Moving into a home in Otterville means somebody else's keys are still out there: a former owner, a tenant, a painter, a cousin who once watered the plants. Rekeying every exterior lock to one fresh key settles the question in a single visit, and the same job suits a rental turning over or a shop changing hands. This page also covers Arthur's Corners, Cornell, Rock's Mills and Rosanna.
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Moving into a home in Otterville means somebody else's keys are still out there: a former owner, a tenant, a painter, a cousin who once watered the plants. Rekeying every exterior lock to one fresh key settles the question in a single visit, and the same job suits a rental turning over or a shop changing hands. This page also covers Arthur's Corners, Cornell, Rock's Mills and Rosanna.
Smart locks, keypads and fobs are only worth fitting to doors in Otterville that are mechanically sound. So we check alignment and the bore first, install the hardware, then sit with you while codes are set and a phone is paired. Every electronic lock we fit keeps a mechanical key as a backup, and you leave knowing how to use both.
We think of Otterville as home ground, and we work there the way we would want a tradesperson to work in our own house: arrive prepared, explain first, respect the place, leave it tidy and make sure everything works before going. Homes, businesses and vehicles get that same care, whether the job is a lockout, a rekey or a new set of keys.
18years in business
24/7open every day
Otterville
Below, each lock and key service we offer in Otterville gets its own page, with a description that assumes no prior knowledge. Start anywhere. Many customers arrive for a lockout and leave knowing exactly why the strike plate on the back door has bothered them for years.
Break-In Damage Lock RepairSomeone smashed the little window beside the door, reached in and turned the thumb-turn.
Lost Keys — Same-Visit RekeyYou were shovelling the driveway after dark and the ring must have slid out of your coat pocket somewhere under a metre of snow.
Vintage Mortise Lock ServiceThe old skeleton key still fits the keyhole, but it now needs a jiggle, a lean on the door and a little luck before the bolt moves.
Smart Lock InstallationArthritis has made the small house key hard to grip and turn, especially with gloves on in January.
Commercial RekeyingA key turned up in the parking lot with the shop's name on its fob.
Access Control InstallationHead office wants a record of who opens the branch and when, tied to an actual name rather than a shared code scrawled on a sticky note taped under the till.
Car Key ReplacementThe key snapped at the head while you were turning it in a stiff, frosty door lock.
Spare Car Key DuplicationA lockout last month ended with a locksmith opening the door and going home, and the same single key has been carried ever since with nothing behind it.
Transponder Key ProgrammingEvery key that ever opened the car is gone at once, one taken with a stolen bag, the spare misplaced months ago and never replaced.
Lock RekeyingThe whole key ring went missing somewhere between the grocery store and the bus.
Deadbolt InstallationThe old deadbolt has grown lazy.
Lock Replacement & UpgradeThe lever on the side door droops toward the floor and rattles in your hand.
Vintage Mortise Lock ServiceThe old skeleton key still fits the keyhole, but it now needs a jiggle, a lean on the door and a little luck before the bolt moves.
Smart Lock InstallationArthritis has made the small house key hard to grip and turn, especially with gloves on in January.
Gate & Building Entry LocksThe gate to the side yard used to close with a satisfying click.
Mailbox Lock ReplacementThe property manager mentioned that half the compartments in the lobby's mailbox panel are original to the building and are starting to fail one by one, key by key, as tenants turn over year after year.Oxford, Ontario
2021 Census
About 64% of homes in Norwich were built in 1980 or earlier, according to the 2021 Census.
Where most homes were built decades ago, doors often still carry their original mortise locks and brass knobs. That hardware can usually be cleaned, re-sprung and kept in service, with a modern deadbolt added above it for strength without losing the look.
Single-detached houses make up about 92% of homes in Norwich (2021 Census).
Homeowners in houses often want a spare key that lives outside safely. A locksmith can fit a proper key safe or set up a keypad so a hidden key under a pot is no longer part of the plan.
High security
Restricted and patented key systems mean the blank for your key is not sold in shops. A copy can only be cut by an authorised locksmith against a signature, so the number of keys in existence stays known. That control is often worth more than the hardware.
You run a home office with client files and equipment, and your insurer has asked what kind of lock is on the door.
The lever on the side door droops toward the floor and rattles in your hand.
The old deadbolt has grown lazy.
Someone smashed the little window beside the door, reached in and turned the thumb-turn.
High security
The new manager took over the shop last month and only now needs the back-office safe open, but the combination the previous owner was supposed to leave in writing never turned up anywhere in the handover file.
A homeowner inherited a heavy old dial safe from a parent's house, moved it into the new place, and has no idea whether the bolt-work still works, whether the lock is sound, or how it should be anchored.
Sensible optionBreak-In Damage Lock Repair
WhyIn a rental or condo the repair involves more than one set of hands.
Sensible optionLost Keys — Same-Visit Rekey
WhyA key ring rarely holds only house keys, so a same-visit rekey looks at everything that was on it.
Sensible optionVintage Mortise Lock Service
WhyMost old mortise locks fail for boring reasons.
Sensible optionSmart Lock Installation
WhyThe first decision is which kind of smart lock suits the door and the household.
Sensible optionCommercial Rekeying
WhyTaking over a commercial unit is the moment to make the locks yours.
Sensible optionAccess Control Installation
WhyAn exit door does not stop being an exit once it is wired into an access control system.
Sensible optionCar Key Replacement
WhyEvery replacement key starts with a simple question: is this your car to key?
Sensible optionSpare Car Key Duplication
WhyWhen a key's blade has thinned or its buttons have gone soft with age, waiting for it to fail outright is the harder plan to manage.
Sensible optionTransponder Key Programming
WhyAdding a key for another driver is often one of the more contained jobs in this service.
Describe the property, the hardware and what has changed, and the visit starts from what you have seen.
01
Has it been forced, does it drag, who has had keys? Those answers tell us whether the frame, the cylinder or the key list needs attention first.
02
A box strike and three-inch screws into the studs, long hinge screws, and filled holes where the wood has split, before any cylinder is changed.
03
Doors open, doors closed, both sides, then a push on the locked door to feel for play. We finish by writing down what was fitted.
Police have come and gone, the occurrence number is on a sticky note, and you are standing in a cold hallway looking at a splintered frame, wondering how the house gets locked before everyone tries to sleep.
Break-In Damage Lock RepairYour purse was taken from the back of a chair at a restaurant. The cards can be cancelled by phone tonight, but the house keys were in the side pocket beside a driver's licence that shows exactly where those keys fit.
Lost Keys — Same-Visit RekeySomeone painted the door years ago without removing the hardware. The faceplate, the strike and the little thumb-turn are all under several coats, the deadbolt scrapes when it moves, and the knob is stiff enough to leave marks on your hand.
Vintage Mortise Lock ServiceHalf the evenings someone asks whether the back door got locked, and nobody is sure. A lock that relocks on its own, shows its state in an app and reports when it was last opened would settle the question.
Smart Lock InstallationThe drawer behind the counter holds a tangle of keys with tape labels: front old, side, Dave. Some open things, some open nothing, and the hardware-store copies mean the true count drifted long ago past anything written down.
Commercial RekeyingSomething went missing from the storeroom over a weekend, and when you ask who was in the building, the honest answer is anyone with a key. There is no list, no time stamp, no way to narrow it down.
Access Control InstallationThe car is yours now, but somebody else still holds a key to it. Adding another key is not enough; you want the old ones to stop working the vehicle so the question is settled for good.
Car Key ReplacementA car sits at the cottage all season, and the only key to it lives on a ring three hours away in the city. Every visit begins with the same small worry about whether that ring made it into the right bag.
Spare Car Key DuplicationThe blade snapped off flush with the door lock last winter, and the shop that cut a replacement only matched the metal shape. The fob still locks and unlocks the doors from across the driveway, but the engine cranks over and over without ever catching.
Transponder Key ProgrammingIt can be, with the same reinforcement behind it. A keypad or app-controlled deadbolt eases the problem of stolen keys, since codes are changed in seconds and a lost phone is unpaired rather than rekeyed. Its bolt still needs a boxed strike and long screws, because the frame is what failed; a keyed override should be rekeyed too, with any spare left with a trusted person, not hidden outside; a cylinder-free model needs no override key. Choose one with a full-throw bolt and fit it to a reinforced door edge.
It is good practice whenever a key has been out of your hands for a while and you are not certain it came back. Contractors, cleaners, sitters and short-term guests all have honest reasons to hold a key, and most return it, but a rekey at the end of the arrangement is what turns 'probably' into certainty. Some households make it a habit at the close of every project.
A drop of the right lock oil into the latch and bolt once a year is plenty. If the lock has a pin-tumbler cylinder, use whatever lubricant that cylinder's maker specifies, since some take a dry graphite or PTFE product and others a specified liquid one. Try the latch and deadbolt each spring and fall; if the bolt starts to scrape, the strike wants a small adjustment before anything is strained. Keep bit keys out of a pocket where they bend.
Reputable models encrypt what passes between the lock, the phone and the maker's servers, and the ordinary risks are more mundane: a code shared too widely, a default code never changed, or an account with a weak password. The installation addresses those directly by deleting factory codes, giving each person their own, and setting up your account with a strong password and two-step sign-in where offered. Firmware updates from the app close gaps as they are found, so accept them.
For a business the locksmith looks for someone with standing: the owner, a director, or a manager who can show written authority from one of them. A lease, a business registration or a letter on company paper usually settles it, along with photo identification. Where doors belong to a landlord, the property manager's approval is asked for as well. This is a short step and it protects the business from having its own locks changed by the wrong person.
Yes. A system installed with some spare capacity in its controller and power supply can usually take another door or two by adding a reader and lock and wiring it back in. A door far from the existing wiring can instead run its own standalone unit. Either way, existing schedules and credentials do not need to be rebuilt from scratch.
Adding a key leaves the existing keys in place; the car simply learns one more. The exception is a deliberate all-keys-lost reset or an erase you ask for, which clears every stored key and then registers only the ones you present. For that reason the locksmith asks you to bring every key you own to the visit, so each one can be re-registered and tested rather than left behind and forgotten by the car.
Where the transponder supports it, the chip in the working key is read and its data cloned onto a fresh chip, sometimes with vehicle-specific data pulled from the car to help. Where cloning is not supported for that particular vehicle and chip, the locksmith instead connects through the diagnostic port and has the car's own security module enrol a freshly coded chip as a new, independently authorized key.
All-keys-lost work starts by re-establishing secure access to the vehicle's own immobilizer module, since there is no existing key left to vouch for a new one. Once that access is confirmed, a fresh key is cut and its chip is written into the vehicle the same way any key would be, and the visit finishes with the usual start-up test across a few ignition cycles.
Smart locks, keypads and fobs are only worth fitting to doors in Otterville that are mechanically sound. So we check alignment and the bore first, install the hardware, then sit with you while codes are set and a phone is paired. Every electronic lock we fit keeps a mechanical key as a backup, and you leave knowing how to use both.