Mountain View neighborhood · 24/7
Rex Manor: a tract where the two-car garage is the front of the house, and the door beside it is the one nobody has touched
An even tract laid out on one plan and repeated down the block: wide two-car garage doors facing the street, a short concrete apron in front of each, the front door set back beside it under a small porch, and a service door in the side wall of the garage that most households use far more than the front. Twenty minutes.
~20 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
This tract runs on a credential too, and most people here have never thought of it that way. The way into the house is a button on a visor, pressed at the end of the driveway without slowing down, and the household walks in through the garage. The front door key has been in a kitchen drawer for years and nobody could say with confidence that it still turns. That works perfectly well right up to the evening the opener has no power, the remote in the second car was never paired, and everybody is standing on the apron. It is the same shape of problem as a dead reader at a lobby door two miles north, in a much plainer setting, and it has the same answer: keep one mechanical way in that is known to work and known to be reachable.
The mechanical way in on these lots is the service door in the side wall of the garage, and it is reliably the most neglected lock on the property. It faces the fence line, it takes full afternoon sun, its cylinder has never been repinned since the tract was built, and the key for it is on somebody's ring at work. When it is finally tried it grinds, and that is dry pins and forty years of grit rather than a broken lock. It is cleaned, serviced and repinned onto the same key as the house at $32–$50 per cylinder, everything after the first at the low end. Where the cylinder has worn past pinning, replacement is $133–$345. Doing that one door is the cheapest insurance on the whole street.
The line about the powered door is worth stating so nobody waits on the wrong trade. The opener motor, the rail, the springs and the safety eyes are a garage door company's work, and we say so on the phone rather than after a call-out. The locks are ours: the service door, the front door, the gate at the side of the lot, the shed. If you are shut outside the house entirely, a house lockout is $138–$252 with the $89 already inside it, the door is opened rather than drilled, and identification is asked for at the step. Between eight and midnight add $52, after midnight $92, said once on the call and not revised on the apron.
Two cars to a house and a wide apron in front of each means the other half of the work here happens on the driveway. Keys shut in a trunk while the tailgate is up, a fob that has quietly stopped being heard after four winters in a coat pocket, a second key that was never cut because the dealer wanted too much for it, and a motorcycle under a cover at the side of the garage. A car lockout is $112–$208, a fob programmed on the driveway is $98–$208, a replacement key cut and coded beside the car is $163–$438, ignition work is $194–$478 and motorcycle keys are $132–$302. Have the make, model, year and color ready and say whether any working key still exists.
Say whether you are shut out of the house or only out of the garage, and whether the block still has power. If the service door in the side wall is the way in, say whether anyone still has a key that turns it. For a vehicle on the driveway, give the make, model, year and color and say whether a working key exists anywhere.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Rex Manor
The power is out, the garage door will not lift and we always come in that way.+
Then the job is the service door in the side wall or the front door, and both are ordinary. A house lockout is $138–$252 with the $89 inside it, opened rather than drilled. The motor and the release cord on the powered door belong to a garage door company and we will tell you that on the phone instead of driving out to look at it. If the service door key has gone missing over the years, that door gets repinned onto your house key while the van is there.
The key to the garage side door grinds and needs to be worked back and forth.+
Forty years of grit and dry pins, not a broken lock. That cylinder faces the fence, takes the afternoon sun and has almost certainly never been serviced since the tract went up. It is cleaned, lubricated and repinned onto the same key as the house at $32–$50 per cylinder. If the plug has worn past pinning you are told with it out of the door, and replacement is $133–$345.
Our second car has no remote and only one key. Is a spare worth the money?+
On a driveway with two cars and one key, yes, and it is cheaper before it is urgent. A fob programmed while the car sits on your apron is $98–$208. A key cut and coded from scratch, which is what it becomes once the last key is gone, is $163–$438. The gap between those two numbers is the whole argument for doing it on a quiet Saturday rather than at eleven at night.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say what the door reads, and the rest of the call is short
Mountain View and the mid-Peninsula, at any hour. A fob, a card, a code or a plain key, and how many doors stand between the sidewalk and you — that decides the work, and the work decides the number. The number comes back on the same call with the $89 call-out and the clock already inside it, and it is the number on the receipt. The labor carries 90 days, in writing.