Cupertino · West Valley · 24 hours
The house updates itself. The lock still waits for a person.
The thermostat learned a new schedule on its own. The doorbell took a firmware update at three in the morning. The garage opener answers a phone and the lights came back a different color. Nobody drove out for any of it. The deadbolt on a door that was hung in 1962 is the last thing left in the house that still needs a van at the curb, a key machine running off the inverter and somebody standing on the step.
Answered 24 hours · $89 for the visit, folded into the figure before you hear it.
4.9 / 5183 reviewsCupertino & West Valley
Three ages of house, and what is standing on the door
- 1950–53Rancho Rinconada — 1,562 houses by Stern & Price, 800 to 1,000 square feetOften still the knob set the house came with, and nothing above it. One cylinder, no deadbolt, and a bore cut narrower than anything sold in a store today. It has turned tens of thousands of times and it still turns, which is exactly why nobody has touched it.
- 1960–61Fairgrove — around 220 Eichler housesTwo doors stand between the sidewalk and the kitchen: the atrium gate, then the entry behind it. Households lock one and forget the other. The gate takes different hardware from the slab door, and the glass wall beside both decides what can be cut and what cannot.
- after 2000The rebuilds and the streets that went up on old orchard lotsA keypad on the front door and nothing behind it. Codes still set by the builder, cells nobody has checked, and in most houses no metal key ever cut for the override cylinder. The lock is new. The plan for the night it goes flat is not.
A lock in a box is machined for a door built after about 1975: a 2 1/8 inch bore, a 2 3/8 or 2 3/4 inch backset, a leaf that still hangs square. A large share of the doors inside this city are older than that, or have moved since they were hung. So the work runs in one order — the bore, the backset, the hinges and the strike are put right, then the lock goes on, on the same visit and inside the same figure. The $89 service call is counted into every number on this page, and the hour is named before the van moves.
What we do
Sixteen jobs, and most of the work is in the door
An atrium gate that latched behind somebody carrying groceries, a keypad that went dark after ten at night, a front door on a 1951 house that has opened the same way since it was hung, a car locked in a shopping-center lot with the fob on the seat, a glass shop door on Stevens Creek that stopped throwing its bolt, a wall safe whose combination left with the previous owner. Choose the work below and its range is printed here. Say the year the house was built and what stopped you, and the range comes back as one number.
from $109Emergency
Openings at any hour, with the frame put back before anyone drives away
- House Lockout$135–$245
- Car Lockout$109–$205
- Business Lockout$145–$265
- Post Break-In Lock Repair$175–$459
from $29/cylResidential
Rekeys, deadbolts, keypads and safes for doors that were hung sixty years ago
- Lock Rekeying$29–$47 per cylinder
- Lock Replacement & Installation$129–$339
- Smart Lock Installation$199–$495
- Safe Opening$205–$549
from $165Commercial
Storefronts, suites and small offices, counted on site and quoted door by door
- Master Key Systemscustom quote
- Panic Bars & Exit Devices$315–$799
- Access Controlcustom quote
- Storefront Door Locks$165–$489
from $95Automotive
Keys, fobs and ignitions handled in the space the car is already parked in
- Car Key Replacement$159–$429
- Key Fob Programming$95–$205
- Ignition Repair$189–$469
- Motorcycle Keys$129–$295
Prices
Every range we publish, and what closes it to one figure
All sixteen jobs are printed here, fourteen with ranges and two quoted once the doors have been counted on site. What moves a figure inside its range is the door, not the lock: a leaf that still hangs true takes the low end, a leaf that has dropped on its hinges or carries a narrower old bore takes the high one. Describe the door on the call and the range closes to one figure.
Emergency
from $109
Residential
from $29/cyl
Commercial
from $165
We quote the smallest thing that actually fixes it. A cylinder that has been fighting the key usually wants stripping and repinning, not replacing. A door that has settled wants its hinge screws and its strike put back in line, not new hardware bolted over the problem. Five doors that all want one key are a single rekey. Say the year the house was built and what stopped you when you call (669) 274-3850.
On every job
The Door First
Four things that hold the same way on a 1951 house on the Rinconada grid, an atrium gate in Fairgrove, a keypad on a rebuild off Bubb Road and a glass shop door on Stevens Creek. Ninety days on the labor, printed on the receipt rather than implied.
- 1The door is made right before the lock goes on, in the same visitA new deadbolt does not fit an old door simply by arriving. On the houses here the bore is usually narrower than the 2 1/8 inches a modern lock is machined for, the backset is off by a quarter inch, and sixty years of hinge sag mean the bolt no longer meets the hole in the frame. That part is carpentry, and it happens before anything is screwed down: the bore opened true, the backset corrected, the hinges shimmed, the strike moved and its mortise recut. Then the lock. A lock hanging on a door that cannot hold it is not a finished job.
- 2One figure, with the hour already counted into itThe number covers the visit, the labor and the parts, and the $89 service call sits inside it rather than underneath it. A van arriving between 8pm and midnight carries $55, and between midnight and 7am $95, both named on the call instead of at the door. A cylinder older than the paperwork said, a strike screwed into trim instead of framing, a keypad with flat cells: none of those reopen the arithmetic.
- 3On a keypad lock the spread is the door, not the brandSmart Lock Installation runs $199 to $495, and that range is wide on purpose. What moves you inside it is the leaf in front of you. A door still hanging true sits at the bottom of it. A door that has dropped on its hinges costs the time it takes to bring it back to square. A door with a narrow 1950s bore costs the work of opening it to size without splitting the stile. The make of lock barely moves the figure. Say the year the house was built and the range closes to one number.
- 4A metal key is cut for every keypad we fitEvery keypad deadbolt has an override cylinder, and nearly all of them are sold with a blank that nobody ever takes to a machine. That is fine until the cells go flat at eleven at night in February. So the key is cut at the van the same day the lock goes on, tried in the cylinder while you watch, and you decide where it lives. Ninety days on the labor in writing, with the maker standing behind the part.
Reviews
What people say once the door has been put right
Keypads with flat cells, seventy-year-old knob sets repinned, an atrium gate and a slab door brought onto one key, a car opened in a parking deck, from the Rinconada grid up to the driveways of Inspiration Heights, each with the number that ended up on the card.
4.9/ 5183reviews
Cupertino & West Valley
“Our keypad died some time after eleven and I found out about it at half past, standing outside with groceries. The metal key that came in the box had never been cut; the blank was in a drawer inside the house, which is a special kind of funny at midnight. $245 said on the call with the $95 overnight already inside it, and $245 is what I paid. Fifteen minutes to arrive. He opened the override cylinder without drilling, then cut two keys at the van and made me try one in the door before he would leave.”
“We bought the house for the school and thought about the locks roughly never until the week we moved in. Five cylinders, front, back, side gate, garage service door and the shed, at $31 each with the $89 visit inside the total, $244. All five on one key. He kept the old brass on the front because he said what was in it was better made than what he could sell me, and just repinned it. Old keys came back in a labeled bag so I could count them against what the agent handed over.”
“I had bought a keypad deadbolt online and it would not go on our 1961 entry door. The bore is narrower than the lock, the backset is wrong, and the leaf has settled about a quarter inch over sixty years. He explained that on the phone before he came out, which is more than the box did. $395 for opening the bore true, moving the strike, adjusting the hinges and fitting the lock I already owned. Same visit. He cut the override key at the van and set the codes with me standing there.”
“A side door was forced while we were away for a week, and the jamb had split along the strike. Called at nine in the morning, van at twenty past. He rebuilt the jamb through to the stud, put in a long strike that reaches framing instead of trim, and fitted a new cylinder keyed to the front door so we are not carrying another key. $395, every part on its own line because the claim needed that. The side door now closes better than the front one ever has.”
“Our back door has had a latch and nothing else since the house was built, and I finally got tired of it. $268 for a deadbolt on that door and a matching one on the garage service door, both keyed alike. He drilled the bore, cut the strike mortise into the frame and checked the door for square first, which took longer than fitting the locks did. He also showed me the gap the door had been closing on, which explained a draft I had blamed on the window.”
“Fob on the driver's seat, doors locked, groceries in the trunk and the car in my own driveway, which somehow made it worse. $139 on the call, sixteen minutes to arrive. He bowed the top corner with a bladder and worked the interior handle with a long rod, maybe three minutes once he was set up. He checked my licence against the registration before he touched anything even though I was standing there with the shopping, and I thought better of that afterwards than I did at the time.”
Why us
A new lock is the easy half of an old door.
The door is the job — the lock is the last ten minutes of it
Most of what goes wrong on these streets is not the lock. It is a bore cut to a 1950s size, a backset that no modern part matches, a leaf that has dropped a quarter inch since it was hung, or a strike screwed into trim instead of framing. Anyone can hang hardware. The hour before the hardware is what decides whether the bolt still lands three winters from now, and it is included in the figure rather than raised as an extra once the box is open.
The van carries what Cupertino doors actually have
Knob sets and deadbolts sized for the narrow bores on the Rinconada grid, backset conversion parts, narrow-stile hardware for atrium gates and the slab entries behind them, keypad deadbolts with their override blanks and a machine to cut them, long strikes and jamb reinforcement, aluminum deadlatches and hookbolts for the glass doors on Stevens Creek and De Anza, exit devices, readers, and blanks and programmers for most of the cars on the road, hybrids and EVs included.
Seventeen minutes across eight neighborhoods, and the slow ones named as slow
No shop and no counter, because a lock is bolted to a door and does not come to one. Garden Gate is about 12 minutes, Rancho Rinconada 13, Fairgrove 14, Creston and Pharlap 15, Seven Springs 16, Monta Vista 17, Oak Valley 19 with its gates and intercoms, and Inspiration Heights 24 up the hill. The average is 17. Where the number is worse, it is said on the call.
Ninety days in writing, and a key you can hold
Ninety days on the labor, printed on the receipt rather than implied, with the maker standing behind the part. The receipt is itemized and reaches your email, and a written description of the work goes to an owner, a manager or an insurer whenever one is needed. Where a lock has an override cylinder, you finish the visit holding a cut metal key for it rather than a blank in a bag.
How it works
From the year the house was built to a bolt that lands
- 1
Say the age of the house
It is the one question that changes everything else, so lead with it: built in the early fifties on the Rinconada grid, an Eichler from 1960 or 1961 with an atrium in front, a rebuild from the last twenty years, or a shop or suite on Stevens Creek. Then what stopped you, and whether there is a gate, a courtyard or a long drive between the curb and the lock.
- 2
Hear the figure with the hour in it
One number covers the visit, the labor and the parts, with the $89 service call inside it and the clock counted in: $55 from 8pm, $95 after midnight. If what you are describing turns out to be a garage door spring or an opener motor, you hear that here rather than after somebody has driven out. You say yes or no with the number already in front of you.
- 3
The door is made right, then the lock goes on
A text names the technician and gives an arrival window drawn from where the van actually is. At the door, ID is matched to the address or a registration to the plate before a case is opened. Then the leaf, the bore, the backset, the hinges and the strike are put right, and only then does the hardware go on and get tested by you. Card or tap on the spot, itemized receipt by email, ninety days on the labor.
Coverage
Every part of Cupertino, and the west valley around it
Average arrival 17 minutes across Cupertino, from twelve in Garden Gate to twenty-four up in Inspiration Heights, and a little longer out to Saratoga, Los Gatos, West San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and Los Altos. Every area page carries its own minute.
Free estimate
Four questions, then the same range this site publishes.
Not an emergency? Answer four questions and the published range for that work comes back on the screen, with nothing held behind a phone call. If it is urgent, the form steps aside and hands you the number.
- 1What went wrong?A lockout, a key, a lock change, or something else entirely.
- 2Where is the door?A house, an apartment, a car or a business.
- 3How soon?If it is right now, the form gets out of the way and you call.
- 4Where does the range go?A name and a number. Email and cross street only if you like.
Before you call anyone
Five questions worth a minute before you give anybody the address
Search for a locksmith here and a fair share of the results are dispatch desks in another state that sell your address to whoever is nearest, advertise a two-figure price, and collect three hundred once the door is open, usually after drilling a cylinder that would have picked in four minutes. The five questions below take about a minute between them, and anyone working straight answers all five without slowing down.
- 1Ask for one figure with the $89 service call inside it and the hour counted in too. A number followed by "starting from" or "the tech will look at it on site" is not a figure, it is space kept open for later.
- 2Ask what happens when the door turns out to be older than the lock. Anybody selling hardware for a house built in 1951 without asking about the bore, the backset or the hinges has not thought about your door at all.
- 3Ask what comes out of the case before a drill does, and what part goes on if the drill wins anyway. A first answer that begins with drilling is an answer about their afternoon, not about your lock.
- 4Ask for the technician's name and an arrival window by text before anyone is sent. A company that will not say who is coming is handing your address to a subcontractor it has never met.
- 5Decline cash-only. An owner, an insurer, a property manager or your own books all want an itemized receipt with a business name on it, and a figure written on a scrap of paper satisfies none of them.
FAQ
The questions an old door raises
I bought a keypad lock and it does not fit my door. Is the lock wrong or is the door wrong?+
Almost always the door, and there is nothing wrong with the door either. Locks are machined to a standard that settled in the mid-seventies: a 2 1/8 inch bore, a backset of 2 3/8 or 2 3/4 inches, and a leaf hanging square. A house from 1951 or 1961 predates all of that. The bore is often narrower, the backset can be off by a quarter inch, and the door has usually dropped on its hinges since it was hung. So the sequence is the bore opened true, the backset corrected, the hinges brought back and the strike moved, and then the lock goes on, on the same visit. That is why the range for a keypad lock is $199 to $495 rather than one price.
How long before somebody is at the door?+
Seventeen minutes is the average across the city. Garden Gate runs about 12, Rancho Rinconada 13, Fairgrove 14, Creston and Pharlap 15, Seven Springs 16, Monta Vista 17, Oak Valley 19, and Inspiration Heights 24 because of the climb and the length of the driveways up there. Where an area runs slower you hear the slower number while you are still on the phone rather than after half an hour of watching the street.
Why do two identical locks come out at opposite ends of the range?+
The door, more than the lock. Three things move a figure: the state of the leaf, whether it still hangs true or has settled on its hinges; the bore and the backset already cut into it, since an old narrow bore is work before it is hardware; and the hour, because a van arriving after 8pm carries $55 and after midnight $95. Once those three are settled the number is a single number, and it is the one printed on the receipt.
Does an evening, a weekend or a holiday cost more?+
A Saturday, a Sunday and a public holiday all run at ordinary daytime figures here. What changes the number is the clock: arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $55, and between midnight and 7am adds $95. Both are counted into the figure before you agree to it rather than appearing at the door. A house lockout that is $150 in the afternoon is said as $205 at ten at night and $245 at two in the morning, and that is the figure on the card.
Our house is from 1951 and still has its original knob set. Does it have to come off?+
Usually not, and often it should not. The hardware Stern and Price hung on those 1,562 houses was made to be taken apart, cleaned, re-sprung and repinned, and a repin at $29 to $47 per cylinder leaves you with a lock nobody manufactures any more. What those houses genuinely lack is a deadbolt above the knob, since the knob's own button lock is a convenience rather than a lock. Fitting one is $129 to $339 and it is the only part of this anybody here will mention twice.
Our Eichler has an atrium gate and then the entry door. Which one actually holds the house?+
The entry door behind the atrium, every time. The gate is worth a good lock because it keeps the courtyard yours, but it is a garden gate in construction and it is not what stands between the street and the kitchen. Households here tend to lock the gate out of habit and leave the entry on the latch. The practical answer is a proper deadbolt on the entry, a keyed lock on the gate that runs on the same key, and the mortise for both cut with the glass wall measured first, because the stile beside that glass is narrow and there is no second chance at it.
The keypad battery died and I have no metal key. What happens now?+
Every keypad deadbolt has an override cylinder underneath the electronics, and it can be picked open without damage in most cases. That is a house lockout at $135 to $245, plus the hour if it is late, which it usually is. The part worth doing afterwards costs almost nothing: the blank that came in the box gets cut to the override cylinder, tried in the door, and put somewhere that is not inside the house. New cells go in at the same time. Doing that in daylight is a few minutes of work; doing it at midnight is the figure above.
I rent here. What can I actually have done?+
About two homes in five in this city are rented, so this comes up constantly. Being let back into the place you pay for needs photo ID with the address, or ID plus something on your phone that ties you to the unit: a lease page, a rent receipt, addressed mail. That is a lockout and it is yours to arrange. Changing hardware is different. A rekey, a new deadbolt or a keypad on a rented door needs the owner or the manager to agree, and settling that before the van is dispatched saves a wasted trip for everyone. The receipt can be addressed to you, to the owner, or to both.
We just bought here for the school zone. What should be done in the first month?+
Three things, in this order. Change every keypad code, which costs nothing and takes two minutes, because the code you were handed has been through an agent, a stager, a painter and a cleaning crew. Rekey the metal cylinders so the keys from that same list stop working, at $29 to $47 each with everything brought onto one key. Then look at whether any exterior door is running on a latch alone, which on the older grids is common. None of that changes with the address: a street can carry a median of $3.55 million on one side of an attendance line and about $2.8 million on the other, and the set of people holding keys at closing is identical either way.
Do you go out to Saratoga, Los Gatos, Sunnyvale and West San Jose?+
All of them, at the same figures as Cupertino, around the clock. What the address changes is the wait, not the price. Inside the city it runs 12 to 24 minutes depending on the neighborhood, and the neighboring towns run longer than that; you hear the real number on the call before you commit to waiting for it. The only things that move a figure anywhere are the door in front of the technician and the hour on the clock.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say the year the house was built, and the rest of the call is short
Cupertino and the west valley, every hour of the day. The age of the door decides the work and the work decides the figure, so the number comes back on the call with the $89 service call and the hour already inside it, and it is the number on the receipt. Ninety days on the labor, in writing.