both sides, an attempt such as that from an intruder would result in failure. The only downside with this type of deadbolt, it the fact that it will not allow any fast access from the inside in case of an emergency.

Form more information about deadbolts, contact Premier NorthWest Locksmith Portland.

Brass Type Locks

There are many types of residential locks in the market, but not all of them made of a sturdy heavy duty material. Brass type locks are the most reliable types of locks you can get for your home. Brass material is initially an alloy of copper and zinc. Some of the benefits of brass material are strength, durability, and rust resistant. With all these advantages, it will make any type of lock that is made of brass fit to be used inside and outside. If you were interested in a particular lock for your home, know that many of them are available in brass.

Mortise type locks are one of the more popular choice for home and small business as a dependable high security lock. It is constructed with a large mechanism that initially fits inside the door. Since Mortise locks come in wide range of designs, they can be used both on an inside and outside of a door. These types of locks required to be installed by a professional locksmith as the door must be prepped for installation, but its high level of security makes it worth it in addition to the fact it does come in brass.

The most common residential type of lock that is available in the market is cylinder type lock which is also available in brass. Although there are a variety of cylinder mechanisms available in the market such as disc tumbler, wafer tumbler, and pin tumbler. Part of the advantage having this type of lock is the fact it can be re-keyed at any point and any time make it a good security choice.

Another type of lock that may be available in brass is a rim type lock. Although it is mostly used on an interior of a home, it can still be used to secure a particular room inside it. It is a latch style lever lock which operates by a thumb-pad.

Last but not least is a deadbolt locks. The highest form of security for homes, available in two types of mechanism which both can be found in brass. Finding a brass type deadbolt is highly recommended as this type of lock is mostly being used on the exterior of the door as a secondary form of security to your home. It is available both in a single and double cylinder forms where a double cylinder will require a key to be used from both sides to unlock it.

For more information about brass locks and options, visit Premier NorthWest Locksmith Portland.

About Bump Keys

One of the most notorious ways for breaking in a residential or low security commercial type lock is key bumping. It is a skill many locksmith technicians and even some thief use that can compromise most types of home security. If you were a victim of a home breaking where no damage to the lock or windows around the house has been done, most likely a bumping technique have been used which makes you wonder what you can do to prevent it in the future.

The technique of lock bumping involving the use of a special key called a bump-key. This type of key normally would be inserted into a lock just any other standard key while applying pressure which will cause all the pins inside the cylinder to go out of place which in turn will enable the key to work the lock to the open position. Nowadays, these types of keys are available everywhere and with the addition of different procedure explanations available on the internet, it became a major residential security hazard.

Most types of bump-keys are being sold to the public with very little restriction. According to many researches, at least 4 out of 5 homes across the country can be broken into using a type of bump-key. It is very common for home owners to achieve satisfaction from the security of their home simply by having standard locks and maybe an alarm system. However, these two types of security measures are no longer enough in this day and age of advance technology and high level of accessibility.

The risk in having your home vulnerable to a bump-key is the fact that most insurance policies will not cover any theft or losses that occurred from breaking without any solid proof that there was in fact unlawful entry to your home. This is normally very hard to accomplished since the use of a bump-key is almost untraceable. it does not show any trail or signs of forced entry, so at the end of the day, not only you will be a victim of theft, but you will also not going to be compensated for your loss.

It is very unfortunate that most types of locks or deadbolts that are manufactured today even by the leading names in the industry are still an easy target to the bump-key method and far from being protected against this type of security hazard. The solution is very simple. Investing in high security lock that are marked with a higher level grade. Not only these types of locks will prevent unauthorized entry by the use of a bump-key, but will also prevent any picking attempts.

Give us a call to learn more about our high security lock options for residential homes or visit our website Premier NorthWest Locksmith Portland.

Kwikset Deadbolt Removal

Residential jobs for the average locksmith technician are not as common as automotive services. However, most of the time they are more rewarding, but takes much longer to do. Normally, when I get a residential type job such as a lock change, lock repair, or re-key, it would usually takes around an hour or even a bit more to do the work. It usually depends on the amount of locks that need service and if I would run into some issues during the process. What would happen if a locksmith technician would run into a job where there a large amount of locks to service and some issues in the process?

Recently I got a call from a real-estate company who owns few apartment complexes in the area. They had an elderly apartment complex property with around 200 units which they needed a re-key done on all of them. This type of job would normally take about almost a week to do for the average locksmith technician and about couple of days for a couple of experienced technicians. I knew I would probably needed to start the job by myself and maybe my Portland locksmith co worker would come during the week to help.

The first thing I did when arriving to the property was determining the type of locks that needed to be re-key which was a Kwikset interconnected lever lock and a deadbolt installed on each unit's door. As I was started doing the work, I noticed that the deadbolts were held by a bolt that had a flat-blade screwdriver in the head of it and had a small sized hole at the center of it. I thought it was kinda awkward since I never seen these types of bolts before. Nevertheless, using my power drill to unscrew these bolt was a nightmare in the first day since they seem to strip very easily because of the their flat-blade head form.

These issues I experienced in the first day seemed to slow me down significantly and when doing a large scale time consuming job such as that, this is the last thing you want to happen as a locksmith technician. I called my co worker the day after to come help and maybe fins a solution to the problem with bolts that were holding the deadbolts. When he got there, I explained him the situation and the issues I had with the bolts and he said that he ran into this type of problem before and luckily had a solution for it. He had a flat-bladed drive bit that was customize to handle these types of flat blade head bolts with the hole in the center. Once we have that issue with the bolts taken care of, we were able to finish the job in a couple of days as planned.

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Finding The Right Solution

I remember a time once I was a terribly embarrassed while I was facing with a technical locksmith dilemma. There was a deadbolt lock on a school supply room and key-in-knob lock, as well. The school engineer, with a large set of keys, and the school custodian were trying to open the supply room door for materials that were needed immediately. The principal was out of the building at the time, but she did left them with her set of  keys of the school to open the door. They were able to open the key-in-the knob lock, but could not find the key for the deadbolt.

Since I was a teacher at the school, they called me, knowing I was a professional locksmith as well. When I got there, the engineer and custodian filled me in on the situation and the fact that they had tried every key on both sets (the principal's and the school engineer) several times, but without any luck, except for the bottom key-in-knob lock they opened successfully. The engineer showed me that he tried removing the molding, but could not access the lock itself. He consulted me about drilling through the deadbolt cylinder. Due to the nature of the situation, it seemed reasonable to do so.

So, I showed him the point at which to drill. He got his drill out and he was about to begin drilling when the principal suddenly showed up earlier than expected. The engineer and custodian approached her and explained to her the situation and the fact that they couldn't find the key for the other lock. Her response was that "The same key opens both locks." Apparently, it might have been a good idea to try that same key on both locks to avoid all the hassle and unnecessary embarrassment.

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