Lock Rekeying in San Jose

Every door in the house onto one key, with the old pins handed back to you, without changing a single piece of hardware

Rekeying is the cheapest honest answer to the question people actually have, which is not "is my lock good" but "who else can open my door". A cylinder is taken out, the small pins inside are swapped for a set that matches a new key, and it goes back on the door looking exactly as it did. Every key that existed before stops working the moment that happens. The hardware stays, the finish stays, and on an older San Jose house that matters, because the knob on a 1958 Cambrian ranch or the escutcheon on a Willow Glen bungalow cannot be bought in a shop any more.

Three situations account for most of these calls. A house that has just changed hands, where the sellers handed over four keys and cannot tell you how many were cut over thirty years. A rental at turnover, where the departing tenant returned the key on the ring but not the copy made for a partner who moved out in March. And a job that ended badly: a contractor, a house cleaner, a lodger. In every one of those the number of keys in the world is unknown and cannot be recovered by asking. Repinning ends the question rather than managing it. The other common request is combining: a front door on one key, a back door on another, a garage side door on a third, all brought onto a single key so the ring in your pocket has one thing on it instead of three.

Rekeying is $26 to $42 per cylinder, and the $89 service call is on the visit rather than on each lock — which is why the count is taken on the phone. A typical San Jose house is four cylinders: front, back, garage side door, and the deadbolt someone added to the door into the utility room. That is one figure, said before anyone drives over, not four discoveries at the door. High-security cylinders with sidebars and interactive elements cost more to repin and are named separately. Where a cylinder is so worn that a wrong key will nearly turn it, repinning is money spent twice, and you will be told which door that is, with the replacement figure beside it, rather than finding out next year.

Two practical things. Keys: two are cut and handed over as part of the work, and more are a couple of dollars each on the same visit rather than a trip to a kiosk. And the old pins: they come back to you in a small bag. That is not a souvenir. It is the only evidence that the cylinder was actually taken apart, and it is the difference between a rekey and someone charging you for one while cutting a key to the lock you already had. If the request has to go through a landlord or a property manager, the technician can leave a written line with the cylinder count and the figure, ready to forward.