A Villenave house rarely comes with a single key
Take stock before deciding anything: front door, service door onto the garden, the connecting door between the garage and the house, the pedestrian gate, the utility room, the shed at the bottom of the plot. On estates built in phases, these openings were often fitted years apart, with mismatched hardware. The result is always the same: a heavy bunch of keys, keys nobody can match to a door any more, and a service door nobody has operated in a long time.
Two directions are then open. Either each access point keeps its own key, which limits the consequences of losing one but makes the bunch heavier. Or the cylinders are dealt with together so that a single key opens several doors, provided they belong to the same range and the dimensions of each opening allow it. That second option has to be decided before the parts are bought, never afterwards: which is why we survey every access point and then present a detailed quote before any work.
When the mechanism is exactly as old as the house
In houses built between the sixties and the eighties, the front-door lock is sometimes the original one. The mechanism still works, but the model is no longer manufactured, spare parts are becoming scarce and the timber door frame has moved over the seasons. Replacing it calls for precise measurements: centre distance, backset, handing, thickness of the door leaf, position of the strike plates. Sometimes the frame has to be reworked before fitting, otherwise the new mechanism will take exactly the strain that finished off the last one.
In the apartment blocks built along the main roads, the situation is simpler but more regulated. The entrance hall works on a badge, independently of your flat entrance door: replacing the cylinder of the flat after moving in therefore does not affect access to the building. A shielded multipoint flat entrance door, on the other hand, means removing the cover panel to reach the rod linkage. As a tenant, tell your landlord in writing; as an owner, check what the co-ownership rules say about the external appearance of the door.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our lock and cylinder replacement page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Villenave-d'Ornon.