Locksmith near me
A locksmith is a person who works with locks. Locks are found in everyday life on doors, windows, vending machines, garages, caravans, safes, parking barriers, and money boxes. Where something needs to be kept secure because it contains items of value you will inevitably find it is secured behind some sort of lock.
Locks are everywhere to protect possessions and to stop undesirables gaining entry to places where their presence is not desired.
It is a locksmiths job to install, open, repair or replace locks that have either worn out, broken or had the means of entry lost (key or code).
The Rise of the National Locksmith Companies
Bad locksmiths are scattered all over the UK.
In the majority of cases these locksmiths are not evil bad. They are bad because they have no other choice.
They can be highly trained and have years of experience in the trade but find themselves in a position that they are unable to harvest work for themselves and have to rely on national locksmith companies for work.
National locksmith companies tend to charge more because there is a middle man or team who exist purely to make profit from introducing locksmiths to customers who need the services of a locksmith.
As the number of national companies has increased this has had made it harder for local locksmiths to get work in their own service area. The nationals have bigger budgets for advertising and can therefore out gun the smaller business operators.
As the national companies profits get bigger, they can expand into new areas.
Often, once established they will neglect the highly skilled professional and choose to employ low skilled workers who are told how to break things and induce the most cost from every job.
Bad Locksmiths
A bad locksmith wants to drill any lock open and replace it with a new shiny one but at a highly inflated cost. This is called destructive lock entry. They might also be a highly trained sales person that wants to fleece you out of more than you were willing to pay.
A lot of people do unfortunately find the wrong locksmith.
This is mostly because they have clicked on an expensive ad to reach a locksmith company at the top of a Google listing page.
Being locked out or distressed about not being to lock your doors and windows is not the time people conduct research ordinarily.
The locksmith you employ might be an odd job person who knows how to use a drill but has no idea how to pick a lock.
National locksmith companies do not generally vet anyone who applies to work for them.
Some companies, you can pay them a rather large amount of money for a franchise to work in an area they designate.
Unskilled locksmiths are then tied into that contract for many years, just to make their initial investment back. Obviously by the time they have, they are highly trained and knowledgable professional locksmiths.
In some cases the locksmith will also be lucky to recieve 20% of the final job total. It is in their interest to make the job as expensive as possible.
You can rest assured it is not going to be cheap for you the customer. You will more than likely pay a call out fee, an inflated price to carry out the work, you will then be hit with the price of new parts.
In some cases people find that they have called a national locksmith company even though they knew they had called a local number. They may end up with a locksmith that is local but he is subcontracting for a company based 300 miles away and it is going to cost you more than hiring the local person direct.
The cherry on the top is, you will have to pay an extra 20% on top of the price for VAT, Independent locksmiths do not charge VAT as they do not earn enough to meet the VAT threshold.
National companies do meet the tax threshold for VAT and although they are good for the economy it is not great for you. You forgot to pull the key out of the other side of the lock and are about to be punished for it financially.
A local locksmith will try opening locks
Most local locksmiths near you who are ‘good’ do not need to advertise.
Generally, if they have been in the trade for 10 years they get their work purely by their reputation. The downside to this is, if they are successful they tend not to work at weekends and late at night.
A local locksmith will not get out of their vehicle armed with a drill. An experienced person will try opening locks in many different ways. For example, picking, bypassing, decoding, fashioning keys and bumping locks.
They need to build a relationship with you as you are on their ‘patch’, they will definitely need you to recommend them to friends and family.
Not saying locksmiths never have to resort to destructive lock entry as this does unfortunately happen to all of us. Some locks are just fit for for the naughty bin. Which if you are a ‘locksporter’ means they can be picked at a later date after much intense research. A locksmith does not have that amount of time on a doorstep.
Most locksmiths near you prefer not to break things.
Thinking outside of the box is a necessity for every locksmith to keep costs down and reputation untarnished.
A Local Locksmith
A local locksmith can be your link to the world of home/ business security and the technological advances made within the industry.
Nearby Locksmiths mostly do offer free advice and can instruct you on the insurance requirements of your property. Alarm installation, keyless entry systems and burglary prevention.
Modern locksmithing is different from the past
Locksmithing is an old craft. It has been around for centuries. Modern locksmiths do not possibly have the same set of skills as in the past.
In the preceding few hundred years it would be a locksmith and an apprentice who crafted you a lock using a combination of materials.
Modern locksmith learn how manufacturers make locks. Some locksmiths call themselves lock engineers for this reason.
This applies to most locksmiths, however master locksmiths near you still exist who are adept at metal casting and fabrication.
When you find a good locksmith keep that number.
Most people keep the number for a breakdown service, an emergency plumber, an electrician and a professional locksmith. We would like to suggest you do the same. For the rainy days.
