House Lockout in Mountain View
$138–$252. Unit doors, front doors and patio sliders opened without marking them, including the override cylinder under a panel when the reader has gone dark. That range already contains the $89 call-out, and the hour is added out loud before anyone drives.
$138–$252
Typical price
18 min
Avg. arrival
24/7
Availability
Three calls arrive under this heading and they are not the same job. The first is a building door that has stopped reading a fob, which may be the lobby, the gate down to the garage, the package room, the mail hall or the elevator. The second is your own unit door, pulled shut behind you with the keys on the counter. The third comes from the older streets around the center, where a front door has one cylinder in it and the cylinder is exactly what it looks like. Say which of the three you are standing in front of, because they bring different tools out of the van.
Under every reader in this city there is a mechanical cylinder. It is the way in when the power is out, when the board behind the panel has quit, or when a credential stopped answering over a weekend. On most buildings nobody has turned that cylinder in years, so it is dry, stiff and occasionally seized on the exact morning it is needed. None of that is a case against the electronics. They run these buildings and mostly run them well. It is a case for the one part of the door with no software in it, which still has to work at six in the morning.
Opening is mechanical and quiet. Picks, shims and decoding come first, the plug stays in the door, and the plate around it keeps its finish. A unit door on a lever with a deadbolt above it is ordinary work. Sliding patio doors are released at the latch and never lifted out of the track, because a lifted panel bends its rollers and never runs straight again. If a cylinder truly leaves no route in without drilling, you hear that before the drill comes out of the case, the decision is yours, and the figure you were quoted stays the figure.
Who orders work on a door the whole building uses is settled on the call, between you and the building. It is a short conversation and it happens before a van is dispatched rather than in the lobby with people waiting. For your own door it is simpler: photo ID carrying the address, or ID with something on your phone that ties you to the unit.
An opening at a home or an apartment is $138 to $252, with the $89 visit counted inside that instead of added at the end. One exterior door in daylight is $138. It climbs toward $252 when a second locked door stands behind the first, when the cylinder is high security, or when a broken key has to come out of the keyway. Between 8pm and midnight that $138 door is said as $190. Between midnight and 7am it is $230. The average run is 18 minutes, about 12 around Old Mountain View, 18 at Cuesta Park, 24 into North Whisman and 26 out to the bay. Ninety days on the workmanship.
“Landed late, got to the building at half past one, and the lobby reader was dead. No light, no beep, and a fob is the only thing I carry. My apartment key was on the ring I had left upstairs, so I was shut out twice over. Quoted $248 on the phone with the $92 overnight already inside it, and $248 is what the card showed afterward. He came through the mechanical cylinder behind the lobby panel, which took him longer than my own door did because nothing had turned in it for years, then picked the unit door without leaving a mark. Before he left he told the night guard, in front of me, that the lobby cylinder needs oil and a proper key cut before it seizes for good.”
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 which door it is and how it opens. One cylinder on a house in the old part of town takes the low end. A door that reads a credential, with a mechanical cylinder under the panel that has not been turned in years, takes the time that cylinder has been owed. Say which door stopped you and the range closes to one figure.
- Daytime (7am–8pm)standard rates
- Evening (8pm–12am)+$52
- Overnight (12am–7am)+$92
FAQ
House Lockout: quick answers
The reader at our lobby door is dead and the whole building is standing outside.+
The most common version of this call here. The mechanical cylinder that sits under or beside the panel is opened by hand, and the reader, its wiring and everything behind it are left alone, so when power or the network comes back the fobs behave exactly as they did before. Who orders that work is settled on the call between you and the building, and it usually takes less time than reading this answer.
There is a metal key for our entrance but it will not turn.+
Expected on a cylinder that has stood unused for years. Grit settles, the lubricant that was in it has dried, and the key starts to need force long before it stops working entirely. The door is opened, then that cylinder is stripped, cleaned and put back working. If the plug has worn out of round it cannot be saved by cleaning, and a replacement is priced against the published $133 to $345 rather than folded in quietly.
I am on the old streets near the center with a plain front door and no keys.+
Ordinary work, and quick. One cylinder, no panel, no building to consult. About 12 minutes from the base near Castro Street to Old Mountain View and 16 to Sylvan Park, the door is picked without damage, and it sits in the $138 to $252 range with the hour already counted in.
Related
More emergency services
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.