Martinez · downtown, the waterfront and the hills · answered at any hour
That lock was built to be taken apart.
The old center and the streets climbing Alhambra Heights carry the oldest hardware anywhere around the strait. Not a cylinder dropped into a round hole, but a cast bronze body let into the edge of the leaf: cover plate, levers, springs, bolt, and a knob riding a square spindle. Two screws hold the whole thing in the door. It lifts out, opens on a cloth, gets washed and re-sprung and goes back, and afterward it turns better than the boxed lock somebody would have sold you to take its place. Very little of the work here is a dead mechanism. Most of it is a century of hard grease, grit and paint sitting inside a working one.
Someone answers at any hour · the $89 visit is one of the things that number already pays for.
4.9 / 5143 reviewsMartinez & the strait
Three ages of house, and what is standing on the door
- The bronze body in the edgeCut into the leaf when the house or the shopfront went up, around the turn of the centuryA cast case about the size of a paperback, with a keyhole instead of a cylinder and a knob on a square spindle. None of it was meant to be thrown out. The cover unscrews, the levers and springs lift free, the bolt gets washed and greased, and a snapped spring comes off the van. What stops these locks is nearly always hardened grease and paint dust rather than wear, and rebuilding one leaves the leaf, the trim and the escutcheon exactly as they have been for a hundred years.
- The rim bolt screwed on above itAdded in the seventies, four screws driven straight through the paint of the dayA surface deadbolt with its keeper on the face of the jamb, and almost always a second key for the same door. This is the layer that gives out first, because the keeper went into trim rather than framing and the leaf has moved in the fifty years since. Roughly half can be brought back into line and put onto the same blade as everything else. The rest come off, and the holes get filled instead of left staring at the street.
- Whatever went on last yearA keypad or a shelf deadbolt fitted above both, usually by whoever owned the place before youHardware machined to a standard that settled in the mid-seventies, screwed into a leaf seventy years older than that. The bore got cut where there was room rather than where it belongs, the backset was a guess, and the override key that came in the carton is still an uncut blank in a kitchen drawer. This layer is also where new metal genuinely belongs: on a back door, a shop door or an office door that has to resist somebody, a current cylinder is the right answer and you will hear it said that way.
Three locks on one leaf is the ordinary case downtown and up the Alhambra Heights slope, and they seldom agree with one another. The bronze body is original and can be rebuilt. The rim bolt above it went into trim and has been out of line for years. The keypad on top was made for a door standard that arrived seventy years after the door did. Behind all three sits the layer nobody counts, which is paint. The leaf has been recoated so often that you can count the coats on its cut edge the way you would count growth rings, and the same paint has narrowed the rabbet, filled the keeper mortise and, on a few doors a year, packed the keyhole itself. That sets the order of the visit: paint out of the stop and the keyway, the body out and cleaned, the keeper moved until the bolt drops straight through, and a conversation about buying hardware only after all of that. Nothing on this page is priced without the $89 visit inside it, and when the clock is about to add $45 or $85 you are told so while the figure is being said.
What we do
Sixteen jobs, and half of them start with a case that comes apart
A key that turns halfway in a bronze case and stops, a front door that will not latch because the rabbet has taken another coat of paint, a porch door whose only key went missing years ago, a car locked at the marina lot with the fob on the seat, a shop door on Main Street that stopped throwing its bolt, a padlock on a boat shed seized solid. Choose the work below and its range is printed here. Say what the key does when you turn it, and the range comes back as one number.
from $99Emergency
Doors opened at any hour, and still locking properly when the van pulls away
- House Lockout$125–$229
- Car Lockout$99–$189
- Business Lockout$135–$245
- Post Break-In Lock Repair$165–$429
from $27/cylResidential
Rebuilds, rekeys, deadbolts and safes for doors hung a hundred years ago
- Lock Rekeying$27–$44 per cylinder
- Lock Replacement & Installation$119–$315
- Smart Lock Installation$185–$459
- Safe Opening$189–$509
from $152Commercial
Main Street shopfronts, the offices above them, and the yards and sheds by the water
- Master Key Systemscustom quote
- Panic Bars & Exit Devices$289–$739
- Access Controlcustom quote
- Storefront Door Locks$152–$449
from $95Automotive
Car keys, fobs and ignitions done wherever the vehicle happens to be standing
- Car Key Replacement$149–$399
- Key Fob Programming$95–$189
- Ignition Repair$175–$435
- Motorcycle Keys$119–$275
Prices
All sixteen ranges, and what the key tells us before anyone drives
Sixteen jobs, fourteen of them with a range and two quoted once the openings have been counted on site. What moves a figure inside its range here is what is actually in the door: a cast mortise case that comes apart, cleans up and goes back in takes the low end, while a case seized with a century of paint, or one that has to be replaced because a part inside it is broken beyond repair, takes the high one. Say what the key does when you turn it, and the range closes to a single number on the call.
Emergency
from $99
Residential
from $27/cyl
Commercial
from $152
We quote the smallest thing that actually fixes it. A cylinder that has been fighting the key usually wants stripping and repinning, not replacing. A door that has settled wants its hinge screws and its strike put back in line, not new hardware bolted over the problem. Five doors that all want one key are a single rekey. Say the year the house was built and what stopped you when you call (925) 436-1856.
On every job
The Case Comes Apart First
Four rules that do not change between a Main Street shopfront, a Victorian on the Alhambra Heights slope, a rented flat by the station and a steel man-door in a yard by the water. Ninety days on the labor, showing on the receipt as a line rather than offered as a sentiment.
- 1An old lock gets opened before anybody prices a new oneA bronze mortise body is a repairable machine, and working it that way is most of the job in this town. Out of the edge it comes, the cover off, and then a look at what is in there: grease gone to wax on the levers, grit that arrived through the keyhole, a spring that finally let go, a bolt worn on one face. Washed, re-sprung and reset, that lock turns with one finger again and keeps its own knob, plate and cut in the leaf. If the body has cracked through or the part exists nowhere, you get told that instead, along with what would go in and what it costs.
- 2A number that is finished when you hear itWhat gets quoted on the phone already contains the visit, the labor and whatever ends up screwed to the door, and the $89 call-out is a component of it rather than an extra waiting underneath. Arrivals between 8pm and midnight carry $45 and between midnight and 7am $85, both named while you are still deciding. After that the arithmetic is closed. A case packed solid with paint, a keeper fixed into trim, a bore somebody cut off center decades ago: none of it changes what you pay.
- 3Paint is work, and it is quoted as workA leaf recoated every few years since the twenties closes into a rabbet that has lost a quarter inch to enamel alone. The bolt leaves the lock exactly as it should and then lands on a ridge instead of dropping through the keeper, and the household reads that as a lock going bad. Clearing the stop, the keeper mortise and the keyway is scraper and solvent work with real minutes in it, done on the same trip and inside the same figure. A good number of these calls finish with nothing new on the door, and that shorter invoice is the intended outcome rather than a fluke.
- 4Every lock still on the door leaves with a key that fits itDoors here often carry two or three locks answering to two or three keys, one of which went missing during somebody else's ownership. The visit ends with a working key for each lock still hanging, tried while you watch, and wherever the mechanisms allow it they are brought onto a single blade. Where a keypad is in the stack, the blank from the carton goes on the machine that afternoon rather than back in the drawer. Ninety days on the labor, an itemized receipt by email, and a written description for a landlord, an office manager or an adjuster whenever one is asked for.
Reviews
What people say after the old case went back in
Bronze cases stripped and repinned, a rabbet cut back to bare wood so a bolt could reach its keeper, a key cut for a lock nobody sells any more, a padlock freed on a shed by the water, a car opened at the marina lot, from the shopfronts of the old centre up to the long drives of Virginia Hills, each with the number that ended up on the card.
4.9/ 5143reviews
Martinez & the strait
“Our front door is original to the house and the key had been stiffening for two winters until it quit turning altogether on a Sunday. I assumed we were buying a new lock and losing the old knob, which I did not want. Instead he pulled the whole bronze body out of the edge of the door, opened it on a towel on the porch rail, and showed me grease that had gone as hard as candle wax plus one spring snapped clean through. $215 to wash it out, fit a new spring and put it back where it came from. Same knob, same plate, not one new hole. It turns with two fingers now and I keep finding reasons to go out and try it.”
“Our cafe sits a block off the courthouse and the rear exit failed a walk-through because the bar would not release with any weight leaning on the door. $415 for that door on the phone, $415 on the card. He worked at half past six in the morning while the ovens were still cold, rebuilt the device, then reset the leaf so the latch drops in rather than riding over the keeper. The recheck passed the following week. The device is named by model on the receipt, which is exactly what our file wanted.”
“I run two rentals near the station and a tenant handed back a ring of eight keys with no account of what six of them opened. Five cylinders at $32 apiece with the $89 visit inside the total, $249, both units finished in one morning. He repinned what was already on the doors rather than selling me hardware, and he flushed out the front lock on the older unit for nothing because he said the keyway was half full of paint dust. Each unit sits on its own key and I carry one that opens both.”
“Our shed down by the water has a steel man-door and the cylinder seized at about half past nine at night with two of us and all our tools shut inside the yard. $189 with the $45 evening already counted in, quoted on the call and that is what the card took. About fifteen minutes from downtown. He got it open without cutting anything, then pulled the cylinder, flushed the salt out and greased it, which took longer than the opening did. He also said plainly that a plated padlock lasts roughly a season this close to the strait and to buy stainless next time.”
“Door pulled shut behind me around ten at night, keys on the kitchen counter, dog watching me through the window. $174 quoted with the $45 evening in it, $174 on the receipt. Twenty-two minutes, which he flagged on the call because we are out toward Morello. He opened it with picks and left no mark, then put long screws through the top hinge because the leaf had dropped far enough to be scraping the sill. Cut me a spare at the van, and it lives with a neighbor now.”
“My only truck key went into the reeds off the trail, and the dealership answer was a tow plus most of a week without the truck. He worked in the driveway instead: licence and registration read against the plate, blade cut, chip written, spare done in the same sitting, engine running inside the hour. $289 for the pair, the number I was given on the phone. One star off because we sit at the far south end of town and it ran closer to thirty-five minutes before he arrived, although he did tell me on the call that this corner is the longest run on his map.”
Why us
The cheapest lock on this street is the one already in the door.
Old bronze gets repaired here, not condemned on sight
Downtown and the Alhambra Heights slope run on cast mortise bodies, and the default here is to service one rather than sell against it. The van carries lever springs, spindles, escutcheons in several finishes, blanks for profiles that left the catalogs generations ago, and a file kit for reading a lock that has lost its only key. A large share of these calls end with the original lock back in the original mortise, turning properly, and no fresh holes in a leaf that has been in that opening since the county was young.
A century of paint, counted into the quote and not discovered later
Coats do two things to a door. They narrow the rabbet until the bolt has nowhere to land, and they fill the keyway and the keeper mortise with dust that acts like grit once it works into a mechanism. Scraping the stop, clearing the mortise and flushing the keyway carries a real cost in minutes, and it lives inside the figure named on the call rather than surfacing when somebody is already in your hallway. On a fair number of doors it is the entire repair.
Twelve minutes downtown, twenty-seven at the south edge, and both said out loud
There is no counter to visit, since what has stopped working is screwed to your door and cannot be carried anywhere. Working out of the old center: Downtown Martinez about 10 minutes, the waterfront and marina 13, Alhambra Heights 15, Muir Station 17, Vine Hill 19, Morello Park 21, Alhambra Hills 24, Virginia Hills 27. Eighteen is the average of those eight. Where the honest number is the bad one, it gets said while you are still deciding rather than discovered at minute thirty.
A working town keeps working hours, and so does the van
The courthouse and the offices around it, the shops on Main Street, the sheds and yards by the water, the plants east of town with their gatehouses and shift changes. Doors here get unlocked early and locked late, which makes a seven in the morning start before a crew shows up, or a job after a yard closes, a normal booking at normal figures. Ninety days on the labor either way, an itemized receipt in your email, and a written line for whoever has to file it.
How it works
From a key that stops halfway to a case that turns clean
- 1
Describe what is actually in the door
Whether the key meets a keyhole or a round cylinder. Whether a second lock is screwed on above it, and whether that one has its own key. Whether the bolt comes out and misses, or never comes out at all. Then the neighborhood, and whatever stands between the curb and the lock: a deep porch, a side gate, a long drive, a gatehouse. Those four answers shape the visit far more than the name on any lock.
- 2
One number, settled while you are still on the phone
It takes in the visit, the labor and any part that ends up on the door, with the $89 call-out inside it and the clock counted where the clock applies, $45 from 8pm and $85 after midnight. If what you are describing turns out to be a garage door spring or an opener motor, you find that out during this conversation rather than after somebody has crossed town. You decide with the number already in front of you.
- 3
Scrape, clean, align, and only then fit anything
A text names the technician and gives a window drawn from wherever the van actually is. At the door, ID goes against the address or a registration against the plate before a case is opened. Then the stop and the keyway get cleared, the body comes out and is cleaned, the keeper is moved until the bolt drops through, and buying something is discussed after that if it is still needed. You try the lock yourself before anyone packs up. Card or tap where you stand, itemized receipt by email, ninety days on the labor.
Coverage
Every part of Martinez, and the towns around the strait
Average arrival 18 minutes across Martinez, from twelve in the old centre to twenty-seven out at Virginia Hills, and longer to Pacheco, Pleasant Hill, Concord, Lafayette, Benicia and Hercules. Every area page carries its own minute.
Free estimate
Four questions, then the same range this site publishes.
Not an emergency? Answer four questions and the published range for that work comes back on the screen, with nothing held behind a phone call. If it is urgent, the form steps aside and hands you the number.
- 1What went wrong?A lockout, a key, a lock change, or something else entirely.
- 2Where is the door?A house, an apartment, a car or a business.
- 3How soon?If it is right now, the form gets out of the way and you call.
- 4Where does the range go?A name and a number. Email and cross street only if you like.
Before you call anyone
Five questions worth a minute before you give out the address
A phone search for a locksmith here turns up a good many results that are not locksmiths. They are call centers, often several states off, that take an address, pass it to whoever bids for it, name a price low enough to sound harmless, and produce an invoice for three hundred once the door is open. In this town that pattern costs more than money, because a bronze body that would have cleaned up in an hour gets a drill put through it and is gone for good. The five questions below take about a minute between them.
- 1Ask how they would handle a mortise lock. If nobody can describe lifting the body out of the edge of a door, they have not worked these streets and are reading off a parts list.
- 2Ask for a single number that already holds the $89 visit and the late hour. Anything phrased as a starting price is a placeholder for a conversation on your porch.
- 3Ask what they reach for before a drill, and what would go on the door if the drill won anyway. Someone whose first instinct is drilling is thinking about how long your job takes.
- 4Ask whether scraping paint is included or billed afterward. On a door carrying a century of coats that scraping is often the repair itself, and a quote that ignores it will grow while somebody is standing in your hallway.
- 5Refuse cash only. A receipt with a business name and separate lines is what a landlord, an adjuster or a bookkeeper can actually use, and a total on a scrap of paper is a record of nothing.
FAQ
The questions an old door raises
The key goes in and will not turn. Does the lock have to come off the door?+
It has to come off the door to be worked on, and then it usually goes back on. A cast bronze mortise body is a serviceable machine: the cover unscrews, the levers and springs lift out, and what has stopped it is nearly always hardened grease, grit that came in through the keyhole, and dust from the last few coats of paint. Washed, re-sprung and greased, the same body drops back into the same mortise and turns better than it has in a decade. That work is billed in the $119 to $315 line. Replacement comes up only when the case has cracked through or a part exists nowhere, and you are shown the reason before anything gets ordered.
The bolt comes out and the door still will not lock. Why?+
Paint, almost every time. A leaf downtown or on the Alhambra Heights slope has been recoated every few years for a hundred years, and each coat narrows the gap it closes into. The bolt leaves the lock exactly as it was designed to and then meets a ridge of enamel rather than dropping through the keeper. The repair is a scraper, a solvent and some patience on the stop, the keeper mortise and sometimes the keyway itself, plus moving the keeper where the leaf has settled since it was fixed. It happens on the same trip and inside the same figure, and it is the cheapest thing that door will need all year.
What is the wait from the old center to my address?+
The clock starts near Main Street and the citywide average is eighteen minutes. Downtown Martinez runs about 10, the waterfront and marina 13, Alhambra Heights 15, Muir Station 17, Vine Hill 19, Morello Park 21, Alhambra Hills 24 with the longer driveways, and Virginia Hills 27 at the south edge where the road loops around. Outside the city the same price list applies: Pacheco about 14, Pleasant Hill 18, Concord 21, Lafayette 24, Benicia 26 across the bridge, Hercules 29. When your address is one of the slow ones you get the slow number while you are still on the phone.
Is a hundred-year-old lock safer than a new one?+
No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling nostalgia. An old bronze body is worth keeping for three real reasons: it can be repaired, it fits a mortise nothing modern matches, and it was made better than most of what sits on a shelf today. Resistance is a separate question, and a lever lock with a keyhole is not a modern cylinder. On a front door in plain view of the street, a rebuilt body with its keeper anchored into framing is a sound arrangement. On a back door, a side door, a shop door or an office door, current metal goes on and gets recommended out loud. Both can still end up on one key.
The only key to an old lock is gone. Can another be made?+
Often, and it does not start at a hardware counter, since nobody stocks that blank. The body comes out of the door and gets opened, the levers are read, and a key is cut and filed to what is actually inside rather than to a code in a book. Where the blank has genuinely stopped existing, the choice is between fitting a modern case into the old mortise, which keeps the knob and the plate you have, or converting that leaf to a cylinder. You get told which of the three you are in, and what each one costs, before anything comes off the door.
Two jobs that sound the same, two different figures. What decides it?+
Three things, and none of them is the brand. What is actually hanging on the leaf, since a rebuilt bronze body, a seventies rim bolt and a keypad are three different afternoons. How much paint has to come out before a bolt can reach anything, which on some doors is the bulk of the visit. And the hour, because an arrival after 8pm carries $45 and after midnight $85. Once those three are settled on the phone, the range collapses to one figure, and that figure is what the card sees.
Do nights, weekends and holidays change the number?+
A Saturday costs what a Tuesday costs, and so does the Fourth of July. The only thing that shifts a figure is the hour on the clock: $45 added for an arrival between 8pm and midnight, $85 between midnight and 7am. Both are inside the number quoted before you agree to anything, so nothing new appears once the door is open. A $140 house lockout in daylight is quoted at $185 late in the evening and $225 in the small hours, and those are the numbers on the receipt.
We just closed on a house here. What is worth doing first?+
Four things in this order. Reset any keypad code, which takes two minutes and costs nothing, because the code you were handed has been read by more people than you can list. Retire the metal keys with a rekey at $27 to $44 a cylinder and bring the outside doors onto one blade while the van is already at the curb. Then count the locks on the front door, because an old house in this town commonly carries two or three on separate keys and at least one of those keys is missing. Last, close every exterior door without holding it and try to lock it. Any door that needs a shove first is a paint and keeper job, not a purchase.
I rent near the station. What can I have done without the owner?+
Being let back into the home you pay rent on is yours to arrange, and nobody phones the owner about it. Bring photo ID showing that address, or ID plus something on your phone that ties you to the unit, such as a lease page, a rent receipt or mail with your name on it. Changing what is on the door is the owner's decision instead: a rekey, a new deadbolt or a keypad needs a yes from the landlord or the manager, and getting that yes before the van is dispatched saves everybody a trip that cannot legally begin. Muir Station and the streets around the old center hold most of the rented housing here, so this comes up most weeks. A receipt can be made out to you, to the owner, or to both at once.
Do you cover the shops downtown, the yards by the water and the plant gates?+
All of it. Aluminum shopfronts and the offices over them around Main Street and the courthouse. Exit devices on kitchen and cafe back doors, usually with an inspection date driving the schedule. Master systems for a floor of offices where the tenant list has changed twice. Gates, boat sheds and man-doors along the waterfront and the tracks, where salt finishes plated hardware in a season and stainless is worth the difference. The plants east of town are the biggest employers around here and their gatehouses never shut, so early starts and late finishes are ordinary bookings rather than favors. Distance outside the city buys a longer wait and nothing else.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say whether the key meets a keyhole or a cylinder, and the rest of the call is quick
Martinez and the towns around the strait, around the clock. What sits in the edge of the leaf decides the work and the work decides the number, which is settled on the phone with the $89 visit and any late hour already inside it. It reads the same on the receipt. Ninety days on the labor, a rebuilt bronze case covered the same as a new lock.