Deadbolt installation puts a solid bolt lock on a door that either has none or has one that is past its useful life. Unlike the spring latch in a knob or lever, a deadbolt is a straight bar of metal that only moves when the key or thumb-turn moves it, so a card slipped into the gap or a shove against the door does nothing. The locksmith bores the door if needed, fits the bolt and cylinder, cuts a proper pocket in the frame and secures a reinforced strike with screws long enough to reach the framing. You are left with a door that locks with a firm, full throw.
Sound familiar?Downers Corners
Deadbolt Installation · Downers Corners
Scene 1
Deadbolts are built around two dimensions. The cross bore is the large hole through the face of the door, 54 mm on most residential hardware, though some older or imported locks used 38 mm. The backset is the distance from the door edge to the centre of that hole, 60 mm or 70 mm on nearly every door in this part of the world. If a deadbolt is being replaced, both are measured so the new lock lands in the existing holes without a shim or a gap. On a new installation they are chosen to match the knob below, so the two locks line up and any future keypad or smart deadbolt drops straight in.
Scene 2
The strike is located from the bolt itself rather than from a measurement. The bolt tip is chalked, the door is closed and the bolt is thrown firmly against the jamb to leave a mark at the true centre. The locksmith bores the pocket there with a 25 mm bit to a depth of at least 28 mm, so a 25 mm bolt seats fully and reaches its deadlocked position instead of stopping short and feeling stiff. The pocket is checked with the bolt extended before any plate goes on, because a strike screwed over a shallow hole hides the fault until the first cold morning when the door has moved.
Scene 3
Behind the new strike plate is the part of the job you cannot see and will never need to think about. The pocket has been bored deep enough for the bolt to seat fully, the plate has been let into the jamb so it sits flush, and the long screws reach through the jamb into the framing behind it. On a door that had been forced or had stripped screw holes, a full-length reinforcer may sit under the strike. If you press the jamb with your palm now, it does not flex. That stiffness is what a bolt needs to do its work, and it is the reason the installation took as long on the frame as on the door.
What shapes the quoteAshburnham Lock Experts
FeesSame any hour
It is a good moment for it. Nobody knows how many copies of a previous owner's key exist, so pinning the new bolt, and the rest of the exterior doors, to one fresh key retires all of them at once. Lock manufacturers list a move as one of the main reasons to rekey. You come away with a known number of keys, each tested in every door it is meant to open.
The knob or lever holds the door shut with a spring latch: a bevelled tongue that snaps into the frame and can be pushed back by anything slid into the gap. A deadbolt is a solid rectangular bar driven by the key or thumb-turn alone, and when fully thrown it locks in place so it cannot be pressed back from the edge. The knob keeps the door closed; the deadbolt keeps it locked.
Not when it is done for that door. Steel-clad doors are cut with a fine-toothed hole saw run slowly through the skin, guided by a jig so the saw cannot skate on the smooth face, and finished from both sides so each skin stays clean. Fibreglass is scored first so the surface does not chip. Shavings are vacuumed from the foam core, and the edge is finished with a collar or plate suited to the stile inside.
PeterboroughOntario
Deadbolt Installation · Peterborough, Cavan Monaghan, Otonabee-South Monaghan, Ashburnham, Byersville, Claraday, Coldsprings, Collison Heights, Greenhill, Jackson Heights, Kawartha Heights, Westmount
Every square is one home in a hundred.
On-site assessment
You bought a keypad deadbolt online and pulled the old one off, only to find the hole in the door is a different size and the bolt latch sits at a backset the new kit does not list.
(249) 494-7410, open 24/7.
On-site assessment preferred · (249) 494-7410, open 24/7
