Lock Replacement in Phoenix, AZ

Start from the door you have

Whatever comes off a door, the new lockset has to fit the holes already cut in it. Phoenix has doors from very different eras. The 2024 Census Bureau estimates put 61,510 homes in the 1960s and 60,972 in the 1950s, about 122,000 together, or 18.0 percent of the total. Another 103,233 homes, 15.2 percent, date from 2010 or later. Those figures give a home's build year, not the hardware on its doors, and a door of any age may have been changed since, so a photo of the latch edge and both faces tells more than a year or a brand name.

Matching a historic door

The city's design guidelines treat windows and doors as architectural features, and they say that when a deteriorated feature cannot be repaired, the replacement should match the original in design, material, color and texture. The guidelines contain no rule on locks. The city's FAQ says an exterior change in an overlay district needs review by the Historic Preservation Office beforehand, and that routine maintenance is excluded.

F.Q. Story shows why the look of the door matters. Its 602 homes, built from the late 1920s through the late 1940s, include Craftsman bungalows and Spanish Colonial Revival houses. If your street is in one of the city's overlay districts, say so in the request, and ask the office before changing anything visible from the street.

Why replace rather than repair

• Hardware worn to the point that it no longer holds its position or turns reliably.
• A lock or frame damaged in a forced entry, once the police have seen it.
• A jumble of mismatched keys that a single new set would replace.
• An upgrade that you want across every exterior door.

If the trouble is a stiff cylinder or a loose handle, lock repair may be enough.

What to send

• a photo of the latch edge and both faces of each door
• the brand and finish on the current lockset, if you can read them
• how many doors, and whether one key should open several
• the reason: worn out, forced, mismatched or an upgrade
• whether the home sits in a historic district or under a homeowners association

Neighborhood and housing background is on the Phoenix page.