Lock changes and repairs in Torrevieja
A planned job, not an emergency: the right cylinder, measured for your door, fitted properly, with every door on the property considered at the same time.
Why now
The five reasons people change a lock here
-
You have just bought or inherited the property
Nobody knows how many keys exist to a Torrevieja resale. Builders, agents, cleaners, previous tenants and the last owner's family are all plausible holders. One cylinder settles it.
-
The lock is getting stiffer every season
Salt air does this slowly and then all at once. A key that has to be wiggled is a cylinder telling you when it plans to fail.
-
A key has been lost
Lost on the beach at La Mata or at the Friday market. If the keyring carried anything that identifies the address, the cylinder is worth changing rather than hoping.
-
The tenancy or the season has ended
Standard practice for anything let out, and the moment to decide whether a rental property should move to a cylinder that can be changed quickly between bookings.
-
You want the door to be harder to open
Usually after something has happened nearby. The full version of that conversation is on the page about repairs after a break-in.
What goes in
Choosing the cylinder, not just any cylinder
Cylinders are not interchangeable and the cheapest one on a shelf is not a saving. Three things decide what goes into your door:
The measurement
Taken from the bolt in the edge of the door to each face. A cylinder that protrudes past the handle plate is the weakest point of the whole door.
The exposure
A street door, a communal landing and an internal door do not face the same risks, and they do not need the same money spent on them.
The air it lives in
Between the sea and the lagoons, a cylinder exposed on a terrace or a gate leads a harder life than the same model on an inside door. Some finishes last visibly longer.
Repair instead, where a repair is honest
Not every stiff lock needs replacing. A cylinder that has gone tight because the door has dropped, because a mechanism is binding or because someone once put oil into it may only need cleaning, adjusting or realigning. Where that is the case you are told so, even though it is the smaller job.
What cannot be repaired is a cylinder that has already ground its own pins away, and there is no point pretending otherwise: it will fail again, probably with you outside. How it gets opened if that day arrives is covered on the door opening page.
Doors here
What the doors of Torrevieja actually take
Almost the entire housing stock here was built from the 1980s onwards, and it shows in the locks. Well over half the jobs on this page are euro-profile cylinders in a hinged door. The rest divide between older lever locks in the centre, La Mata and the streets behind the port, and multipoint mechanisms in newer flats and in every aluminium or uPVC door.
If your door is aluminium or uPVC and the failure is in the mechanism rather than the key, the work is different and it has its own page. If the property sits empty most of the year, read what closing a home up does to its locks before choosing what to fit — and what the salt air here does to a cylinder.
Questions
Questions before changing a lock
Do you have to change the whole lock?
Usually not. On a euro-profile door the cylinder is the part that carries the key, and it unscrews with one bolt through the edge of the door. The lock case itself stays where it is unless it has failed mechanically.
Can all my doors take the same key?
Yes, where the doors accept compatible cylinders. It is a common request here, where a property can have a gate, a front door, a storeroom and a solarium door. It is decided before the cylinders are ordered, not afterwards.
How do I know what size cylinder I need?
It is measured from the fixing bolt in the edge of the door to each face, and the two halves are rarely equal. A cylinder that sticks out beyond the handle plate is the easiest thing in the world to snap, which is why the measurement is taken on site.
My key goes in but it is getting harder every month.
That is the normal way a cylinder ends its life here, and it is nearly always salt and grit rather than the key. It is worth dealing with before it fails, because a lock that seizes with you outside costs an opening as well as a cylinder.
Is an anti-snap cylinder worth it?
On a door that faces the street or a communal landing, yes. Snapping a cheap cylinder is the quickest way through a door and needs no skill at all. On an internal storeroom door it is money that would do more good elsewhere.
Ready to change a lock properly?
Send a photograph of the edge of the door with the key in it and say which doors are involved. You will get the options and the price before anybody comes out.
Open 24 hours · 7 days