When You Don't Need a Locksmith | Save the Call

Half the people who ring me don't need me. Not even slightly.

I know that sounds like a strange thing for a locksmith to say. But I'd rather tell you that on the phone at 8pm than take your money for something you could have sorted yourself in five minutes with a screwdriver and a bit of WD-40. Actually, don't use WD-40, but we'll get to that.

This is the piece I've wanted to write for a while, because I think the locksmith trade does itself no favours by not being straight with people. There are cowboys out there who'll charge you a £150 call-out for tightening a screw. I'd rather you knew what those jobs look like so you can spot them, fix them yourself, and then remember me the one time you genuinely can't.

The door that won't latch properly

I had a call last month from a woman on Cambridge Street. Her front door wouldn't pull shut without lifting the handle at the same time. She was convinced the lock was broken. It wasn't. The door had dropped on its hinges, which is incredibly common on older uPVC doors, and the multipoint locking keep on the frame was no longer lined up with the bolt.

Fix? Loosen the keep screws, shift it down about 3mm, tighten them back up. Done. Eight minutes, a cross-head screwdriver, no charge.

That's not me being selfless. That's me not wanting to be the locksmith who charges for nothing and ends up on a Facebook group. The Newall estate, Weston, Pool-in-Wharfedale, anywhere with older uPVC, I see this weekly. Houses settle. Doors drop. It's not a crisis.

Before you ring anyone, try this: does the door latch better if you lift the handle slightly while closing? If yes, it's almost certainly a keep alignment issue. Have a look at the keep plate on the frame. You'll see wear marks showing you exactly where the bolt is hitting. Adjust to match.

Stiff locks and sticky cylinders

I'll be blunt. If your key turns hard, the answer is lubrication, not a new lock.

Not WD-40 though. WD-40 is a water displacer, not a lubricant. It'll feel better for a week and then your cylinder will be worse than before because it attracts grime. Use a proper dry PTFE spray or a graphite-based lock lubricant. Squirt it into the keyway, work the key in and out twenty times, done. Cost: about £4 from any hardware shop.

I get calls from Menston and Bramhope in particular around autumn, when temperature changes make timber doors swell slightly and suddenly everything feels like you're trying to start a car from 1987. Nine times out of ten it's not the lock. It's the wood. It's seasonal. It'll ease off.

The one time stiffness does mean call me? When the cylinder has been snapped or drilled and the internal mechanism is damaged. You'll usually know, because the key won't go in at all, or it'll spin without catching anything.

Hinge bolts: the thing half of Otley's older homes are missing

This one's a little different, because it's not about a fault, it's about a gap in your security that you might be able to sort yourself.

If your door opens inward and has a letterbox side or a hinge side that a burglar could lever, hinge bolts are the answer. They're passive steel bolts that sit in your door edge and locate into the frame when the door closes, making the hinge side almost impossible to force. A pack of two is about £12 online and fitting them takes a decent drill and maybe 45 minutes if you're handy.

I'm not going to pretend it's a trivial job if you've never done it. But if you're reasonably capable with a drill and a spade bit, look up the instructions for hinge bolt fitting, they're straightforward. Save the locksmith fee for something that actually needs one.

The jobs that genuinely do need me

To be fair to the trade, there are plenty.

• Snapped euro cylinders. If someone's tried to snap your cylinder and it's visibly damaged or the cam has broken internally, don't try to bodge it. Get it replaced with a TS007 3-star rated anti-snap cylinder, an Ultion, Avocet ABS, or ERA Fortress are all solid choices at around £35 to £55 supply and fit.
• Locked out with no way in. No spare key, no unlocked window you're comfortable using, nobody else with access. That's what we're here for.
• Multipoint locking mechanism failure. The gearbox inside a Fuhr, Maco, Mila, or Winkhaus multipoint can fail, especially on doors that have been slammed repeatedly or on mechanisms that are fifteen years old. You'll notice when the handle drops and stops engaging the bolts. That's not a DIY job. The mechanism needs identifying correctly and replacing like-for-like.
• Any lock after a break-in or attempted entry. Even if the door looks fine, the cylinder may be compromised in ways you can't see.
• Tenant changeovers. If you're a landlord in Guiseley, Yeadon, or Ilkley and you've had a tenant leave, change the cylinders. It takes me about fifteen minutes and costs a lot less than the alternative.

Why I think this makes me more trustworthy, not less

There's a view in this trade that you don't give away free advice because you're cutting your own throat. I don't buy it.

The people I've talked through a DIY fix on the phone, they ring me when something actually goes wrong. They send me their neighbours. They leave reviews that say 'told us we didn't need him, didn't charge, brilliant.' That's worth more than the forty quid I'd have made pretending there was a problem.

The locksmith who tells you to try tightening your keep before you call them out is the locksmith who won't invent a fault when they're standing in your hallway at midnight.

If you're on the Wharfedale side, somewhere in the LS21 postcode area, Burley-in-Wharfedale, Arthington, Menston, and you've tried the obvious stuff and it's still not right, Fort Secure covers all of it, usually under thirty minutes. Ring me, tell me what you've already tried, and I'll give you an honest answer on whether it's worth the call-out. Pricing is straightforward over the phone, no mystery rates when I get there.