Hayward neighborhood · 24/7
Prospect Hill and Upper B Street locksmith work on houses that have kept the same front door, and the same hardware, for eighty years
The slope above downtown along Upper B Street and the streets off it: houses from the 1900s through the 1930s with deep porches and mortise sets in the door edge, long-owned homes, back cottages and divided upstairs units, narrow streets and short driveways on a grade.
4.9 / 5· 598 reviews from Hayward & the unincorporated strip beside it
21 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Prospect Hill is twenty-one minutes up B Street, and its calls are about doors that were hung before the war and have not been changed since. A front door here has a mortise case in its edge, a plate with a knob and a keyhole, and often a second lock screwed on later when the household stopped trusting the first one. The later lock is the one a pocket key opens, and that is the cylinder that gets rekeyed at $24 to $39. The old set stays where it is. A knob that wobbles is a worn spindle and a set screw, changed without lifting the plate. A latch that no longer springs back is a spring inside the case, and the case comes out through the edge of the door, is cleaned and goes back. Only a case cracked at the bolt is replaced, and a new case fits behind the original plate at $109 to $289, so the porch looks the same from the sidewalk.
Houses that have not sold in thirty years have keys nobody can account for. Over that time copies went to a grown daughter, a neighbor who watered plants, a roofer and two contractors. The first visit is a count, not a sale: front door, back door, the door from the porch into the kitchen, the garage side door, the gate at the top of the drive, sometimes a cottage at the back. At $24 to $39 per cylinder the count is what makes the figure, and it is done on the call rather than at the door. Where a house has been divided and the upstairs is rented, the shared entry is pinned so both keys pass it and neither key opens the other door. That arrangement is explained before the work and repeated on the receipt.
A lockout on this hill is $115 to $199 and is picked. A drilled cylinder in a 1912 door means a plate that is no longer made anywhere, and no lockout is worth that. The safe in the back bedroom, whose combination went with the last owner, is opened at $175 to $479, almost always without harm to the door. The streets are narrow on the grade and the van parks where it can; nothing is added for the walk up. Evening work carries $45 between 8pm and midnight and $80 after, inside the one figure, and calls are answered 24/7.
Say whether the front door still has its keyhole plate and whether a second lock sits above the knob on the inside. A photo of the inside face settles most of it. If the upstairs is rented, say which door is yours and whether the entry is shared.
Most requested in Prospect Hill & Upper B
FAQ
Asked about Prospect Hill & Upper B
Why does the hill take twenty-one minutes when downtown takes sixteen?+
The climb up B Street is the whole difference. The streets narrow on the grade, they are short, and they are full of parked cars, so the last five minutes are slower than the first sixteen. That is the honest estimate and it is given on the call. A house up here and a house on Jackson Street pay the same figure, and the extra minutes cost nothing.
The keyhole on our front door is in the edge, not through the knob. Do you carry parts for that?+
Yes. Mortise cases, spindles, latch springs and cylinders ride on the van, because a large share of the doors on this slope have never had anything else. The case comes out through the edge of the door, gets cleaned and repinned, and goes back behind the same plate. Only a case cracked at the bolt is replaced, and the replacement fits the original pocket so the porch looks unchanged.
Nobody in this house knows how many keys are out there. Where does that start?+
With a count rather than a sale. Front, back, the porch door into the kitchen, the garage side door, the gate at the top of the drive and any cottage at the back are listed on the phone, and the number of cylinders is what sets the figure at $24 to $39 each. Old keys come back in labeled bags so you can check them against whatever anyone returns.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
The van is already in town, and the number comes before it moves
Hayward, San Lorenzo, Cherryland and Ashland, San Leandro, Castro Valley and Union City, 24/7, holidays included. Describe the door, hear one number with the $89 visit inside it, and the lock gets opened without damage wherever it can be. The receipt says what the call said. It runs the same way whether the lease is in your name or the deed is.