Lock Replacement in Springfield, IL

When a lock needs replacing

Replacement is for hardware that has worn loose, broken inside, does not suit the door, or is not the grade or function you want now. A street door that several households use, a single front door and a storage room do not call for the same hardware. If the only problem is who holds keys, rekeying the existing lock may be enough.

Doors from the early twentieth century

Two early neighborhoods show the range. Harvard Park dates from 1908, and Enos Park, at its height in the late 1910s and 1920s, was built up with frame houses and row houses, among them the Enos Flats on North Fifth Street. A door from that period may hold a mortise lock set into a pocket in the door edge, or a deadbolt someone added decades later. A new lock has to fit the pocket or holes already there, or the door has to be cut. Ask which before anything is drilled, since an original door is hard to match, and ask whether lock repair can keep the old lock going instead.

Substitute doors downtown

For downtown storefronts, the Historic Sites Commission's 2008 design guidelines lean toward repairing an original door. When one is beyond saving, they list three options:

1. A new door built to match the original design
2. A manufactured wood or steel door that looks like it
3. A standard aluminum commercial door

Each may take different hardware, so settle the door before choosing the lock, particularly if the building is under the Commission's review.

What to send

• Photos of both faces of the lock and of the door edge
• The door material: wood, steel, fiberglass, or aluminum and glass
• Your neighborhood and cross streets
• Whether other doors should work on the same key

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