Pleasanton neighborhood · 24/7
Val Vista: a seventies tract where the second door into the house is the one in the side wall of the garage
Flat, even streets of seventies single-family houses: an attached garage facing the road, a service door in its side wall, a front entry under a short porch, a gate down one flank, and a patio at the back. Fifteen minutes.
4.9 / 5· 274 reviews from Pleasanton and the Tri-Valley
~15 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
A house on these streets does not have one door, it has a handful, and the one that decides most evenings is the service door in the side wall of the garage. It faces the fence, it takes sun from noon onward, and its cylinder has been baking out there since the tract was built. Nobody services it, because nobody thinks of it as a lock until the powered door will not lift and that side entry turns out to be the only way in. The key drags, then wants jiggling, then wants two hands, and the household decides the lock is broken. Almost always it is dry pins and forty years of dust. Cleaning it, servicing it and pinning it onto the same key as the front entry is $34–$52 per cylinder, and it is the cheapest useful thing anybody does to a house out here.
The rest of the keys on a Val Vista property drifted apart the same way. Front entry on one key, garage service door on another, side gate on a padlock nobody has opened in a year, and the room over the garage on a third key that lives in a kitchen drawer. Bringing the property onto one key is priced per cylinder rather than per house, which is why the figure is $34–$52 each with everything after the first at the low end: the trip is already paid for inside the first one. Count the openings before you call, including the gate and the shed, because the count is the whole price and it usually comes out one or two higher than people guess. Where a plug has worn past pinning you hear it with the lock out of the door, and replacement is $132–$352.
Lockouts on this tract land at the two ends of the day. Half past six in the morning with a car running on the driveway, or late at night when the spare key turns out to be with the cleaner who comes on Tuesday. A house lockout is $134–$255 with the $89 call-out already inside that figure, and where the mechanism allows it the cylinder is picked so the door still works after the van leaves. Between eight at night and midnight the total carries $52, between midnight and seven in the morning $94, and both are counted into the number you hear on the phone rather than added at the step. Photo identification with the address is checked before the door is touched. Ninety days on the labor, written on the receipt.
Two cars to a house and a wide apron in front of each means a real share of the work here happens on concrete rather than at a door. A key that went into a coat pocket and then into the trunk. A fob that survived four winters and then simply stopped being answered. An older car carrying exactly one key, because the dealer price for a second was easy to put off. Opening a car is $112–$208, programming a fob where it sits is $99–$208, cutting and coding a key once the last one is gone is $164–$446, ignition work is $194–$487, and a motorcycle under a cover beside the garage is $132–$308. The distance between the second and third of those figures is the entire argument for making the spare on a Saturday.
Say which door stopped you: the front entry, the service door in the side wall of the garage, the gate, or the room over the garage. If a door has to be shoved before it locks, mention it, because that is a frame and a strike rather than a lock and it changes what comes off the van. For a vehicle on the driveway, give make, model, year and color, and say whether any working key still exists.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Val Vista
Nobody can find the key to the garage side door, and the power went out last week.+
Those two facts belong together, because that side door is how you get in when the big powered door will not lift. The cylinder gets opened, cleaned and serviced, then repinned onto your house key at $34–$52, so there is one key for both instead of a missing one. Where the plug has worn past pinning, replacement is $132–$352 and you hear that with the lock out of the door. The opener motor, the springs and the cables are a garage door company's work, and we say so before anyone drives out.
How many keys should a house on this street actually have?+
One, in most cases, and that is the point of counting first. Front entry, garage service door, side gate, the room over the garage, a shed if there is one — every one of those is a cylinder at $34–$52, with everything after the first at the low end because the van is already on the driveway and the machine is already set up. They all come onto a single key you can hand to somebody, and every key cut before that morning stops working, which matters on a house that has been through a remodel and a few crews.
Locked out at six in the morning and the spare is with the cleaner.+
Standard call from these blocks, and the answer is fifteen minutes rather than waiting for Tuesday. A house lockout is $134–$255 with the $89 call-out inside it and the $94 overnight addition counted in before you agree to anything, so the figure quoted at six is the figure on the receipt. Bring identification with the address on it to the step. The door is picked where the lock allows it, so you are not paying for a cylinder afterward on top of the opening.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
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.