The Key Idea

Steven Guccione

A year later we are still getting settled in the new house.  When we moved in we were given a bag of keys, all well labelled.  There are also electronic locks on the front and garage entry doors.

My first lesson was learning that my two electronic lock are different brands.  They look very much alike, but the instructions for programming one won’t work on the other.  Trust me, I spent hours trying.

We also decided that instead of a bag of keys we might like just one key.  I read up on, and watched YouTube videos on, re-keying locks.  Not beyond my skills but seems like a place to call in the pros.  $500 or so later the best we could get was two keys for the whole house.

Seems there are two (or at least two) completely incompatible types of keys.  The grooves are different and you can’t physically put one type of key in another type of lock.  Who knew?

I decided I would have a run at the problem.  About half our doors are one type and half the other.  We have 6 total external doors.  Seems like a lot.  One I learned has a bathroom style lock that you can open easily with a screwdriver.  Why I can’t say.  Even the locksmith didn’t mention this one.

So I bought four of these KwikSet smartkey knobs (and one deadbolt) that you can re-key yourself. This should get nearly all doors on the same key.

Now I just have the incompatible smart lock in the garage to replace.  Then we will have a single key for all the locks, like God intended.