What the door announces before it jams
A key that catches halfway and then turns points to a dirty or already worn cylinder. In the lanes of the old village, dust and the changing moisture content of a solid timber leaf speed that up. While the key still goes in, the repair stays simple; once the bit snaps off inside the barrel, the job becomes something else entirely.
A key that turns freely without driving anything points to a broken cam, or to a connection that has parted inside the case. On the multipoint locks of the blocks on the plain, the neighbouring symptom is the top point that refuses to engage: the linkage has developed play, or the keep has shifted as the frame settled.
Many jams do not come from the lock at all. A door that has to be lifted, a bolt that catches on its keep, a leaf that rubs in summer and not at all in winter: the wind coming down the Var valley and full sun on the seafront frontages work on the joinery long before they reach the mechanism.
Adjust what can be adjusted, replace what is dead
The assessment is made with the door open and then closed, working the mechanism with nothing engaged. A keep to shift by two millimetres, hinges to take up on a villa door at Les Vespins, a crushed seal: adjustments of that sort settle a good share of calls without a single new lock coming into the home.
Three habits nearly always make things worse. Cooking oil or thick grease in a cylinder glues the dust in place; pliers on a fragment of key push it further into the barrel; a shoulder against a village door splits the old frame and turns a repair into a full replacement of the timber surround.
Routine care amounts to very little: a dry lubricant in the barrel once or twice a year, a check on the faceplate and hinge screws, a look at the keeps. On cellar and garage doors near the marina, add the removal of the salt deposit that the spray leaves on every metal part left in the open.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our locksmith repairs page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Saint-Laurent-du-Var.