About

A city of new locks on old doors.

One van, out to any door at any hour: a knob set on the Rinconada grid that has been in the same leaf since 1952, an atrium gate in Fairgrove with the entry door behind it, a keypad on a rebuild whose override key was never cut, a glass shop door on Stevens Creek that stopped meeting its keeper. Cutting equipment, cylinder stock and the parts for an old bore ride with it, so nothing waits on a second trip. This is how a visit runs.

(669) 274-3850 Book online

Orchard Gate Locksmith works Cupertino and the west valley out of a van rather than a storefront, because a lock is bolted to a door and does not come to a counter. Eight neighborhoods sit inside the city and the van reaches them in 12 to 24 minutes: Garden Gate about 12, Rancho Rinconada 13, Fairgrove 14, Creston and Pharlap 15, Seven Springs 16, Monta Vista 17, Oak Valley 19 behind its gates, and Inspiration Heights 24 up the long driveways above the town. Seventeen minutes is the average. Saratoga, Los Gatos, West San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and Los Altos are served at the same figures. Calls are answered every hour of the day, every day of the year.

The idea this business runs on takes one line: in this city everything else in the house has updated itself, and the lock has not. The thermostat changed its schedule without being asked. The doorbell took an update in the night. The garage opener answers a phone and the lights came back a different color, and nobody drove out for any of it. Meanwhile the front door is often the door the house was built with. Rancho Rinconada is 1,562 houses put up between 1950 and 1953 by Stern and Price, most of them between 800 and 1,000 square feet. Fairgrove is around 220 Eichler houses from 1960 and 1961, each with an atrium gate standing in front of the entry. A lock bought in a box is machined for a door built after about 1975, and it will not sit on either of those without work first: the bore is narrower, the backset is different, and the leaf has settled on its hinges over sixty years. That is what the packaging leaves out, and it is the reason the door is put right before the lock goes on, on the same visit and inside the same figure.

Pricing follows one list and the $89 service call sits inside every figure. A house lockout is $135 to $245, a car lockout $109 to $205, a business lockout $145 to $265, and repair after a forced door $175 to $459. A rekey is $29 to $47 per cylinder, with the second cheaper than the first because the van is already at the curb. Replacement hardware runs $129 to $339, a keypad or app lock $199 to $495, and a safe opening $205 to $549. On the commercial side, exit devices are $315 to $799 per door, storefront hardware $165 to $489, and master key systems and access control are quoted once the doors have been counted on site. A car key is $159 to $429, a fob $95 to $205, an ignition $189 to $469, motorcycle keys $129 to $295. Arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $55 and between midnight and 7am adds $95, both counted in before you say yes. Ninety days on the labor is printed on the receipt. What is not on the list is anything to do with garage door springs, panels, cables or opener motors, because that is another trade and this is not it.

The Door First

Four things that hold the same way on a 1951 house on the Rinconada grid, an atrium gate in Fairgrove, a keypad on a rebuild off Bubb Road and a glass shop door on Stevens Creek. Ninety days on the labor, printed on the receipt rather than implied.

The door is made right before the lock goes on, in the same visitA new deadbolt does not fit an old door simply by arriving. On the houses here the bore is usually narrower than the 2 1/8 inches a modern lock is machined for, the backset is off by a quarter inch, and sixty years of hinge sag mean the bolt no longer meets the hole in the frame. That part is carpentry, and it happens before anything is screwed down: the bore opened true, the backset corrected, the hinges shimmed, the strike moved and its mortise recut. Then the lock. A lock hanging on a door that cannot hold it is not a finished job.

One figure, with the hour already counted into itThe number covers the visit, the labor and the parts, and the $89 service call sits inside it rather than underneath it. A van arriving between 8pm and midnight carries $55, and between midnight and 7am $95, both named on the call instead of at the door. A cylinder older than the paperwork said, a strike screwed into trim instead of framing, a keypad with flat cells: none of those reopen the arithmetic.

On a keypad lock the spread is the door, not the brandSmart Lock Installation runs $199 to $495, and that range is wide on purpose. What moves you inside it is the leaf in front of you. A door still hanging true sits at the bottom of it. A door that has dropped on its hinges costs the time it takes to bring it back to square. A door with a narrow 1950s bore costs the work of opening it to size without splitting the stile. The make of lock barely moves the figure. Say the year the house was built and the range closes to one number.

A metal key is cut for every keypad we fitEvery keypad deadbolt has an override cylinder, and nearly all of them are sold with a blank that nobody ever takes to a machine. That is fine until the cells go flat at eleven at night in February. So the key is cut at the van the same day the lock goes on, tried in the cylinder while you watch, and you decide where it lives. Ninety days on the labor in writing, with the maker standing behind the part.

Rancho Rinconada — 1,562 houses by Stern & Price, 800 to 1,000 square feet: 1950–53
Fairgrove — around 220 Eichler houses: 1960–61
The rebuilds and the streets that went up on old orchard lots: after 2000

Where we work

Cupertino and the west valley, any hour

Pick your area for its own arrival time and the jobs we run there most.

Rancho Rinconada Fairgrove Monta Vista Garden Gate Seven Springs Oak Valley Creston & Pharlap Inspiration Heights Saratoga Los Gatos West San Jose Sunnyvale Santa Clara Los Altos

(669) 274-3850

Open 24 hours, 7 days

Say the year the house was built, and the rest of the call is short

Cupertino and the west valley, every hour of the day. The age of the door decides the work and the work decides the figure, so the number comes back on the call with the $89 service call and the hour already inside it, and it is the number on the receipt. Ninety days on the labor, in writing.

(669) 274-3850 Book online