The cylinder holds the secret, the lock holds the mechanism
Replacing the cylinder alone is enough whenever the problem is keys: a seasonal tenant who hands back an incomplete set, a spare still sitting with the previous owner, a key lost on the path up the Baou des Noirs. The part comes out with a single screw on the edge of the leaf, without stripping the mechanism or touching the frame.
The lock itself is the job when the mechanism is what has failed: a bolt that no longer throws, a bent linkage, a faceplate working loose, a door you have to lift before the key will turn. In the houses of rue du Marché and rue de l'Hôtel-de-Ville, that last symptom usually comes from the timber and the hinges rather than from the lock being blamed for it.
The sorting happens at the door, not in a catalogue. A 1970s villa leaf over at La Sine takes an off-the-shelf multipoint without trouble. A village house door has neither standard thickness nor standard fixing centres, and replacing it means measuring everything before a single part is ordered. Between the two, the flats around the Grand Jardin mostly spring their surprises in the frame.
What the lane imposes on the door
Inside the oval the door faces public space. Changing its outward appearance — colour, visible ironwork, escutcheon, finger plate — can require a prior declaration and, in the protected setting around place Clemenceau, the opinion of the Architecte des Bâtiments de France, the state heritage architect. The town planning department answers for one specific address.
So the first thing we look for is the solution nobody sees: keep the leaf and its original ironwork, rework the mechanism behind it, fit a protected cylinder on the inside. These Vence doors often hold up better than their age suggests, provided the keep and the frame are dealt with in the same visit.
For a property let by the week, how the keys are organised matters as much as the lock. One set that opens the front door, the vaulted cellar and the garden gate becomes a liability the moment it circulates. Separating the accesses costs one extra cylinder and saves redoing everything the first time a set goes astray. The holiday lets along the route de Grasse learn that at every change of season.
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 Vence.