Change Your Door Lock or Rekey your Locks (And When to Do Each)?
It can be a nagging question; to change or to rekey your locks?
To rekey a lock means you are changing the key but retaining the lock. A rekey process involves changing the tumblers or key pins inside of a lock. These key pins correspond to your working key’s keyholes—the cut pattern on your key’s edge. Changing the key pins inside the lock pretty much changes the cut pattern needed on a key to lock or open the lock.
If you are wondering which key route to take, here are tips to help you decide whether to change a door lock vs rekeying it.
Time and Budget
If you are on a tight budget and timeline, the more affordable route to take is to rekey your lock or locks. When working with a professional locksmith service, you can have your lock ‘reconfigured’ to operate with a newly-cut key within a few minutes.
For example, if you just moved into a new place and suspect a third-party has in their possession your apartment’s key, you can choose to rekey your lock. That way, you can rest assured you are the only person capable of unlocking their way into your space—well, at least legally.
Upgrading to Boost Security
Rekeying your lock means you are retaining the lock mechanism or technology applied on your old locks. You are neither beefing up or chunking down your lock’s security detail.
If you wanted to improve your lock’s security, you’ll want to change the door lock entirely. This can be a significant expense, especially if you have several locks to replace in one go. But changing locks to more sophisticated ones easily boost the security of your entry or exit point compared to an older lock mechanism.
Locking A Person Out on Short Notice
It could be you no longer want a particular person to have access to your house or apartment. And you might not be willing or able to ask them to give the key back. Simultaneously, you may still prefer to keep your type of lock.
Still, it could be you are a boss that just fired an employee and do not want them going around you and re-access a certain room, say their former office.
Rekeying the lock can help.
But if you need to keep stuff ultra-private or uber-confidential, you might want to change the door lock altogether.
That does not mean rekeying your locks disrupts their working mechanism to make them less assuring. It means you might want to add a whole other level of security to your entry and exit points.
Changing Locks for Improved Convenience
In August 2016, a study on smart locks in the US showed that an unprecedented number of Americans were using some type of smart lock with differences showing up in the level of sophistication people used.
According to the study by Xfinity and August, more people are considering using smart locks so they can:
- Know who visits their house even when they are away
- Adding connectivity to their locks so they can lock and unlock their doors remotely—for just people they want in there such as a nanny or housekeeper
- Add video capabilities to be able to see who’s at the doorstep without peaking into a door hole
Check out the image below:
Rekeying can serve you well if you do not need to replace your locks altogether. But if you want to enhance your locking mechanism to boost its security capability, you’ll want to ask your locksmith service to dart a new lock for you.