Livermore · Pleasanton · Dublin · San Ramon · Danville · Sunol
Three doors on a Livermore house. You only use one.
- 01
- The garage door you drive through
- from $129
- 02
- The door from the garage into the house
- from $118
- 03
- The front door you never open
- from $25/cyl
Every figure on this plate counts the $89 visit inside it, and the evening or overnight hour is folded in before you agree to anything, so a call at four in the morning sits higher in the same range instead of adding a line at the door.
Calls answered 24/7. The $89 visit is counted inside the figure you hear. We work locks, cylinders, deadbolts, keypads and keys, and the doors they sit in. Torsion springs, panels and opener motors belong to a garage-door company, not to us.
4.9 / 51,392 reviewsLivermore & the Tri-Valley
Four questions you can answer standing in your own garage
- 01Where is your front-door key right now?If the honest answer is a kitchen drawer, a hook on the garage wall or a neighbor two houses down, then a dead opener locks you out of your own house, and getting back in runs $129 to $225 with a key cut for your pocket on the driveway.
- 02Does the door from the garage into the house have a deadbolt?Most of them carry a builder knob and nothing else, which puts the weakest lock in the house behind the least secure part of the property; a deadbolt fitted into that slab is $118 to $299, and that is the whole of what we will say about it.
- 03Does one key open the front door, the garage service door and the back slider?If it takes three keys you will carry one and lose track of the others, and pinning all three to a single key costs $25 to $42 per cylinder, with the second and third at the low end because the van is already standing in your driveway.
- 04Who else still knows your garage code?A contractor, a house sitter and whoever owned the place before you all still know it until somebody changes it; the code itself takes two minutes and no parts, but retiring the metal keys those same people were handed is $25 to $42 a cylinder.
Prices
Every price we publish, on one screen
Nothing is held back for the call: all sixteen jobs and their ranges are on this page. Say which door stopped you and the range closes to one figure on the call, with the evening or overnight hour already counted inside it.
Service call
$89
inside every figure, never added afterward
Daytime (7am–8pm)
standard rates
Evening (8pm–12am)
+$45
Overnight (12am–7am)
+$80
Emergency
Residential
Commercial
The cheapest line that fixes it is the one we quote. If a door has swelled shut in the heat, or a keypad has flat cells, or three doors want one key, say so on the call: those answers sit at the low end of this table, and we do not sell a new lock to fix a door. Call (925) 493-8551.
What 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
Same-hour openings across Livermore, and you leave holding a key that works
- House Lockout$129–$225
- Car Lockout$109–$205
- Business Lockout$145–$259
- Post Break-In Lock Repair$185–$445
from $25/cylResidential
Rekeys, deadbolts, keypads and safes for ranch houses, bungalows and new builds
- Lock Rekeying$25–$42 per cylinder
- Lock Replacement & Installation$118–$299
- Smart Lock Installation$179–$449
- Safe Opening$205–$535
from $155Commercial
Shop units, storefronts and yards on the working side of town, priced on the call
- Master Key Systemscustom quote
- Panic Bars & Exit Devices$289–$739
- Access Control$155–$415
- Storefront Door Locks$159–$449
from $89Automotive
Keys, fobs and ignitions done in the space the car is already parked in
- Car Key Replacement$165–$409
- Key Fob Programming$89–$189
- Ignition Repair$179–$425
- Motorcycle Keys$115–$265
Coverage
Every Livermore neighborhood, and the valley around it
The van is based off Arroyo Road. Average arrival 22 minutes across the city, longer up the valley to San Ramon and Danville; each area page shows its own.
On every job
Opened, Then Keyed
Four things that hold the same way for a 1962 ranch house in Sunset East, a bungalow behind an alley garage in the Jensen Tract, a builder keypad in Windmill Springs and a shop unit off Las Positas Road.
- 01One figure on the call, whichever of the three doors it turns out to beSay which door stopped you and what it is doing. A single figure comes back that holds the $89 visit, the labor and every part that ends up on the door. It does not matter whether the answer is the service door beside the garage, the slab between the garage and the kitchen, or the front door with the cylinder nobody has turned in four years. You hear the number first, and the evening or overnight hour is counted in before you hear it.
- 02The receipt shows that same figure, whatever the technician findsA knob set from 1962 that has been painted twice. A deadbolt whose strike is screwed into trim instead of the stud. A keypad flat since the July heat. A slab door so swollen the latch has not met the frame since spring. A cylinder that three owners of keys still fit. None of that moves the price. Your card is charged the number from the call, and an itemized receipt lands in your email.
- 03Opened without damage first, and a drill only after you agreePicks, decoders, shims and bypass tools come out before anything destructive does, so the lock is still a working lock when the van pulls away. If a cylinder genuinely will not give, you hear what it is doing, what would go on in its place and what that costs, and you make the call. Saying yes to a drill never earns anyone a bigger number.
- 04Nobody leaves without a key or a code that worksOpening the door is half the job. The other half is that tomorrow morning is not a repeat of today: a key cut on the spot, a rekey so one key runs the front door, the garage service door and the slider, or a keypad code you choose yourself and punch in twice while the technician is still on the step. Card or tap at the door, and the itemized receipt goes to your inbox under a business name.
Reviews
What Livermore says once the door gives
Garage service doors, the door into the house, keypads and front doors, from the Jensen Tract to Windmill Springs, with the figure people actually paid.
4.9/ 51,392reviews
Livermore & the Tri-Valley
“Power went out on our block in the afternoon and I discovered that in nineteen years I have never once come in the front. My house key was on a hook inside the garage, which is a great place for it. $149, said on the call, and $149 is what my card was charged. Twenty minutes. He opened the front deadbolt without leaving a mark, then cut me two keys at the van so this cannot happen again. He was straight that the opener itself was not his work and that I would want a garage-door company if it did not come back with the power. It did.”
“Three doors, three different keys, and I carried exactly one of them. Front door, the service door on the side of the garage, and the lock on the back slider. $108 for all three pinned to one key. He repinned what was already on the doors instead of trying to sell me hardware, handed back the old keys in a bag, and had me open all three myself before he wrote anything up. My wife has one key now and so do I, which after twenty-six years in this house feels ridiculous that we waited.”
“It hit a hundred and four that week and the builder keypad on our garage service door simply stopped taking the code. Battery, it turned out. $146 with nothing added at the end. He opened it without taking the lock off the door, put fresh cells in, and had me set a code I chose rather than leaving the one the builder handed over three years ago. He also pointed out that the door from the garage into the kitchen has no deadbolt at all, gave me the price, and then did not push it. I booked that separately in November.”
“Five in the morning, truck in the detached garage off the alley, and the key snapped in the service door lock with half of it still in the cylinder. I had to be on 580 by six. $212 with the overnight hour counted in from the start rather than turning up at the end. He was on the alley in about fifteen minutes, got the broken half out, opened the door, and cut me a new key while I was loading the truck. I lost maybe twenty-five minutes off my morning.”
“We finally put a real deadbolt on the door between the garage and the laundry room. It was a hollow slab with a knob you could turn with a butter knife. $186, and the figure did not move. He set the strike into the stud behind the jamb and showed me the inch-long screws next to the ones that had been in there. Four stars only because the van landed at the very back end of the window I was texted, closer to thirty-five minutes than the number I first heard. The work itself I would not change.”
“Twenty past nine at night, back door of my place off First Street, the cylinder turned halfway and stopped with my closing crew inside and the till still out. $214 with the evening hour already counted in. Sixteen minutes to the block. He asked for my lease on my phone and my ID before he touched anything, which took a minute and I would rather he asked than not. Bolt came back without pulling the door apart, then he cleaned and lubricated the cylinder because it had been binding since the summer.”
Why us
The street tells us the lock. That is what makes the figure honest.
The job is built around the door people actually use
Most locksmiths quote you a front door. In this town the front door is decoration: you drive in, the overhead door drops behind you, and you walk through a hollow slab into the kitchen. So the van is loaded for that reality. Pins and cylinders for the garage service door, deadbolts and long strikes for the slab between the garage and the house, keypad stock for the builder locks south of Concannon, and blanks to cut you a front-door key you have not held in years.
A locksmith, and only a locksmith
Locks, cylinders, deadbolts, keypads, keys and the doors they sit in. We do not replace torsion springs, panels, cables or opener motors, and we will not pretend otherwise while standing in your driveway. When the overhead door is the thing that has failed mechanically, you get told that inside the first minute, you get into the house through a keyed door on the same visit, and you call a garage-door company on a weekday for the rest.
You leave holding a key
Opening a door is half a job. The other half is that the same thing does not happen next month. Every visit ends one of three ways: a key cut on the spot, a rekey so a single blade runs the front door, the garage service door and the slider, or a keypad code you chose yourself and entered twice while the technician watched. Nobody gets left standing in an open doorway with the same problem they started with.
One van, based off Arroyo Road, and every minute measured from it
No shop and no counter. The yard sits off Arroyo Road, which is why downtown and the Jensen Tract run 14 and 15 minutes, Sunset East 18, Springtown 20 and Windmill Springs 23, while San Ramon is 32 and Danville 34. Twenty-two minutes is the citywide average. Where an area is slower it gets named as slower while you are still on the phone, not after you have been waiting half an hour.
How it works
From the street name to the receipt
- 1
You call and say which of the three doors stopped you
The garage and its service door, the door from the garage into the house, or the front door. Say what it is doing: opener dead, keypad flat, key snapped, code forgotten, cylinder turning halfway. Give the street and the district, and mention if a car is shut inside the garage, because that changes the order of the work.
- 2
The figure is said on the call, with the hour counted in
One number covers the visit, the labor and the parts, with the $89 visit inside it and the evening or overnight hour counted when the clock calls for it. If what you are describing is a spring, a panel or an opener motor, you hear that here rather than after somebody has driven out. You answer yes or no with the number in front of you.
- 3
The van pulls out of the Arroyo Road yard 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 gets matched to the address, or a lease page to the unit, or the registration to the plate, before a case is opened.
- 4
You leave holding a key, and the receipt shows the figure you were given
The door is opened without damage wherever the mechanism allows and goes back to being a working lock. Then a key gets cut, the cylinders get pinned to match, or a code gets set and tested by you. Card or tap on the spot, an itemized receipt in your inbox, and a written line for a landlord 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 Livermore 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 asking before you give anyone your address
Search for a locksmith in Livermore and a good share of what comes back is a call center in another state that sells your address to whoever is closest, 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 counted inside it and the hour counted too. "Starting at" and "the tech will price it on site" are not prices, they are room kept open for later.
- 2Ask what happens if the door they open turns out to be a different one from the door you described. If the answer is that the number changes, you have been given a starting point rather than a price.
- 3Ask whether they do garage door springs and openers. Anyone who says yes to all of it is either a general handyman or is telling you what you want to hear, and you will find out which one at the worst moment.
- 4Ask which tools come out ahead of a drill, and what hardware goes on if drilling wins anyway. Anyone leading with a drill has not thought about your door yet.
- 5Refuse cash only. A landlord, an insurer or your own records need an itemized receipt with a business name on it, and a number written on a slip satisfies none of them.
FAQ
Asked on the way to the phone
How long until the van reaches me?+
Twenty-two minutes is the honest average across Livermore, measured from the yard off Arroyo Road. By area: Downtown and First Street 14 minutes, the Jensen Tract and Fifth Street 15, Portola and North Livermore 17, Sunset East 18, Las Positas and the airport edge 19, Springtown 20, Granada and Vineyard 21, Windmill Springs and Tapestry 23. Outside the city: Pleasanton 22, Dublin 26, Sunol and the canyon road 29, San Ramon 32, Danville 34. San Ramon and Danville are genuinely the slowest and you hear that on the call rather than standing in a driveway guessing. The window that arrives by text is drawn from where the van actually is, not from the average.
The opener is dead and I cannot get into my own garage. Is that your job or a garage-door company's?+
Both, and the split is worth knowing before you dial. We are a locksmith: locks, cylinders, deadbolts, keypads, keys and the doors those things are mounted in. If there is a keyed door on the property, and there almost always is, we open it without damage and cut you a key so tomorrow is not a repeat. What we do not touch is the overhead door mechanism itself. Torsion springs, panels, cables, the trolley and the opener motor are a garage-door company's work, and if that is what has failed you will hear it said plainly instead of paid for twice. The emergency release cord being pulled is the common version of this: the door rolls free, we get you into the house through a keyed door, and the track gets sorted on a weekday by somebody else.
Why is there a range instead of one price?+
Three things move a job inside its range. Which of the three doors it is, because a front-door cylinder, a garage service door and a hollow-core slab into the kitchen are different amounts of work. What the door is made of and how old the hardware is, since a 1962 knob set that has been painted twice behaves differently from a builder keypad fitted last year. And whether you want it keyed to match the rest of the house afterward. Once those three are settled the figure is a single number, not a span, and that number is what shows up on the receipt.
Can one key really open the front door, the garage service door and the slider?+
Yes, and it is the most common job on this site. The locks stay on the doors and take new pins, which retires every key handed out before today and puts the whole house on one blade. It is $25 to $42 per cylinder, and the second and third cylinders sit at the low end because the van is already parked in your driveway. Worth doing when you buy, when a contractor finishes, when a tenant moves out, or simply when you notice you are carrying one key out of three. The honest note: the door from the garage into the house can be rekeyed like any other, but it is still a hollow-core slab with a knob, and a deadbolt in it at $118 to $299 does more for you than new pins do.
Do nights, weekends and holidays cost more?+
Saturday, Sunday and holidays cost what a Wednesday afternoon costs. Only the clock changes anything: $45 between 8pm and midnight, $80 between midnight and 7am. Both are folded in before you hear a figure, so nothing new appears at the door. A house lockout that is $129 in daylight comes back as $174 at eleven at night and $209 at four in the morning, all of it still inside the published $129 to $225. Calls are answered 24/7, and the five in the morning call before a commute is treated as the ordinary call it is around here.
The keypad on our door stopped working in the heat. Is that a lock problem?+
Usually a battery problem wearing a lock costume. A hundred-degree afternoon in Livermore flattens keypad cells faster than the manual suggests, and a swollen door makes the motor work harder every cycle, which finishes them off sooner. If the cells are the fault it gets opened, powered and set to a code you choose. If the lock itself has failed, or the door has swelled enough that the bolt no longer lines up with the strike, that gets said and priced, not guessed at. A keypad deadbolt fitted new is $179 to $449.
I rent off Murrieta Boulevard. Do I need my landlord before you open my door?+
No, not to be let back into the place you pay for. Bring photo ID showing the address, or ID plus something on your phone that ties you to the unit, such as a lease page, a rent receipt, a utility bill or addressed mail. Give the building and the unit number on the call. Changing hardware is a different matter: a rekey or a new keypad on a rented door needs your landlord's agreement, and that is easier to settle before the van comes out than in a hallway afterward.
Will the lock still work after you open it?+
Almost always, and it never gets drilled without your say-so. Picks, decoders, shims and bypass tools handle sixties builder deadbolts across Sunset East and Springtown, original bungalow hardware in the Jensen Tract, aluminum storefronts, patio sliders, most car doors and most safes. The exceptions are a high-security cylinder, one already smashed, or one welded around a snapped blade. When yours is one of those you hear it, you hear what would replace it and what that costs, and you decide. The figure does not move either way, and agreeing to a drill never earns anyone more money.
We just bought a house south of Concannon. What should actually get done?+
Three things, in this order. Change the codes on the builder keypads, which costs nothing and takes two minutes, because the code you were handed has been through a builder, a realtor and everyone they let in. Rekey the metal locks so the keys from that same list stop working, at $25 to $42 per cylinder with everything brought onto one key. Then look at the door from the garage into the house, which on a new build is often a slab with a knob and no deadbolt at all. That last one is $118 to $299 and it is the only piece of this we will mention twice.
Do you cover Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon, Danville and Sunol?+
All of them, 24/7, at the same prices as Livermore. The clock changes a figure; the address does not. What the address changes is how long you wait: Pleasanton runs about 22 minutes, Dublin 26, Sunol and the canyon road 29, San Ramon 32 and Danville 34, against 14 to 23 inside Livermore. If you are up the valley you hear the longer number on the call, before you commit to waiting for it.
24/7 — nights, weekends & holidays
Say which of the three doors stopped you, hear the figure, and get inside
Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon, Danville and Sunol, 24/7, holidays included. The garage and its service door, the slab between the garage and the kitchen, the front door you never open, a shop unit, a car or a safe: one figure comes back with the $89 visit and the hour counted inside it. And you do not get left standing in an open doorway, because the visit ends with a key or a code that works.