Lock change · booked work
Lock change Novelda, for cylinders that have turned since the 1970s
A key that sticks, a cylinder older than the people living behind it, keys out with a former tenant, a builder or a previous owner. New cylinders and locks for flats, houses and gates, booked for a day that suits you, with the price agreed once the door has been seen.
Open 24 hours · 7 days
- Booked for a day that suits
- Old keys dead on the day
- Price agreed before work starts
When it is time
Signs a lock wants changing
- The key has to be jiggled, pulled back a little or pushed in to turn.
- The key turns, but you have to lift or push the door before the bolt will go.
- You have moved in and do not know who else has keys.
- A tenant, a cleaner or a builder has left and kept a key.
- The cylinder sticks out from the door or its plate, which makes it easy to grip and snap.
None of these are emergencies, which is why the work is booked rather than done at night. If the lock has already failed and you are outside, that is a job for the emergency line instead.
Novelda’s locks
What tends to be on the doors here
Flats from the 1960s and 70s
The land registry dates a third of Novelda’s built floor space to those two decades. Plenty of those front doors still carry an early cylinder: plain inside, easy to bump, and standing proud of the door. Swapping it for an anti-snap cylinder of the right length is one of the most common jobs in town. To read the age of yours, see the note on cylinders in flats of that era.
Houses and flats from 1990 to 2009
Another third of what stands was built in those twenty years. Here the issue is less age than history: the cylinder fitted when the building was finished may have passed through many hands since.
Timber doors in the centre
Mortice locks set into the wood, sometimes a century old. They are repaired where they can be, and replaced with a lock that fits the same pocket where they cannot.
Gates out in the partidas
Metal gates on country tracks live in full sun through summers that have reached 44.8 °C, and their locks stiffen. Built-in gate locks are changed like any other; whether a gate is better with a padlock or a fitted lock is weighed up in a note on gates at the end of a track.
The visit
A lock change, from the photo to the tested key
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A photo or a description
Send a photo of the lock, the edge of the door and the plate on WhatsApp. Most of the time that is enough to bring the right cylinder.
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A day and an hour
Fixed with you in normal working hours.
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Measured, then agreed
The door is measured on the spot, the options are explained and the price agreed before anything is removed.
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Fitted and tested
The new cylinder or lock goes in, every key is tried with the door open and shut, and the old keys stop working.
Choosing
Cylinder, lock body or multipoint
A new cylinder
The usual answer. It changes the key, and an anti-snap model of the right length closes the commonest way a front door is forced.
A lock body or a multipoint lock
Needed when the mechanism inside the door is the problem: bolts that drag, a multipoint that only throws some of its points, a mortice lock with a broken spring.
If the door has been forced, or you want more than a sound cylinder, such as reinforced plates or certified high-security cylinders, that is covered on the burglary repair page. Stone works, units, shop shutters and offices have their own page.
Where
Booked across Novelda and three towns next door
In the centre and every partida of Novelda, and in La Romana, Aspe and Monóvar. The full list is on the partidas and villages page. If a door will not open before the appointment, see how a door is opened without damage. To book, use phone, WhatsApp or email.
Questions
Asked when booking a new lock
Do I need a whole new lock, or just a new cylinder?
Usually just the cylinder, the part the key goes into. It can be swapped in a few minutes without touching the door. The whole lock is only replaced when the mechanism inside the door is worn, broken or no longer holds the door closed properly.
We have just bought a resale flat. Is it worth changing the cylinder?
Yes. There is no way of knowing how many keys a previous owner, their family, a cleaner or an estate agent handed out over the years. A new cylinder makes every one of them useless on the day you move in.
Can several doors be made to open with the same key?
Yes, when the cylinders are bought together as a keyed-alike set: the front door, the back door and the gate, for example. It has to be ordered that way from the start; existing cylinders cannot be made to match.
The old mortice lock on our timber door is worn out. Does the door have to be altered?
Not if it can be helped. Where possible a lock of the same size goes into the same pocket in the wood. If no matching lock exists, the fitting is chosen so as to cut as little of the door as possible, and you see the options first.
Often next
Booked at the same time as new cylinders
Door notes that lead here
Time the lock was replaced?
Send a photo of the lock and the edge of the door on WhatsApp, and fix a day that suits you.
Open 24 hours · 7 days