Daylight Home Security

There are many communities around the Portland area that are located in good areas and unlikely to be victim for home burglaries. Because of that, many residents of these communities will not put an emphasis on locking the doors surrounding their homes. Although home invasion is unlikely in good community areas, there is always a need to stay vigilant when it comes to the security of your home.

Many people will not realize the possibilities of home burglaries that will not occur using forced entry methods. It is somewhat a scary fact, but many burglars will actually knock on the front door in the middle of the day. According to law enforcement around the country, at least a third of home invasion happened without any trace of forced entry. In order to take security measures to protect against burglaries it is essential to call a professional locksmith that specialize in residential properties.

It is an unfortunate fact that many home intruders was able to figure that breaking into homes during the day when its still light out is easy enough without getting busted. The way that it works starts with the burglar knocking on the door to verify if someone is home or not. In an event that someone is home, the burglar would usually makeup a reason about his intentions such as using your phone, request for directions, or even claiming to accidentally knock on the wrong house. Burglars who attempt to intrude a home during the day are normally none violence and are only looking for the opportunity to sack a home when there is no one around.

The problem with most traditional residential locks is the fact that they can easily be picked. Door knob locks for example has a low security mechanism that is much less secure than a deadbolt. These types of locks are often recommended by professional locksmith to be used only on the interior rooms in a home rather than on the front door or in addition to a deadbolt. The use of multiple locks on the front door of a home in general is a good idea as they can discourage home intruders from attempting to break into a home during the day.

For more information about securing your home, contact Premier NorthWest Locksmith Portland (503) 438-4227.

Schlage High Security Key and Cylinder

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Lock Change VS Re-key

A common mistake many people do when calling a professional locksmith for a lock service is asking to replace the locks instead of just re-keying them. Most of the time, when a person call to request a lock change service it is mainly because he or she feels the security of their home has been compromise because the loss of a key or that it got stolen for example.

Although it is a good practice to call a locksmith for a lock service in such case, re-keying the locks would be the preferred solution over changing them. Re-keying the locks involve changing the pins inside the cylinder to accept a key that will have different cuts than the original one. This will eliminate the chance of a stranger who got a hold of the key to successfully try and use it.

Changing the locks however is recommended in the following scenarios. The locks are getting old and worn out to the point they are not functioning properly anymore and can be opened easily. The existing locks are of a low grade and can be beaten in a matter of seconds by a burglar. In these cases and more, it is recommended changing the locks to a higher security level type.

The bottom line is that it really depend on the type of situation you are in that will determine if a re-key would be recommended or changing the entire lock. Although changing the entire lock will give you a sense of security because of the fresh hardware, re-keying the existing lock essentially will do the same if they don't have a lot of use on them.

For more information about re-key or lock change, contact Premier NorthWest Locksmith Portland.

Interchangeable Core Locks

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Security For Your Home

A home is a place where people should feel safe in. The security of your home plays the difference between peace of mind and restlessness. Researches have shown that in the united states alone there are millions of residential properties break-ins annually. Although the statistic seem a little frightening, with an organized security plan for your home, you can prevent your home from being part of these statistics.

Most of the times, intruders would look for homes that have easy access which means low level protection on the entrance door, weak security points around the property and more. However, there are measures that can be taken in order to discourage intruders from targeting your home.

Normally, an intruder will pass on a house that carry heavy security as it will require major effort in order to break into. The first step in enhancing the security of your home would be equipping the front and back door with high security or high graded type of locks. Any type of lock that can resist common break-in tools such as pry bars, screw-drivers, and hammers will be a good choice. Adding a deadbolt with at least 1' locking bolt is important as well. After all, 2 locks is better than 1.

Keeping your windows secure would be the next step. When you go to sleep at night, making sure your windows and blinds are closed is important to avoid getting attention from intruders looking for their target during the night. If not equipped, you can easily find security locking solutions for windows in order to properly secure them. Last but not least is securing your balcony or yard entrance sliding glass door. Although sliding doors are normally equipped with a latch type lock, adding a bar to secure the sliding door in place will make sure it could not be opened even if the latch happen to fail or defeated.

For more information about protecting your home, contact Premier NorthWest Locksmith Portland.

Emergency Residential Lockout Service

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Re-keying Locks

Changing or re-keying locks are normally done to preserve the security of your home and your peace of mind. Usually re-keying would be the more cost effective solution which will be recommended on doing for the following reasons...

Did you just bought a new house? It can be an exciting time for you. However, like many other people who just moved into a new place, security is not always first priority. However, when moving into a new place, this is the first thing that should be thought about. The main reason is the fact that the previous owner of the house may have made multiple copies of the keys which are probably floating around in the hands of people you may not know.

Keys that were lost - Keys can go missing all the time or even worse, get stolen. In these types of situations it is recommended calling a professional locksmith immediately and not take the chances of having a stranger accessing your home. for the security of your home and peace of mind, get your locks re-keyed!

Hired a contractor lately to do some home renovation? This is a common situation where remodeling would usually take more than a day which will require leaving a key to the contractor or his employees. In this case it is always best to re-key the locks afterward just in case and for your peace of mind.

Living in a shared type situation and one of the roommates just decided to leave? There can be many scenarios where a roommate may decided to leave whether if it was on good terms or bad, changing or re-keying the locks will be a good idea to ensure the security of the rest of the tenants inside the house.

For more information about emergency re-key services, contact Premier NorthWest Locksmith Portland.

Automotive Transponder System

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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.

Commercial File Cabinet Lockout Service

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Residential Key-less Entry Lock System

Moving on to key-less entry lock system is a great decision that involve many options to choose from. The most popular type of key-less entry lock system is a combination based interface which allow access via entering a code on a keypad. Because there is a wide range of selection in the market for residential applications, it is important to choose the right one that will fit your needs.

If you are planning to make a use of a key-less entry locks inside your home for an application such as a cabinet for example, a dial type lock would be the best choice. It will normally work similar to a safe where at least 5 digit combination code would need to be reached by spinning the dial in different directions to unlock it. However, if the purpose of a key-less entry lock system would be for an exterior use, a digital lock would be preferred. These types of locks would normally have the digital interface attached to the lock system itself. The operation would normally be done using a touch-pad or a keypad interface. Once the correct code would be entered, there will be an electronic signal that would be sent to the mechanism in order to release the locking bolt.

One of the advantages of making the decision upgrading to a key-less entry lock system from the existing traditional lock is the fact that most likely there will not be any additional modifications that would need to be done for the door in order to install the new lock. This means that if you currently have a Mortise lock for example already installed, you could easily find a key-less entry lock system that is based on a Mortise mechanism as well.

The other benefits of going with a key-less entry lock system is the fact that you won't have to deal with keys to your home anymore. This means that you won't have to worry about loosing your keys and calling a locksmith to unlock the door for you, or re-key the locks for security purposes. In addition, it would be much more difficult for intruders to break-in through a key-less entry locks using the traditional methods such as picking or bump-keying.

For more information about key-less entry locks, visit Premier NorthWest Locksmith Portland.

Residential Re-key Service

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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.

Automotive Re-key Service

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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.

Commercial Lockout Service

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Pontiac Transponder Spare Key

There are many ways for originating and duplicating an automotive key. Normally to originate a key there is a need to retrieve a code either from one of the vehicle's lock or from a software that has a large data base of most makes and models in the market. For most newer vehicles or those who were manufactured in the late 90's until today, making or duplicating the key does not end with cutting it. There is programming involved which require the locksmith technician to have the right equipment which is normally expensive. These types of keys called transponder keys which not all locksmith technicians have the equipment or the skills to service them.

I go a call recently from a customer who had a 2003 Pontiac Grand Prix and he wanted his main key duplicated since he didn't have a spare key for it and wanted to have one in case of an emergency. Luckily, I just got my device that is used in order to program transponder keys on vehicle. Normally this type of equipment cost a significant amount of money, but I got a good deal on a used one.

Once I arrived to the customer location, the first thing I needed to do was cutting the spare key for the customer. Luckily, I did not have to pull out any codes in order to cut it since I had the machine where I could just duplicate it using the original key the customer had. Once I had the key made, it was programming time. As I connected the machine to the vehicle OBD connector I noticed that I couldn't get any read on the screen. Normally, it can mean two things. Either the OBD connector is bad or the device I was using, but since Iv'e tested the device on my vehicle successfully, I came to determine that the OBD might have an issue.

In such case, the only way programming that key was using a special machine who can read the original key signal and automatically program it on the new key. Unfortunately, that machine is very expensive and most locksmith technicians won't have it. Luckily for me, I knew of a Portland locksmith shop in the area that had this machine, so I had to go for a quick ride. Fortunately for me they were still open and able to program the new key I made using the customer's original one. After getting back to the customer's vehicle and "crossing my fingers" i was able to test the new key successfully.

Lock Repair

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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.

Automotive Broken Key Extraction

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