Nonsense. The Schlage locks at Home Depot are the same as the same model of Schlage locks anywhere else -- the HD employees are blaming the hardware for their own incompetence. You want competent locksmith service, you hire a locksmith. You want hack work, have it done by a hack at a home center.
I had several Schlage locks rekeyed this spring by a professional locksmith; he didn't have any trouble at all. Dropped three locks off with him and went to the post office, came back in twenty minutes and all three were sitting on the counter waiting for me.
snipped-for-privacy@toddh.net (Todd H.) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@ripco.com:
Incompentence. I rekey locks all the time, both Kwikset and Schlage, and they're both fine from that point of view. The plastic components in the Kwikset locks are what bothers me. I never had the problems you describe with either lock.
Any lock installed improperly will seem like a piece of junk.
But do professional locksmiths often have to file off large metal burrs left on top of holes where the pins drop in so the cylinder plug can go back in without binding? Seems like sloppy manufacturing to me to leave burrs like that that need to be filed off.
And I'm not sure why on two separate occasions folks at two different home depots, 2 years apart, had similar struggles and both, unprompted, volunteered that they don't have nearly as much trouble rekeying other brands.
And to add additional circumstantial evidence to my forming "Schlage = crap" opinion, over Thanksgiving, I visited a relative with a fancy new front door lockset and handle. Pressed down on the thumb lever -- solid, wouldn't move. They open the door and welcome us inside, puzzled since the door was unlocked. For some reason, the mechanism would randomly bind so no one could get in, key or not.
Imagine my surprise when I looked at the brand stamp on that mechanism. And guess where it was purchased when I asked the homeowner where they happened to get it. Could be his error, but not too sure what you could do to cause metal on metal binding randomly.
So Schlage may be the cat's ass of locks, but based on these three experiences I won't be buying any more any time soon.
No, my personally avoiding a given manufacturer in the future isn't going to bring them to their knees, but that wasn't my aim. Telling folks that looking beyond both Kwickset and Schlage might be warranted was my aim. Point was just that I had plenty of datapoints (in my admittedly very limited lock purchasing experience) that suggest Schlage may not be The Grand Poobah of locksets.
And what I was thinking and didn't say earlier is that their popularity also makes them low hanging fruit, and being low hanging fruit might be something that disturbs you after watching this:
: :>Many times I've been at work and just had to warm up the key in my hand, and : :>put it in the lock and repeat until i got the cylinder warm enough to turn...
: : It works a lot faster if you warm the key up with a cigarette lighter.
: That assumes one has a lighter... when standing out in the parking lot one : uses what one has available... what was more frustrating for me is it's : always the alarm key that freezes, not the door lock... so I could get in the : car, but the alarm would run out the battery if I did...
: Oh the torment...
I would recommend however if your having this problem, park in the hancock tower parking garage for a while... it's a neat ride up the ramp and the garage is heated... great place to thaw the car...
:> For those of you out of Chicago, it is 12 degrees here tonight. How do :> I keep the locks on our outside back-gate and car-door street parking) :> from getting frozen? :> :> Anything work better than WD-40 (which is all I can think of trying)?
: I've got three house locks that are frozen right now too. I think it's because : we had those really warm days last week, then torrential rains for a few days : then it went arctic on us. Unusual weather pattern is to blame.
: Later today I'm taking the lock sets off and bringing them inside to thaw then : dry out then I'll reattach it all. It should be fine then.
Can I recommend a storm door? Keeps the rain off your interior locks (provided you actually have a storm window and not a screen in it in the winter)...
Easy to install too (but I wouldn't do it this week...
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