The services offered by your local locksmith aren’t the kind of things most people keep committed to memory. But when you need a local locksmith, you can rest assured that having a little knowledge in advance is a good thing. It’s a good idea not only to know what your local locksmith can do, but to meet and decide on which locksmith you might use well in advance of an emergency.

Jobs That a Local Locksmith Should be Able to Handle

• Installing new locks in your home. You may be looking for the services of a lock locksmith at 2 a.m. after you discover that the front door lock has been picked or kicked in. A local locksmith can install new locks in one door or throughout your house. The procedure can involve new locksets, or keep the old hardware and remove and replace the old cylinder and tumbler so that a new key is needed to open the lock.
• Key cutting. Another service that may become necessary at odd hours of the day or night. A locksmith can make a copy of the lock for your home or car and then use that copy to cut as many keys as you need. This is a great service when you discover you’ve lost your keys.
• Lock repair. Locks need to be replaced over time, along with just about everything else that’s mechanical. At some point, your key may get stuck in the lock or no longer open the door. Locksmiths can not only get you inside your home, but repair the lock so that you can sleep soundly.
• Break into your home or car. Sometimes you know where your keys are, but you’re simply on the wrong side of a locked door. A local locksmith has the tools to open up a locked car to get the key resting in the ignition or laying on the seat. The same goes with the front door of your home, where the locksmith might either pick the lock or use a bump key to open up the door without damaging your lock.

Choose a Local Locksmith Before an Emergency

This is a great idea for a couple of reasons. First, you can take the time needed to talk to and compare the local locksmiths in town to see which you prefer. Then, when you need a local locksmith, you know something about who you are calling. That is certainly not the case of an emergency when you are willing to call anyone who might come to address your problem. The second reason is that you can get an idea of the services and prices offered by the locksmith so that you won’t get taken advantage of during an emergency at 3 in the morning.

Surf Locksmith (424)672-1022

Home safes can be a great help if you have plenty of valuables at home to protect. From important documents to jewelry and cash, you’ll need home safes to protect them, from fire, burglary or floods.

When you have home safes, you have a great way to protect important items in a home. There are several choices to make after deciding a home safe would be a good idea. The first of those choices is a burglar or fire resistant safe or a hybrid safe.

Burglar Resistant Home Safes

• Designed to resist opening attempts.  Burglar resistant home safes are designed to protect valuables from thieves and they withstand attempts to be opened. In fact, burglar resistant safes are rated for the amount of time they can remain closed while an expert with high-tech equipment attempts to open the safe. The most common safes have 15- or 30-minute ratings.
• Must be property secured. If the safe can be carried away, a burglar with enough time will be able to open the safe. So burglar resistant safes must be secured to the floor or into a solid wall. That stops the thief from carrying them off and the resistance – thick walls made of steel and a door to resist drills and torches – is often enough. Time is usually of the essence to a burglar, who will not have up to 30 minutes to try to open a safe, in most instances.

Fire Resistant Home Safes

• Constructed to resist fires. These home safes have thicker doors than burglar safes and a different insulation and seal to resist even the most intense fires. They are designed to keep documents and even electronic gadgets like computer disks and camera film safe in a fire.
• ABC ratings. Most home safes designed for fire protection are rated based on a scale. The protection the safe offers in a particular fire for a certain period of time. Class C safes offer 1-hour protection in fires up to 1700 degrees. Class B offers 2-hour protection up to 1850 degrees and Class A provides 4-hour protection up to 2000 degrees.

Other Considerations for Home Safes

• What are you protecting? Tell your home safe expert what materials or objects you most want to protect – from jewelry, cash and records to guns, finance records and antiques or unusual items.
• What size of safe is necessary? This question will also help us to think about how much money you are likely to spend. Is there a small statue or antique of a certain size that requires a safe large enough for it to fit inside? Put your important belongings together and you will get an idea of how big your safe needs to be.
• Where will the safe be located? If the greatest fear is burglary, then you likely want a safe built into the floor or wall so burglars can’t carry it off. If the concern is a fire or flood, you may want a safe that is portable if you are evacuating from such a risk.
• What locking mechanism do you prefer? Once again, your lock expert can be of considerable help with this decision. There are electronic key pads and dial locks that are both very popular, as well as key locks.

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A cylinder lock is one of the most common forms of locks, seen in padlocks and throughout homes and businesses. A cylinder is basically a lock

with a cylinder mechanism that is opened by a key. The disadvantage to a cylinder lock is that it can often be defeated by thieves reasonably easily. However, the cylinder also offers a number of advantages.

• A cylinder lock can be rekeyed easily. All that’s needed to begin the process to rekey a cylinder lock is to remove the lock mechanism. This can be accomplished by removing the screws that attach the lock to the bolt work. If a key has been lost, for example, the entire lock does not need to be replaced. Instead, the cylinder is removed from the bolt assembly and the rekeying work can be completed.
• A master key can open many cylinder locks. There are many instances, both at home and in businesses, where it is helpful to have a variety of locks opened by the same master key. A cylinder lock makes this process fairly easy to put into place. The main advantage is not having to carry so many keys and reducing the confusion of grabbing the wrong key to enter or exit a door.
• Require different keys for each lock. The flexibility of the cylinder lock also allows different keys to be set for each lock. That could come in use at a business where access to certain areas is limited to supervisors who are given the correct set of keys. Instead of having all doors open with the same key, employee access can be limited to those given the set of keys that opens the particular door.
• Have different types of locks with a master key. Cylinder locks are used in many different formats that can be all opened by the same master key. This includes locks such as deadbolts, roller door locks, night latches and even padlocks. So in a business setting, this reduces the number of different keys that must be kept by workers or security personnel, making it much easier to open any lock if there is an emergency or time is of the essence.

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According to crime statistics, more than 1 out of every 5 homes are broken into through a ground-floor window. That makes window protect a

key element in your defense against burglars. Window security locks can make it more difficult for a burglar to break into your home.

• Secure sash frame windows. These are among the most common windows, along with double hung windows. Both can be protected by pin locks that are drilled through the bottom of the top sash and aligned with the bottom sash, so that both are secured. Or, a steel deadbolt can be placed at the top and bottom of the sash.
• How to handle sliding glass doors. There are a couple of issues here. One is to use a pin in the slide track so it cannot be opened from the outside. Metal devices called “charley bars” can also be used. They fold down at night to block the sliding door from being opened. The other issue is to secure the track itself, again to protect from attack from the outside. The burglar will try to lift the door off its track, but there are safety devices sold for just this purpose – pins that go through the sliding portion and the door itself.

Other Window Protection Beyond Security Locks

• Use stronger panes. That can mean vinyl, tempered glass or even polycarbonate. The object is to make it more difficult for a burglar to break the window. Tempered glass, for example, is 5 times stronger than regular glass. Most crime experts agree that there is no way to burglar-proof a structure. But the more you frustrate and delay a burglar, the more likely he or she will move on rather than risk apprehension.
• Use highly visible warning decals. These are a great idea even if you don’t have an alarm system or a vicious dog in the home. The idea is to give the burglar the picture of a home that is more trouble than it’s worth.
• Consider an alarm. There are many simple, inexpensive systems that trigger an alarm of some sort if the connection between connections on windows is broken, which can only happen if the window is being opened or tampered with. Again, a loud siren may not seem like a lot of protection. But it may be enough to scare a burglar off.

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When choosing a mobile locksmith, you want to first make your decision when you are not in an emergency situation. It’s best to look for the

mobile locksmith that offers the most services on a 24-hour basis for the most affordable price.

Services a Mobile Locksmith Will Offer

Each mobile locksmith will not offer the same services. That’s why it’s important to check with the locksmiths in your area, or at least check with 3 to 5 if there are a large number in your town, to find out the services that are offered. Some locksmiths specialize in auto or home services, while others try to offer as wide a variety of services as possible. Be wary because many mobile locksmiths will offer one level of services if they are responding to emergency calls and another level of services for normal calls during business hours. Here are some common services offered by mobile locksmiths:

• Lock repair. Locks can either fall into disrepair over time, or a key that becomes stuck can be turned and create some damage to the lock.
• Lockout services. This is probably the most common call for mobile locksmiths. Make sure the locksmith can handle home, car and keyless locks.
• Car key replacement. You are about to begin an important trip and realize that you’ve lost your car key. Mobile locksmiths can make a car key on site and may have keys in stock if your car key requires a chip to start the vehicle.
• Lock replacement. For many people who have been burglarized and have a broken or compromised door lock, there’s no waiting until the morning to put a new lock on the door or on all doors.
• Roadside assistance. Many mobile locksmiths also carry gasoline and cables to provide jumps for clients having vehicle trouble.

Choosing a Mobile Locksmith

Decide what services you want from a mobile locksmith. You may be looking for particular services or the company that offers the most after-hours services. Then, contact at least 3 to 5 mobile locksmiths, if you have that many in your town, and arrange to talk to the locksmith in person. Ask about experience, insurance and licensing, if that is required in your state. Get a list of services and prices and ask about any additional costs for emergency services, such as trip fees or higher after-hour costs. Be sure to ask for references and look for both current or recent clients as well as clients from the past. The main question is whether they would hire the locksmith again if they had a need for a mobile locksmith.

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Lock rekeying is one of many services offered by locksmiths. There are a number of situations when someone might consider lock rekeying in

their home. Here are some of the possibilities:

• Too many keys. This may sound trivial to some, but having too many keys on a keychain increasing the likelihood of eventually forgetting where one of the keys works. Many people don’t like a bulky key ring or the space that a handful of keys on a key ring takes up in a purse or in your pocket. Locksmiths can solve that problem by rekeying all the locks in your home to a single key.
• Too many people with keys. At some point, it’s simply a good security idea to change the locks or keys in your home. It’s a fact that most people give out copies of their house keys over time – to kids, workers, friends and neighbors. At some point, it’s a good idea to simply start over. You can change out the lock or simply rekey the lock so the old keys become worthless. This is the cheaper process. Make copies of the keys and give them out carefully to only a limited number of people you trust explicitly.
• Lost keys. If someone in your home has lost their keys, the only way to know that they didn’t fall into the hands of a burglar is to rekey the locks in your home. If the lost key only worked on the main entry door, that’s the only lock you need to deal with. Rekeying locks is less expensive than replacing them and leads to the same result.
• In a new house. Think for a moment about how many people had copies of the house key at your old home. That’s likely true in your new house and a compelling reason to change the keys in the house. You can make the old keys worthless either by rekeying the existing locks or buying new locksets. In a new home scenario, the issue is the degree of safety offered by the locks in your home. If they are made of quality materials and include a heavy gauge deadbolt, then there really is no reason to replace the locks, which costs more than rekeying the locks.

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There are certain occasions when you may want to replace locks on the doors in your home. Before taking any action, the next question to

answer is whether you need to replace the locks or simply rekey your existing locks. Rekeying locks is generally a cost-efficient way of getting rid of old keys and is something that many homeowners are able to do themselves. According to many security experts, there are certain times to replace locks instead of rekeying your existing locks.

• Malfunctioning locks. Like anything else, door locks fail over time. You may notice the key doesn’t turn as easily as it once did, or often gets stuck in the lock. At some point, you may not be able to turn the key anymore to open the lock. When the issue is the repair of a lock, then the only logical thing to do is to replace rather than rekey your existing locks.
• Move into a new home. There’s no telling how many different have copies of the key to your new home. Keys are copied and given to neighbors, family members and to workers on extended jobs in your home. On top of that, a lost key may have gotten into the wrong hands or someone who previously worked in your home may have copied your key with the plan to return. Rekeying the existing locks will make all the old copies worthless. But many security experts recommend replacing the locks when you move into a new home so that one of your most important elements of security is new and totally dependable.
• Upgrade your existing locks. If you are worried about the security that your current locksets provide, the only way to improve the level of protection is to get new locks. Maybe there is a door or doors without a deadbolt. Or perhaps the strike plate and deadbolt in your current locks aren’t as strong as they can be. The desire to put in a stronger, more reliable lockset is a common reason to replace locks.
• Avoid the risks of bump keys and lock picking. Even the most secure cylinder lock is vulnerable to lock picking attempts, particularly involving bump keys. These keys are cut in a special way to allow a burglar to defeat a cylinder lock in a matter of seconds. Stronger locks with deadbolts can make it more difficult for burglars, but only keyless locks can eliminate that particular threat. Locks are now available without keys that use fingerprint technology to open, rely on pushbutton codes to open or are triggered to open by a remote control signal. To switch to this digital technology, your current locks must be replaced.

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