Is the cylinder enough, or does the mechanism need work?
The cylinder is the part the key goes into; it carries the coding and comes out once a single screw on the edge plate is removed. That is the part replaced after a season of lettings in a studio near Prado, when a flatmate moves out, or when a set of keys went to a concierge service and never came back.
The whole lock is a different job: case, bolts, connecting rods, edge plate. It is dealt with when a bolt no longer throws, when the rod assembly has been twisted by repeated forcing, when the edge plate has shifted. On the covered multipoint locks in the Croisette buildings, the cover comes off first and the rods are then adjusted point by point.
In Le Suquet, a like-for-like replacement is rarely possible. These village houses sometimes carry a surface-mounted lock, the timber has dried out over a century, and the frame is bedded into stone. The keep and the fixing positions are adapted instead of forcing an off-the-shelf model onto a door that never took one.
Keys that circulate, and a building with a say in it
Between two occupants, replacing the cylinder is routine here. Nobody knows how many copies were cut over previous seasons or where they now sit. On a flat let by the week between rue d’Antibes and the railway station, assuming that a five-minute copy was made somewhere along the way is simply realistic.
If your key also opens the lobby, the bike store or the side gate onto boulevard Carnot, the replacement has to preserve that. This is a master key plan, and it runs through the building manager or the supplier holding the scheme. In the gated seafront residences, the shared access badge is equally a matter for the management, not for you alone.
As a tenant you may have a faulty lock replaced, but tell the landlord in writing and keep the parts removed for the end of the tenancy. If you own a flat in La Californie and hand it to an agency, put in writing who will hold the new set: that is the detail lost fastest when a property changes managers.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our lock and cylinder replacement page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Cannes.