Pricing
Sixteen jobs, the whole list, and the door that decides them.
All sixteen jobs are printed here, fourteen with ranges and two quoted once the doors have been walked. What moves a figure inside its range is which of the nine doors stopped you — a front door, a garage service door, a side gate, a pool gate, a cellar and a safe are six different pieces of work — and how long that particular door has gone unused. A front door somebody opens twice a day takes the low end. A gate latch nobody has walked through since last summer is dry, full of grit and often will not accept even the key that was cut for it, and that takes the time it is owed. Say which one stopped you and the range closes to a single figure. The same sixteen figures apply at every address in town, and the only thing allowed to move one after it is said is the hour: $52 between 8pm and midnight, $94 between midnight and 7am, both printed in the table below.
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All the clock is allowed to do, on six common jobs
Every figure below is the low end of that job's published range with the hour already inside it, said the way you would hear it on the phone. Between 8pm and midnight a job carries $48, and between midnight and 7am it carries $86. Nothing else on the clock changes a number, and neither a weekend nor a holiday does.
| Job | 7am–8pm | 8pm–12am | 12am–7am |
|---|---|---|---|
| House lockout | $129 | $177 | $215 |
| Car lockout | $106 | $154 | $192 |
| Business lockout | $142 | $190 | $228 |
| Lock replacement | $126 | $174 | $212 |
| Car key replacement | $156 | $204 | $242 |
| Key fob programming | $94 | $142 | $180 |
The $89 visit is inside every figure in this table rather than underneath it. These are low ends, and what lifts a job off them is the door. A leaf that has dropped on its hinges, a bore cut narrower than the modern standard, a strike that has to be moved and its mortise recut: any of those lands the figure higher in the published range, and it is said on the call rather than found on the receipt.
Why a range
A range is wide because a house here has nine doors
One job at two Pleasanton addresses can land at opposite ends of the same range. What sets them apart is which of the nine doors stopped you, how long that door has gone unopened, and who gets to authorize the work on it. Five questions settle it, in the order they come up on the call.
The door first, the hour second
The figure is set by the door standing in front of the technician, not by the time on the clock. A front door somebody turns twice a day sits at the bottom of its range. The hour is allowed exactly one thing: $52 between 8pm and midnight, $94 between midnight and 7am, folded in before you agree to anything.
Which of the nine it is
A front door, a garage service door, a side gate, a pool gate, a cellar and a safe all book under the same job names and are six different pieces of work with six different figures. A latch on a yard gate is not the visit a safe in a closet is. Name the one that stopped you and most of the spread disappears before anybody drives.
How long that door has gone unopened
A pool gate nobody has walked through since last summer is dry, packed with grit and frequently will not accept the key cut for it. The same goes for a cellar door and for the second cylinder on a garage service door. The age of the hardware is not what costs money. Standing idle is.
Whether the lock can be kept
A key you have to lean on usually means grit and dry pins rather than a dead lock, and stripping, cleaning and repinning that cylinder is part of the visit, not a line of parts on the bill. Where one truly is past saving it is replaced at $132 to $352. You are told which of the two you have, and why, at the door.
Who is entitled to order it
On a gate an association also has an interest in, or on a street door shared with the offices above a shop, the work is arranged by whoever manages the property rather than by whoever happens to be standing outside it. That question gets settled on the call, before anybody drives, because the answer changes both the visit and the figure. Your own front door and your own unit are yours to arrange, and nothing extra is charged for asking.
FAQ
What people ask once they hear a figure
The side gate will not open. The key turns and nothing happens.+
That is the single most common call in this city, and it is nearly always a dry lock rather than a broken one. A gate nobody has walked through since last summer sits in the sun and the dust with no oil and no use until the pins stop returning, and then the key spins freely while the latch never moves. Most of these are stripped, flushed and lubricated on the spot and go back to working with the key already on your ring. Where the cylinder really is finished, new pins are $34–$52 or new hardware is $132–$352. If the gate is stuck shut with you on the wrong side of it, that becomes an opening first and a repair second, and both sit inside one figure quoted on the call.
We finished a remodel and half the keys are out with other people. Where does this start?+
With counting, not buying. Walk the property and write down every lock on it: entry, garage service door, side gate, pool gate, cellar, safe, the room over the garage, the mail block at the road, and on the hill the gate before the driveway even begins. Most houses here land between seven and nine. Then repin the exterior cylinders at $34–$52 each, which kills every key cut before that day including the ones nobody can account for, and put the survivors on a single blank while the van is already parked outside. The first cylinder carries the drive and the rest come cheaper for it. Anything that can be repinned is not replaced, and the bill is usually smaller than people brace for.
How much does the hour change the price?+
Only the clock moves a total here. A Saturday costs what a Wednesday costs, and so does a public holiday. Turn up between 8pm and midnight and the job carries $52 for the hour; turn up between midnight and 7am and it carries $94. Both live inside the number you were quoted rather than getting stapled on at the end. A business lockout worth $180 in the afternoon is $232 at nine in the evening and $274 at one in the morning, and no second figure is waiting for you when the van pulls up.
The house came with a safe and no combination. Can it be opened without wrecking it?+
Usually, and usually without drilling. A closet safe, a floor safe or a wall safe behind a cupboard door is manipulated open in the room it stands in, $216–$570, and where a job lands in that range depends on the make, the lock and whether the bolt work has jammed as well as the dial. Nothing is loaded onto a truck and taken away. Once it is open you pick the new number, we keep no record of it, and the sensible place for your copy is a different room. If a particular safe genuinely has to be drilled, you hear that before anything begins, together with what putting it right afterward will cost.
My deadbolt only turns if I lean on the door. Is the lock failing?+
Usually the lock is innocent. Fifty years of settling has dropped these sixties and seventies frames, so a bolt that once fell through the middle of its hole now meets the edge of the plate and gets forced until something inside surrenders. Caught early, it is a small job: pack the hinges, shift the keeper, drive the screws into structure rather than into the casing, and a fingertip is enough to throw the bolt again. Ignored, it becomes an opening at $134–$255 plus hardware at $132–$352, typically on the evening somebody puts a little more shoulder into it than usual. The door and the lock are two separate problems, and the door is the one to fix first.
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Name the door, and say how long since anyone used it
Pleasanton, whatever the hour, every day of the year. An entry in the tracts, a seized gate latch on a hill street, a pool gate, a safe left behind by the last owners, a shop door on Main, a car sitting in the Stoneridge lot — that is what decides the work, and the work decides the figure. You get that figure on this call with the $89 drive and the clock already inside it, and it is the figure on the invoice. Ninety days on the labor, in writing. The van is a few doors off Main.