Lock Replacement in Green Bay, WI

Two kinds of Green Bay door

Most replacement questions here come from one of two housing eras.

The older era is on display in the Astor Historic District in southeast Green Bay, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Its houses run from Greek Revival, Gothic Revival and Italianate to Queen Anne, Shingle and Prairie School. If an original entry door survives, its lock may be a mortise lock, with the lock body set into a pocket cut in the door edge.

The larger group is the 1950-1979 housing stock, which makes up 43.4 percent of Green Bay homes by Census Bureau estimates. On a house of that age, check whether each entry has a knob or lever, a deadbolt or both, and whether decades of daily use have worn the latch, springs or strike plate.

Signs a lock needs replacing

• The latch sticks, drags or springs back weakly
• The deadbolt no longer throws fully into the strike plate
• An entry has a knob lock and no deadbolt
• Cylinders of mixed brands stop you from running your doors on one key
• A lock or its frame was damaged in a break-in

Replacing hardware on a period door

On a historic door, fit matters as much as the lock. A modern deadbolt may call for a new bore through original wood, and an old mortise pocket may not match a current mortise body. Ask whether a replacement can use the existing pocket and trim holes before any wood is cut. If the original lock still turns and only its key or springs are worn, lock repair may be worth trying first.

What to send

• A photo of the door edge with the door open, and one of the lock from outside
• The door thickness and the backset, the distance from the door edge to the center of the cylinder
• Whether the door came with an older house or is a later replacement
• The neighborhood association, such as Astor, or the nearest cross streets

More on lock replacement service and the Green Bay page.