Often, clients are meaning to inquire as to just changing the combinations of their existing locks, so they can maintain the same hardware on their doors.
Or when the keys to their house, office or automobile have been misplaced, stolen or even copied unknowingly (suspected), the have the need to re-code their locks.
Also many new home buyers or new tenants want to make sure that previous residents of their property can no longer gain entry.
Locksmiths across the country vary greatly in their fees. There are accepted industry averages published in locksmith publications like The National Locksmith magazine and the Locksmith Ledger magazine annually, but the going rate can vary from around $5.00 per keyhole to as much as $20.00 per keyhole for residential or commercial door locks and from $10.00 to $35.00 for automobile locks. Often this does not include labor for the removal and refitting of locks.
Master-keying is another charge that most locksmiths charge slightly higher fees for. Often, specialist products like Medeco or Multlock or Primus or Best or Assa or Abloy or Bilock products can incur significantly increased fees due to the higher cost for the pin or disc tumblers.
Locks210.com charges a standard fee of $10.00 per keyhole to re-key a standard residential or commercial door cylinder not including labor for removal and refitting. Master-keying is $15.00 per keyhole.
We can offer automobile re-keying services but prices are subject to application. There are many and varying brands and manufacturers of automobile lock cylinders, requiring multiple different keying kits. Stocking all possible kits to service all makes and models of foreign and domestic vehicles requires significant amounts of warehousing that directly impacts costs.
If the products are brought to us, we charge the same fees without labor of course.
Most locksmiths will provide the first 2 keys at no charge. For residential or commercial doors (not automotive) we provide the first 3 keys.
For an obligation free estimate contact us today on (314)266-1533.
Master-keying is $15.00 per keyhole. How on earth are you gonna make a living? People should be paying mostly for the expertise in the case of master keying and some for the pinning up the cylinders. Many of the locksmiths have no clue of master keying and what is all about. I can count on one finger the ones I did meet. It is not complicated but never the less it is a fool proof mathematical formula. But if it is ignored it will have serious consequences. Having a computer program making configurations for you is not a substitute for knowledge. It is merely a convenience and a necessity for volume. Some of the “locksmiths I’ve seen pinning up conventional cylinders to master-key specifications did not bother to figure out the top and bottom pins ratio. Because they don’t understand how it works and have never been interested to learn it either. I’ve seen people using countersink bits to widen the openings of the pin chambers to somewhat copmensate for the incorrect top and or bottom pins. But needles to say the keys still won’t turn smootly as it should. Seen people sliding the key in and out of the plug to visuali see the the shear-line only ending up dumping the pins out and starting all over again and again. I worked for a so called locksmith in New York city that looks at my A-1 punch machine and laughs at it and called it a ”stupid machine” he had 25 years of experience. I opened up small format ic-cores only to find the pinstacs containing five and six pins in the chambers; not iven close (to 23) in the case of an A-2 system. These kind of mistakes are costly to your business and your customers have to pay for the clean up the and some cases the overhaul of the system. When I got out of locksmith school I immediately got involved with A-2 master key system in one of the major banks, hundreds of location, and practically the master or control keys did not worked flawlessly at every location. These can happened for many reasons, one of them is incorrectly configured control-key bittings, duplicating Best keys instead of cutting them on a code machine, the other one is due to “poor pining” when in some cases up to 25% of your keys will open locks not intended to be opened by them. Of course with the knowledge of proper configuration the “poor pining” can almost be eliminated. When nobody knows where the master or control keys located, some “locksmiths” were dumb founded about what to do. They had no clue how to decode a system in order to find out of the master or control key bittings. No idea how to run a progression from a single master-key. In reality this is what happens; “we lost the change key, all we have is the master, can you make a key”? You need to be able to make a solution on paper at the job site and cut key and pin up cylinders without computer software. We have no control key, but you have 75 ic- cores to remove and re-key to specs. You can’t waste your time trying to drill them all out (it is very easy to damage the locks in the process, and your customer won’t be paying $75.00 for drilling hundreds of cores and risking damages to the locks. You can drill out one ic-core or pick the control shear-line and remove the core to be decoded then cut a key on site ( with the A-1 green machine) and remove the rest of the cores. But in reality no guarantee that your freshly made core key will work with all the rest of the cores. Who knows who’s been pinning some of the cores? I’ve seen pin stacks that totaled over thirty instead of being 23. Here in the greater New York area you can charge $110-$135/to re-key ic-cores. Sadly no guaranty that you get your money’s worth.
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