Pricing
Sixteen jobs, sixteen ranges, none of them held back.
All sixteen jobs and their ranges sit on this page, nothing saved for the phone. Describe what the key is doing and the range closes to one figure on the call, with the evening or overnight hour already folded in. A range here is the whole spread for that work across all seven miles of the city, and the worked example at the bottom of this page shows how one closes to a single number.
Emergency Locksmith
OverviewResidential Locksmith
OverviewCommercial Locksmith
OverviewAutomotive Locksmith
OverviewOne job, worked line by line
A seized deadbolt on 44th Avenue, Tuesday at 9.10pm
The key had been turning halfway since the winter. Tonight it stopped. The caller described that on the phone, gave the cross street, and heard one number before agreeing to anything. Here is where that number came from.
- Published range, lock replacement
- $125 – $319
- The work turned out to be a cylinder past cleaning, not a lockout, and the range is the one printed above.
- Where inside the range
- $172
- Standard cylinder, one door, corrosion but no snapped blade and no second lock behind it. Not the floor, nowhere near the ceiling.
- The $89 service call
- included
- Inside the $172, not underneath it. It is never a separate line on a receipt from us.
- Evening hour, 8pm to midnight
- +$55
- Folded in before the figure was said, which is why the caller heard $227 and not $172 plus a surprise.
- Marine-grade stainless instead of brass
- no change
- The finish was discussed while the old lock was still on the door. On this avenue it is the recommendation, and it did not move the number.
Why a range
A range is wide because half this city runs on corroded hardware
Two doors that look identical can be two different jobs, and which one you have is mostly decided by how far west you live. Here is the cut, in the order it gets settled on the call.
Which lock it actually is
A cylinder in a rowhouse front, a mortise case sunk into the edge of a 1910 flat door, a padlock on a roll-down grille and a lobby deadlatch cycled four hundred times a day are four different amounts of work wearing one name. Say which one is between you and where you want to be, and most of the range disappears in a sentence.
How much salt it has taken
This is the question that decides the figure more than anything else on the page, and in practice it means how far west the door lives. A cylinder in the Mission that wants cleaning is a visit. The identical cylinder on 46th Avenue after six winters is pitted through and wants replacing. Same lock, same symptom, two different jobs.
Saved or replaced
A lock stiff in its first or second winter is usually stripped, cleaned and put back, which is the cheapest outcome on this page. Past that, new pins in a pitted plug just give you a lock that turns badly with a different key, so the cylinder is replaced at $28 to $46 or the whole lock at $125 to $319. You are told which one yours is, with the reason.
The hour, and the lines that never appear
Figures given between 8pm and midnight carry $55 of that hour, and figures given between midnight and 7am carry $95. Both are inside the number you are told rather than a line found later. Nothing is added for the run out to the avenues or over the county line, for a second door on the same visit, or for a first attempt that did not work.
FAQ
What people ask about the bill
My key turns halfway and then stops. Is that the lock or the door?+
Turn the key with the door standing open. If it still stops halfway, the cylinder is the problem and it is almost certainly corrosion or wear inside. If it turns freely with the door open and jams only when the door is shut, the lock is fine and the bolt is no longer lining up with the strike, which on an old San Francisco building usually means the frame has moved. The two cost different amounts to fix, so it is worth the ten seconds before you call: a cylinder is $28 to $46 to repin or $125 up to replace, and a strike realigned is part of the visit.
Is a call at three in the morning priced differently?+
A Saturday costs what a Tuesday costs, and a holiday costs what an ordinary week costs. Only the clock moves anything: $55 between 8pm and midnight, $95 between midnight and 7am. Both are folded in before you hear a number, so nothing new appears at the door. A house lockout that is $135 in daylight comes back as $190 at eleven at night and $230 at four in the morning, all of it still inside the published $135 to $249. Calls are answered 24 hours.
Our buzzer stopped working. Can you fix it?+
No, and it is worth saying plainly rather than finding out at your gate. Intercom panels, buzzer wiring, door releases wired to them and elevator controls are electrical work and a different trade. What we do is the mechanical half: the lock in the gate, the cylinder in the lobby door, the keypad, the key. If the buzzer is dead and you are standing outside, we can get you through the lock and up the stairs tonight, and the panel itself is a call for your building on a weekday.
Is it worth paying more for a stainless lock on the west side?+
On the ocean side, yes, and it is the one piece of advice on this site given twice. A plain brass or plated cylinder within a mile of the beach is a consumable: three winters to stiffness, five or six to replacement. Marine-grade stainless costs more once and then stops being an annual conversation. East of Twin Peaks the argument mostly disappears, and paying for it there is your choice rather than our recommendation. Either way the make, the grade and the finish are named while the old lock is still on the door.
Do you cover Daly City, Colma, Brisbane, South San Francisco and Pacifica?+
All five, 24 hours, at the same prices as the city. The clock changes a figure; the address does not. What the address changes is the wait, which is why those minutes are printed above rather than buried. Pacifica sits right on the water and takes the worst salt in the whole service area, so a cylinder there lives an even shorter life than one on the Great Highway, and that is worth knowing before you buy the cheap replacement.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say what the key is doing, hear the figure, get back inside
San Francisco plus Daly City, Colma, Brisbane, South San Francisco and Pacifica, 24 hours, holidays included. Stiff, halfway, snapped, or a healthy lock on the wrong side of a closed door: one number comes back with the $89 visit and the hour of the night already inside it, and it is the number on the receipt.