Commercial · Westmount
Commercial Rekeying in Westmount
The office has been reshuffled twice since the locks were last touched.
In plain words
A business hands out keys as people join and rarely gets every one back as people leave. Rekeying resets that count. Instead of guessing how many copies of the front-door key exist, the cylinders are repinned so only the newly cut set works, and those keys are numbered and signed for. Where turnover is steady, the locksmith can fit interchangeable cores, which let a manager swap a core with a control key in a couple of minutes when someone departs, so the reset becomes routine rather than an event. Either way you end up with a premises where the keyholder list matches the staff list.
How the visit goesThe manager's key ring went missing somewhere between the bank and the car, and the master on it opened every door in the building. Until the cylinders are changed, whoever finds it is holding the run of the place.
Commercial Rekeying
How the visit goes
Which doors are the landlord's
In a plaza, an office building or a multi-tenant industrial unit, some doors on your floor plan are not yours to rekey. Corridor doors, electrical and mechanical rooms, shared loading doors and the building's fire exits usually sit on the landlord's master system, and a suite entrance may be required to accept the landlord's key as well as yours. The locksmith sorts the openings into two columns before starting: those the lease puts under your control, which get the new plan, and those that stay as they are or need the property manager's say-so. Where a suite door must accept both a tenant key and the building master, it is pinned to do exactly that.
Swapping interchangeable cores
Where the business already runs on interchangeable cores, the door hardware never comes apart. The control key goes into the figure-eight core, turns a few degrees, and the whole core slides out of the lever or padlock in one piece. A freshly combinated core goes in the same way, the operating key is tried, and that door is done. The old cores travel back to the bench to be repinned for another opening or held as spares. This is what makes cores so well suited to businesses with steady turnover: a single control key, kept in the manager's safe rather than on a ring, is all it takes to change a lock.
A keying chart in plain language
You leave the visit with a one-page chart that lists every opening by name, the key group it belongs to, the code stamped on that group's keys and how many were cut. It is written for the manager, not the locksmith: the stockroom is called the stockroom, and a glance shows that key group B opens the office and the cash room and nothing else. The bitting details that a locksmith needs to add a cylinder later are kept separately and securely. Pin the chart inside the manager's cupboard, keep a copy off site, and it becomes the reference every future key question is answered from.
Commercial Rekeying
In the van
Key gauge and decoder
Plug follower
Cylinder removal and spanner tools
Mortise cylinder set screws and cams
Interchangeable cores and control key
Commercial Rekeying
What affects the quote
Interchangeable cores versus repinning
Cores swapped with a control key are the shortest work on site, while cylinders that must come apart on a bench take longer. Supplying spare cores for the manager to hold is priced as its own line.
No existing chart or keys
When nobody knows what the current keys open, the locksmith reads and records each cylinder before planning the new keying, and that reconstruction is time in the quote.
Mix of lock types
A key-in-lever cylinder, a storefront mortise cylinder, a back-door rim cylinder and a padlock take different handling, though several full-size formats can share one pin kit for the same key system; a premises with a wide mix of cylinder types and brands still takes longer than one with one.
What to have ready
- Can you gather every existing key so they can be read on site?
- Who at the business has the authority to approve changing the locks?
- When is the premises quiet or empty enough for the work?
Commercial Rekeying: questions
QuestionsCan all our doors be put on a single key?
Yes, if the cylinders share a keyway or can be fitted with ones that do. Keying everything alike is popular with small shops because staff carry one key and spares are simple. The trade-off is that one key then opens the cash room as readily as the front door. Many businesses choose a middle path: the doors everyone uses on one key, the sensitive rooms on another, and an owner's master that opens both.
What do you do with the old keys?
They are gathered, tested at each rekeyed door to confirm they no longer work, and then cut through so they can never be used or copied. You can keep the pieces or the locksmith takes them away. Any old key that still operates a door you chose to leave unchanged is handed back and noted on the chart, so it is clear which keys remain live and which are scrap.
Is a restricted keyway worth it for a business?
A restricted keyway uses blanks that only the locksmith or authorized source can obtain, released against whatever that key-control program requires, a signed letter, card, signature record or factory authorization naming who may order keys. Hardware stores and kiosks have no blanks, so copies are far harder to get without your say-so. It costs more per key than a standard keyway and is most valuable where keys pass through many hands, such as retail with part-time staff, shared premises or anywhere the count of copies has drifted before.
Related services
- Access Control InstallationThe keypad on the side door has started sticking on cold mornings, codes get shared instead of reset, and half the staff still remember a code you meant to retire two hires ago.
- Panic & Exit HardwareThe new access-control reader at the staff entrance works fine going in, but nobody has sorted out the door's exit side, and right now a card reader and a pushbar exist as two separate ideas.
- Commercial-Grade Lock ReplacementAn inspection report flagged the rear exit as needing hardware that opens with one motion and no key, and that door currently has an ordinary keyed knob on the inside.