Concord · Pleasant Hill · Pacheco · Clayton · Martinez · Walnut Creek
Half of Concord has the same front door. We carry the cylinder for it.
Concord was 6,953 people in 1950 and 85,164 twenty years later. Almost all of it went up between 1955 and 1968 on the same few locks — two bore sizes, one backset, four finishes — and most of that hardware is still hanging. Give the street and the door, and the figure is settled on the call instead of guessed at your porch.
Calls answered 24/7, nights, weekends and holidays. The $89 visit is counted inside the figure you hear, never stacked on top of it afterward.
4.9 / 51,204 reviewsConcord & central Contra Costa
- 1955–68
- the tract years: two bores, one backset and four finishes across most of the city
- 16 min
- from Todos Santos Plaza to downtown and the Monument corridor
- $89
- the visit, counted inside the figure you hear on the call
- 24/7
- calls answered through the night, on weekends and on holidays
What the tract years mean at your door
Two bores, one backset
Almost every tract door in the city was drilled for a 2 1/8 inch bore on a 2 3/8 inch backset. A new deadbolt or lever drops into the hole that is already there, so a lock change is an hour of fitting rather than a morning of carpentry, and the figure reflects that.
The lock that came later
Most of these doors picked up a second lock in the seventies or eighties, and that one is the variable: a different backset, a strike run into trim instead of the stud, sometimes a filled hole under the plate. It is the single thing on an otherwise known door worth describing on the call.
Where the rule stops
Clayton Valley and Crystyl Ranch went up later on different hardware, and the older houses in Martinez and Pacheco predate the tracts entirely. Those doors get quoted from what is actually hanging, not from what the street usually carries.
Published prices
Every job on one scale, floor to ceiling
The capsule shows where a job sits between $25 and $750. The call turns a range into a single figure, and on most Concord streets the hardware is already known, so there is little left to move it.
Emergency
from $89Residential
from $25/cylCommercial
from $149Automotive
from $89The full list adds the evening and overnight hours, the visit and the three things that move a range.
See every priceHow a figure is put together
inside every figure, never added afterward
- Daytime (7am–8pm)standard rates
- Evening (8pm–12am)+$40
- Overnight (12am–7am)+$75
The visit, the labor, the parts and any after-hours hour all sit inside the one figure you hear on the call. Nothing is added once the technician sees the door.
Hear my figureWhat we do
Four kinds of work, one way of quoting them
Doors opened when you are shut out, tract cylinders rekeyed or swapped, buzzer doors on the Monument corridor, shop fronts around the plaza, keys and fobs cut where the car is standing. Every job is priced from the list below, and on most streets the hardware is known before the van moves.
from $89Emergency
Doors opened the same hour, anywhere between the plaza and the foot of the mountain
- House Lockout$115–$195
- Car Lockout$95–$179
- Business Lockout$125–$225
- Post Break-In Lock Repair$159–$399
from $25/cylResidential
Rekeys, hardware, keypads and safes for streets where the doors were built alike
- Lock Rekeying$25–$40 per cylinder
- Lock Replacement & Installation$112–$285
- Smart Lock Installation$175–$435
- Safe Opening$179–$479
from $149Commercial
Storefronts, roll-up man-doors, exit hardware and master keys, counted door by door
- Master Key Systemscustom quote
- Panic Bars & Exit Devices$275–$715
- Access Controlcustom quote
- Storefront Door Locks$149–$435
from $89Automotive
Keys, fobs and ignitions done in the space the vehicle is already parked in
- Car Key Replacement$149–$379
- Key Fob Programming$89–$179
- Ignition Repair$169–$415
- Motorcycle Keys$112–$259
Coverage
Every Concord neighborhood, and the towns beside it
The van stands at Todos Santos Plaza. Average arrival 23 minutes across the city, longer up in Clayton Valley and out to Martinez and Bay Point; each area page shows its own.
On every job
The Known Door
Four things that hold the same way for a 1961 ranch house off Treat Boulevard, a third-floor apartment on Monument Boulevard and a shop door on Salvio Street.
- 01One figure on the call, holding the visit, the labor and the partsSay the street and say what the door is doing. What comes back is a single figure that already contains the $89 visit, the time on the job and every piece of hardware that ends up on the door. Not a starting point. Not a span that tightens once somebody is standing on your walkway. On most Concord streets the lock is a known quantity, so there is nothing left to discover that would justify a second number.
- 02That same figure lands on the receipt, whatever the technician findsA builder cylinder that has been swapped twice since 1962. A deadbolt somebody added in the eighties with the strike screwed into trim. A security screen over the whole opening. A slider track packed with paint. None of it moves what you pay. The card is charged the figure from the call, and the emailed receipt shows the same figure broken into lines.
- 03Opened without damage first, and a drill only once you say soPicks, decoders and bypass tools come out on every job, from an apartment cylinder on Detroit Avenue to a mortise body on a Martinez hill house, and the lock still works when the van pulls away. If a mechanism genuinely will not give, you hear what it is doing and what would go on in its place, and the choice is yours. Agreeing to a drill never buys anyone a higher figure.
- 04Card or tap at the door, and paper for whoever needs itA reader or a phone tap once the door behaves, not a minute before. The itemized receipt arrives in your inbox under a business name. When a landlord, a property manager or an insurer wants the job described in a line they can file, that line comes with it.
Reviews
What Concord says once the door is open
Jobs from the plaza out to Ygnacio Valley and up into Dana Estates, with the figure people actually paid.
4.9/ 51,204reviews
Concord & central Contra Costa
“Our house went up in 1962 and we finally admitted we had no idea how many keys were out there after thirty years of neighbors and dog sitters. I gave the street and said five cylinders: front, back, the slider bar, the garage side door and the gate. $172 for the lot, one figure, and it did not change. He repinned everything rather than selling me new locks, which was the point, and handed back the old keys in a bag so I could count them against what I had in the drawer. One key opens the whole property now.”
“Our back man-door beside the roll-up failed inspection because the exit device would not release under load. $412 for the door. He came at seven in the morning, before my crew was in, rebuilt the device and squared the door so the latch lands instead of scraping the sill. It passed on the recheck. Receipt itemized well enough that my bookkeeper did not ask me a single question about it.”
“I rent a third-floor apartment off Monument Boulevard and the door pulled shut behind me with my keys and my phone on the table. $132 on the call. I gave the building and the unit number, the van was there in about eighteen minutes, and he matched my ID to a lease page in my email before touching anything. Deadbolt open with nothing taken off the door, lock works exactly as it did. Nobody asked me to get my landlord on the line first, which I had expected and dreaded.”
“Original knob set from 1957 and a deadbolt some owner added in the eighties, neither of them lining up with the frame anymore. $186. What sold me was that the bore and backset were known off the street name, so the replacement came out of the van on the first trip instead of turning into a parts run. He set the new strike into the stud behind the jamb and showed me the short screws that had been holding the old one into trim. Door shuts with one hand now.”
“Restaurant on Salvio, twenty to nine at night, the cylinder on the back door turned halfway and stopped with my closing crew locked out of the walk-in. $186 with the evening hour already inside the figure rather than waiting for me at the end. Van on the block in sixteen minutes from the plaza. He wanted the lease on my phone and my ID first, which took a minute and I would rather he asked. Bolt retracted without pulling the door apart, then he cleaned and lubricated the cylinder so it stops binding when the kitchen heats up.”
“Locked out around ten at night up on the slope, side gate latched, everybody in the car with the heater running. $174 with the evening hour counted in. I was told straight out on the call that this corner is the longest arrival in the city, and it still ran twenty-six minutes, a few past the window in the text, which is the reason for four stars instead of five. Once he was there it took maybe three minutes, and he said the lock itself was fine and needed nothing, which he could easily have said otherwise.”
Why us
The street tells us the lock. That is what makes the figure honest.
The city was built alike, so the door is known before the call ends
Between 1955 and 1968 Concord filled in tract by tract, and street after street took the same bore, the same backset and the same handful of lock lines. Most of it is still hanging. That is not trivia, it is the whole reason a figure can be said while you are still on the phone, and the reason the right cylinder is usually already in the van instead of an hour away at a counter.
One van, and every minute measured from the plaza
No shop, no counter, no dispatch out of another county. The van is based at Todos Santos Plaza, which is the middle of the city by road as well as on the map. Sixteen minutes covers downtown and the Monument corridor, twenty-three is the average across Concord, Walnut Creek is twenty-four down Ygnacio Valley Road, and Clayton Valley, Martinez and Clayton run longer. Where a district is slower it is named as slower on the call.
A whole figure, hour included, before you agree to anything
The visit, the labor and the hardware arrive as one number while you are still on the phone, with the $89 visit inside it and the evening or overnight hour already counted rather than waiting at the end. You decide with that number in front of you. Whatever the technician meets behind the door is the technician's problem to solve, not an opening to revisit what you were told.
Stocked for what this city actually has on its doors
Builder knob sets, deadbolts and repinning stock for the tract streets through Sun Terrace, Meadow Homes, Ygnacio Valley and Dana Estates. Slider hardware and patio bars for the back of those same houses. Electric strikes, deadlatches and entry panels for the apartment blocks on Monument Boulevard and Detroit Avenue. Hookbolts, cylinders and closers for the glass fronts on Salvio and Grant. Exit devices and heavy cylinders for the man-doors on Bates Avenue and Solano Way. Keypad locks, safe tooling, and blanks and programmers for most of what parks at Sun Valley Mall and the two BART stations.
How it works
From the street name to the receipt
- 1
You call and give the street and what the door is doing
A house, an apartment, a shop, a warehouse, a car or a safe. Which street and which part of the city, the building and unit number when there is one, and whatever sits between the curb and the lock: a buzzer panel, a latched side gate, a security screen, steps up from the road.
- 2
The figure is said on the call, because that street is already known
Most of Concord was fitted with the same few locks in the same thirteen years, so the bore, the backset and the likely fault come with the address. One figure covers the visit, the labor and the hardware, with the $89 visit inside it and the night hour counted when the clock calls for it. You answer yes or no with the number in front of you.
- 3
The van leaves the plaza and a text names who is coming
The message carries the technician's name and a thirty-minute window drawn from where the van actually is. At the door, ID is matched to the address, or the registration to the plate, before a case is opened. When a landlord or a manager has to authorize the job, that gets settled here rather than halfway through.
- 4
The receipt carries the figure you were given
The lock is opened without damage wherever the mechanism allows and goes back to doing its job. Card or tap on the spot, an itemized receipt in your inbox, and a written line for a landlord, a property manager or an insurer when one is needed.
Free estimate
Four questions, then the range from the rate card.
Not an emergency? Answer four questions and see the published range for your job in Concord before you speak to anyone. 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 hand over an address
Type locksmith Concord into a phone and much of what comes back is a booking operation in another state that sells your address to whoever is nearest, advertises a two-figure price, then collects three hundred once the door is open, usually after drilling a lock that would have picked in four minutes. The questions below take about a minute between them, and anyone working straight answers all five without stalling.
- 1Ask for one figure with the $89 visit already counted inside it. "Starting at" and "the tech will see when he gets there" are not prices, they are room kept open for later.
- 2Ask whether hardware and the night hour live inside that same figure. If what comes back is a list of things that might apply, you have your answer.
- 3Ask what is on your door. Somebody who works this city will talk about the tract, the bore and the backset on your street. A booking operation cannot, because it has never been on the street.
- 4Ask which tools come out ahead of a drill, and what hardware would go on if drilling won anyway. Anyone leading with a drill has not thought about your door yet.
- 5Refuse cash only. A landlord, a property manager or an insurer wants an itemized receipt with a business name on it, and a number scribbled on a slip satisfies none of them.
FAQ
Asked on the way to the phone
How long from the plaza to my address?+
Twenty-three minutes is the citywide average, measured from Todos Santos Plaza. Downtown and the plaza run about 16 minutes, the Monument corridor 18, Sun Terrace and Meadow Homes 19, Bates Avenue and the yards 23, Ygnacio Valley 23, North Concord and Willow Pass 23, Dana Estates and Holbrook Heights 24, Clayton Valley and Crystyl Ranch 26. Outside the city line: Pacheco 19, Pleasant Hill 23, Walnut Creek 24, Martinez 28, Clayton 29. The hill streets and the far towns are honestly the slowest and you hear that on the call rather than standing on a porch wondering. The window that arrives by text is drawn from where the van actually is, not from the average.
Why can you price my door over the phone when nobody has seen it?+
Because of when this city was built. Concord went from 6,953 people in 1950 to 85,164 in 1970, and the houses went up in one push between 1955 and 1968, tract by tract, fitted with the same few locks. Two bore sizes, one backset, four finishes covers most of the housing stock, and a great deal of that hardware is still on the doors. Name the street and the door is largely known: what fits it, what the strike looks like, what usually fails on it. That is what turns a guess into a figure you can hear before anyone gets in the van.
So why is there a range at all?+
Three things move a job inside its range. First, which tract the door came from, because a 1957 street and a 1967 street were not built with the same hardware. Second, what has been changed on it since: an added deadbolt, a replaced cylinder, a security screen, a slider bar, a strike somebody moved. Third, which hour you are calling in. Once you have said the street, the door and the time, the figure is a single number, not a range, and it stays that number on the receipt.
Will the lock still work after you open it?+
Almost never, and never without your agreement. Picks, decoders and bypass tools cover builder deadbolts across the tracts, apartment cylinders on Monument and Detroit, aluminum storefronts on Salvio and Grant, patio sliders, most car doors and most safes, and the lock goes back to work afterward. The exceptions are a high-security cylinder, one already smashed, or one welded around a snapped blade. When that is your door you hear it plainly, you hear what would replace it, and you choose. The figure does not move either way.
What does the figure already hold, and what could move it?+
The $89 visit, the labor, whatever hardware goes on the door, and the night hour when there is one, all rolled into the number you hear. Steps up from the street in Holbrook Heights, a buzzer lobby on Monument Boulevard, a latched side gate in Crystyl Ranch, a gated yard off Port Chicago Highway: none of that moves it. The only thing that can add is extra work you decide on while the technician is standing there, such as putting the garage side door on the same key while the front is open. That gets a figure of its own, said out loud, and it starts when you say yes.
Do Saturdays, holidays or the small hours cost more?+
Saturday, Sunday and holidays cost what a Tuesday afternoon costs. Only the clock changes anything: $40 between 8pm and midnight, $75 between midnight and 7am. Both are folded in before you hear a figure, so nothing appears later. A house lockout that is $115 in daylight comes back as $155 at eleven at night and $190 at four in the morning, all of it inside the same published range, and the receipt matches what you agreed to.
I rent on the Monument corridor. Do I need my landlord before you open my own door?+
No. This corridor has the largest share of renters in the city and a tenant is the customer, not a complication. For a lockout, bring photo ID showing the address, or ID plus something on your phone that ties you to the unit: a lease page, a utility bill, a rent receipt, addressed mail. Give the building and the unit number on the call, because a buzzer panel with forty buttons is no help to a van circling Detroit Avenue. Nobody is contacted about you, and no owner has to approve putting you back into the place you pay for.
I own rentals and rekey between tenants. How does that work?+
Cylinders are counted per door at $25 to $40 each, and the whole property comes back as one figure that already holds the visit, not a visit charge with cylinders piled on top of it. A fourplex with front and back doors is eight cylinders and one number. Each unit can sit on its own key with a single management key over the set, so you carry one key instead of a ring. Old keys come back in labeled bags to check against whatever the outgoing tenant handed over, and the receipt lists every door by unit. A manager acting for an owner elsewhere can approve the work with a management agreement or a text from the owner.
Our house still has its original sixties hardware. Does all of it have to come off?+
Usually not. Streets through Sun Terrace, Meadow Homes and the Ygnacio Valley spine are full of builder knob sets and later deadbolts that still turn well and only need repinning so keys from three owners ago stop working. Three things genuinely earn replacing: a cylinder with real wear in it, a bolt whose throw no longer reaches the frame, and a strike screwed into trim instead of the stud behind, which is the single detail that decides whether a door survives a kick. Which of the three applies to yours gets said before anything is unscrewed.
Do you work the yards on the east side, and the lots around the mall and BART?+
Both. Man-doors beside roll-ups on Bates Avenue, warehouse offices off Solano Way and Port Chicago Highway, yard gates along the Port Chicago side, storefronts and restaurant back doors around the plaza on Salvio and Grant. Early starts are normal there, because a shop that cannot open at seven loses a shift rather than a morning. On the car side, a good share of the work sits in the Sun Valley Mall lots, the Concord and North Concord park-and-ride rows, the Diablo Valley College lots and the Willows. Name the lot and give a row, a level or the color of the car. A gated garage needs somebody who can get the van through the gate. None of it changes the figure.
24/7 — nights, weekends & holidays
Give the street, hear the figure, and the door gets opened the way it was built to be opened
Concord, Pleasant Hill, Pacheco, Clayton, Martinez and Walnut Creek, 24/7, holidays included. Say what the door is doing and one figure comes back with the $89 visit already inside it and the hour already counted. The lock is opened without damage wherever it can be, and the receipt shows what the call showed, whether the deed is in your name or the lease is.