Rekey or Replace? What to Do With the Locks After You Buy a House

When you buy a house, the seller hands you a set of keys. What you don't get is a list of everyone else who has one. Previous owners, tenants, contractors, a neighbor who watered the plants, a cleaning service, a real estate agent: copies of house keys can sit in a surprising number of drawers. Changing which key fits your locks is one of the first things worth doing, ideally before you sleep there the first night.

What rekeying actually is

Inside a lock cylinder are small pins of different lengths. The right key lifts each pin to exactly the right height, which lets the cylinder turn. Rekeying means a locksmith takes the cylinder apart and swaps the pins so a different key works and the old key doesn't. The knob or deadbolt stays on the door. Only the inside of the cylinder changes.

It's a good fit when the hardware itself is in decent shape. You keep the locks you have, every old key in circulation stops working, and you walk away with new keys. It's usually a faster job than replacing hardware on every door, because nothing has to be removed from the door or fitted to it.

One key for every door

A nice side effect of rekeying is that your exterior doors can all share one key. The front door, the back door, the garage entry and a shed padlock that's compatible can be set to match. Instead of carrying a ring of five near-identical keys and guessing at the right one in the dark, you carry one.

It doesn't always work out. Locks from different brands use different keyways, and some cylinders can't be rekeyed to match the others. A locksmith can check each lock and tell you which ones will go together and which ones are better swapped out. All Points Locksmith lists rekeying and lost mailbox keys among its residential services, so even the small things on the ring are fair game.

When replacing makes more sense

Rekeying can't fix tired hardware. A new set of pins inside a worn lock is still a worn lock. Replacement is usually the better call when you see any of the following.

• A knob or lever that's loose, sticks or no longer latches cleanly
• A deadbolt that needs a lift or a shove before it throws all the way
• An exterior door with a knob lock and no deadbolt at all
• Hardware that's corroded, damaged or visibly worn around the keyway
• Old locks that can't be rekeyed or that you can't get parts for

New deadbolts are also a chance to think about the lock as part of the door rather than a separate object. A deadbolt is only as strong as the frame it sits in, which leads to the detail most people never check.

Check the strike and the door alignment

The strike plate is the metal piece on the door frame that the bolt slides into. If the bolt lands on the edge of the hole, or the door has shifted with the seasons, the lock has to be forced closed. That wears out the hardware and makes it easy to shut a door that isn't actually locked. A locksmith can adjust or reposition the strike so the bolt goes in cleanly.

Screws matter here too. The short ones that come in the box often bite only into the thin trim around the opening. Longer screws that reach the framing behind it give the bolt something solid to push against if someone leans on the door. It's a small upgrade that costs almost nothing and does a lot of work.

Older houses can be trickier. Doors have often been planed, drilled for earlier locks or rehung slightly out of square, and fitting new hardware may take more fiddling than you'd expect. That's a good reason to have someone experienced do the install instead of assuming a box lock will drop right in.

A simple plan for move-in week

Walk every door and count the locks. Note which ones are knobs and which have deadbolts. Include the garage entry, any side gate and the mailbox. Ask the seller for every key they have, including spares, and find out whether the garage door has a keypad whose code should be reset. Then decide lock by lock: rekey if the hardware is healthy, replace if it isn't.

All Points Locksmith covers residential work across Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, from a lost mailbox key to installing new deadbolts and upgrading physical security. The shop at 3902 W Clearwater Ave, Suite 101 is open Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 5:30pm and Saturday from 9am to 3pm, and you can reach them at (509) 585-2407. Bring a list of the doors and you'll have a plan before you've unpacked a single box.