24/7 · van ~22 min out

Nearby city · 24/7

Dublin locksmith service: the newest housing in the valley and condominium complexes at the freeway junction

North-west where the two freeways cross. The newest housing in the Tri-Valley, condominium and townhome complexes behind a rolling gate, tuck-under garages, and shopping strung along the interchange. Twenty-six minutes, and the drive is described as it is.

26 min

Avg. arrival

$89

Service call

24/7

Availability

Arroyo Key & Bolt serving Dublin

Twenty-six minutes is the honest number rather than a rounded-down average. The interchange at five in the afternoon adds to it and so does an event letting out, and if a run is going to be longer than usual that is named on the same call as the figure instead of being discovered by somebody standing outside in the dark. None of it changes the price. What Dublin does change is the sequence between the street and the sofa, because a great many addresses here are not houses.

In a complex the way in is a rolling gate at the parking court, sometimes a pedestrian gate on a keypad, a mail alcove, a tuck-under garage with a remote clipped to the visor, and then a unit door. Any one of those can leave a resident outside at midnight with a perfectly good key in their pocket. Access control is $155 to $415 and covers a gate control board that lost its schedule in a power blip and now locks at the hour it used to open, a call box dialing a number two managers out of date, a keypad that has stopped taking codes, and reprogramming remotes after a sale so the spare clicker the seller kept stops working the week escrow closes. A unit lockout is $129 to $225 with the gate crossed on the way in counted inside that figure rather than added as a second opening.

Who is allowed to order which is not a formality here. A resident can arrange work on their own unit door and their own remote, and that is the whole of it. The vehicle gate, the pedestrian gate, the mail alcove, the trash enclosure and the pool gate belong to the association, so the HOA or its manager has to be the one booking. Saying which of the two categories the trouble falls into on the call means the job goes to somebody who can actually approve it, which is the difference between a visit and a wasted trip.

The houses are the newest in the valley and they behave like Windmill Springs with a different postcode: a keypad deadbolt on a front door nobody uses, a two- or three-car garage, and a plain knob on the door into the house that takes every arrival and departure. A rekey is $25 to $42 per cylinder with the front, the garage service door and the back slider done as one figure, and turnover is constant enough here that most of those calls come in the first fortnight after a move. Cars in the podium levels and the shopping lots are opened at $109 to $205; give the level and the row.

For a complex, give the building letter and the unit number, then name the thing that stopped you: the vehicle gate, the pedestrian gate, the garage, the mail alcove or your own door. Anything shared needs the manager or the HOA on the phone. For a house, say whether the keypad on the front still lights up.

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.