A key ring that rarely opens just one door
On a property along chemin de Notre-Dame-de-Vie, as on an estate at Font de Currault, one key often ends up opening the pedestrian gate, the front door, the service door and the pool house. Losing that ring means losing all of them at once, so the list of accesses to take back is drawn up before the quote, not after.
Those keys circulate, which is normal enough: gardener, pool technician, cleaner, caretaker, the mason who came to rebuild a terrace wall at Les Bréguières. When one of them stops coming, what was lent is not always returned. Replacing the front door cylinder alone rarely settles it; you have to decide which other accesses get a new key. Start the list at the gate: it is almost always longer than you expected.
A master key scheme is what avoids the caretaker's heavy bunch of keys: one key for the occupier, another limited to the pedestrian gate and the plant room for the people who work on site. It is designed before the cylinders are bought, because it calls for a single product range across every point, from the gate on the drive to the pool house door, on a plot at Les Bréguières as on an estate at Font de Currault.
The cylinder, the lock, and what the door will take
The cylinder holds the secret and is replaced on its own, by removing one screw on the edge of the leaf. The lock — case, bolts, linkage — is only changed when the mechanism itself is at fault. After a tenant leaves a flat in Val de Mougins, the cylinder is enough; a bolt that no longer throws means opening the door up.
In the village, in tall terraced houses cut into narrow floors, solid timber doors still carry rim locks whose fixing centres match nothing sold today. A like-for-like replacement does not always exist: either the ironmongery is adapted, or the faceplate and the timber that carries it are made good first.
In the newer villas and at Mougins-le-Haut you find multipoint locks with the linkage hidden under a cover. There, measurement decides everything: backset, centres, how far the cylinder projects on each side, the hand of the door. A cylinder standing proud offers a grip; one that is too short leaves the key commanding nothing. Those figures are taken at the door, never over the phone.
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 Mougins.