Count the doors in a typical cape or colonial and the number surprises people: the front door, a side or mudroom door, the slider to the deck, the door in from the garage, maybe a bulkhead and a shed. Each one may take a different key, and each person in the house needs most of them.
Condos add their own list: the unit door, a storage cage in the basement, a garage bay, the mailbox, and sometimes a building entrance. It adds up to a heavy ring, and a lot of chances for a key to wander off.
Copies are cut for whichever of those you need, and if the ring has grown too heavy to carry, the technician can show you how fewer keys could open the same doors.
Everything needed to cut house, condo and office keys travels with the technician. The work happens in your driveway or the office park lot, so a spare can be made during a lunch break instead of a separate trip to a store.
Each copy is tried in its own lock before it is handed over. Keys that look identical on a counter can behave differently in a lock that has been through enough New England winters, and the only test that counts is the door it is meant for.
When a lock is the problem rather than the key, you hear that at the door, with what it would take to set it right. Nothing beyond the copies is done unless you ask.
The office parks and labs along the highways run on keys with rules attached. A suite may be on a master key system, a lab may use restricted keys, and a facility manager usually keeps a record of who holds each one.
Ordinary suite keys are cut on site with the manager's approval. Master system keys are copied only with the owner's or facility manager's sign-off, and restricted keys go through their own system's channel with the owner's authorization. If a badge system controls the main entrance, the mechanical keys behind it can be copied, while the electronic side stays with its installer.
Many houses end up with a different key for every door, because the locks were bought at different times from different makers. Copying four keys for each person in the house works, but it also means four times as many keys to lose.
Often the better answer is to have the locks set to share one key during a rekey, then cut copies of that single key for everyone. Whether your locks allow it depends on the hardware, and the technician will say so before any work is planned.
Plenty of households here spend the day on the road, heading east toward Boston or out along the highway, with kids getting home before the adults do. A spare key with the right person turns a forgotten key into a short walk instead of a long wait on the steps.
The usual hiding places are the first ones anyone checks: under the mat, inside the porch light, on top of the door frame, in a fake rock by the steps. A trusted neighbor or a relative nearby is a far better home for a spare, and a key ring without the address on it keeps a lost set from pointing anyone to your door.
If a key does disappear for good, another copy does not fix it, because the missing one still works. That is the time to change the keys at the locks themselves, and then cut fresh copies for everyone who should still have them.
A single stop covers most homes, condos and suites.
Which locks, how many keys for each, and anything shared with an association or building.
Wear on the keys, the type of each lock, and whether any copy needs an owner's or manager's approval.
You agree to what will be cut before the machine runs.
Every copy turned in its lock, then handed over and counted with you.
In a condo complex, some keys are yours and some belong to everyone. Your unit door and your own mailbox are yours to copy. The building entrance, the pool, the storage room and the gym usually belong to the association, so copies are made with the property manager's approval.
That step can feel slow when you just want a spare for a relative, but it is the same rule that keeps a stranger from walking in with a copy of your building's key.
Keys wear down slowly, and a copy made from a worn key copies the wear. When the original has lost its shape, the new key is cut to suit the lock instead, so every copy after it starts clean.
Cold mornings are when worn keys give themselves away. A key that turns easily in summer can refuse to move in January, and forcing it is how keys snap. If a lock stiffens every winter, the technician will tell you whether it needs service before the next cold spell. Car keys and fobs are a different service, covered on our replacement car keys page.
Often, yes, by setting the locks to share a key during a rekey. Whether it works depends on the locks, and the technician checks before planning anything.
Yes. Ordinary suite keys are cut on site with approval, master system keys only with the owner's or facility manager's sign-off, and restricted keys through their own system's channel.
With the owner's, the landlord's or the manager's go-ahead, usually yes. Without it, no.
Yes. If it is too worn to copy well, a new key is cut to suit the lock itself, after we see ID with the address, a deed or a lease.
If the cage key is yours, yes. If the lock belongs to the association, a copy is made with the property manager's approval.
Yes, for most common padlocks and shed locks, as long as the key is in hand and the lock is yours.
Yes, as a separate service with cutting and programming done at the vehicle.
Yes. You hear what will be cut, and anything a lock needs, as a free estimate before any work.
Call us and we get a tech out to you.
