Through the lock, not the door
Door opening in Elda, matched to the door you actually have
A wooden door on a sixties estate, a reinforced door in a newer block, a heavy door in the old town and a chalet entrance on the hillside do not open the same way. What follows is how each one is done, and why drilling is so rarely needed.
Open 24 hours · 7 days
- Gentlest method first
- You are asked before any drilling
- Price agreed before work starts
Kinds of door
The doors of Elda, and what each one needs
-
Wooden flat doors in the older estates
Elda’s housing estates went up in the fifties and sixties for families who came to work in the shoe trade: San Francisco de Sales alone has 580 homes built between 1956 and 1968. Where the original door survives, it is usually timber with a lock on the inside face or set into the edge. Most of these open through the latch or the cylinder with no mark left.
-
Reinforced doors in newer blocks
A steel-lined leaf, bolts on several sides and a security cylinder. These take longer and need the right tools, but they almost always open through the cylinder. The door itself is not cut or forced.
-
Old town doors
Heavy timber doors on houses in the narrow streets below the castle, sometimes with an old lock that no catalogue lists any more. The streets there are being rebuilt, so the van may stop a street away and the tools come up on foot.
-
Chalet entrances
The house door is often the second lock: first comes the pedestrian gate or the drive gate. Gates, sheds and sliders are covered on the country house page.
Methods
Gentlest first, drill last
The methods are tried in this order, and the next one is only used when the one before it will not work on your lock.
-
Slipping the latch
For a door that was pulled shut but not locked with the key. Fast, and leaves nothing behind.
-
Picking or manipulating the cylinder
For a locked door. The cylinder keeps working afterwards with your own key.
-
Working round the cylinder
On some locks the mechanism can be reached without defeating the cylinder itself.
-
Drilling the cylinder
Only when everything else has failed, and only once you have said yes. The door stays as it is and a new cylinder is fitted straight away.
If the cylinder was weak enough to give way easily, it is worth reading about a new cylinder for the door. If a door has been forced rather than opened, see what to do about a forced door.
Weather and wood
A door that locks in May and fights you in January
Elda sits at 395 metres in an inland valley. Summers are hot, winter nights are cold, and the thermometer moves from around 3 °C to around 30 °C over the year. Timber doors swell and shrink with that, and a door that binds in its frame puts load on the latch until one day the key will not turn at all.
The guide on wooden doors through the seasons lists the signs to watch for. Owners of flats on the older estates may also want the guide to their original doors.
Who may ask
Opening a door for the right person only
A locksmith who opens any door for anyone is a risk to every home in the street. Before anything is touched, you are asked to show that you may go in: an ID or residence card with the address, a rental contract, a neighbour or the building’s president who knows you, or the owner on the phone. If the papers are inside, you show them once the door is open, with us still there.
Shut out right now? Go to the emergency line. For anything else, every way to reach us is on the contact page, and the towns covered are on the coverage page.
Questions
About getting a door open
Will the door look any different once it is open?
In most cases, no. Slipping the latch or picking the cylinder leaves no mark you would notice. If the only way in is to drill the cylinder, the door itself is untouched and a new cylinder goes in before we leave.
The door was only pulled shut, not locked with the key. Does that change anything?
A great deal. A door held only by the latch is the simplest kind to open without damage. Say so when you ring, because it changes what is brought and how long it takes.
Can a reinforced door be opened without wrecking it?
Usually, yes. A reinforced door is only as strong as its cylinder and the way it is fitted, and most open through the cylinder. Drilling is kept for the rare cylinder that resists everything else, and you are asked before it happens.
I rent my flat. Can I be the one who asks you to open it?
Yes, if you can show that you live there: the rental contract, a residence card or ID with the address, or the owner on the phone. Changing the lock afterwards is something to agree with the owner, unless your contract says otherwise.
The door is stiff and catching in the frame as well as locked.
Mention it. A door that has swollen or dropped puts load on the latch and the bolt, and it is often the reason a key stopped turning. It is opened first, then adjusted so it closes freely.
Related work
What tends to come up after this
-
A call-out at night
Stuck on the landing of a block in Elda or Petrer, a key snapped in the street door, keys lost on a night out: someone answers the phone whatever the time.
Emergency call-outs -
Repairing the lock you already have
Old surface-mounted locks replaced, snap-resistant cylinders fitted, tired multipoint mechanisms put right, on a day that suits you.
Lock change & repair -
What to do about a forced door
A forced door made to lock again the same day, then a stronger set-up once the police report and the insurer are dealt with.
After a break-in
Which kind of door is it?
Send a photo of the door and the lock on WhatsApp. It tells us most of what we need before setting off.
Open 24 hours · 7 days