Lock Replacement in Las Cruces, NM

Door ages across Las Cruces

The city counts more than 1,000 historic buildings, most downtown or in three historic districts, and a door there can be far older than today's hardware.

• Alameda-Depot, west of downtown, mixes adobe with Mission Revival, Queen Anne and Italianate houses, many from the 1880s and 1890s. An original door may have been cut for older hardware such as a mortise lock, and fitting a modern deadbolt can mean altering the door.
• Mesilla Park has houses built from 1887 to 1965, from Folk Victorian through Craftsman bungalows to Ranch houses. Nearly eight decades of building will not share one door size, so measure each door.
• Mesquite, the 1849 townsite, has one-story adobe homes and garden walls, so a gate latch may need attention too.

Historic review for street-facing work

For designated historic properties, Development Code Section 40-13 sets up plan review of exterior work that needs a building permit and can be seen from a public right-of-way other than a rear alley. The application includes a Certificate of Appropriateness and specifications for doors and windows. If replacing a worn lock grows into replacing a street-facing door or frame, ask the city's historic preservation staff first.

Newer homes and worn hardware

About four in ten Las Cruces homes, 40.2 percent, date from 2000 or later. In those, replacement is usually about wear: a stiffened cylinder, a cracked deadbolt housing or a lever that no longer springs back. When the lock works and only the keys are in question, lock rekeying keeps the hardware and changes the key.

Before a lock comes out

Section 57-12-2(D) of New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act lists, as an unfair or deceptive practice, stating that a replacement or repair is needed when it is not (item 16). Ask what is wrong with the old lock and have the reason written on the estimate. This is general information, not legal advice.

Information for a replacement request

Give the neighborhood, the door's approximate age and photos of the lock from both sides and of the door edge. Lock replacement and Las Cruces have the wider picture.