There is a multitude of reasons for why you might want to change the access control of your home or your business. Whether a tenant recently moved out or if you’ve recently suffered from a break in, you may be considering changing your locks. However, did you know that rekeying is a much more affordable and usually, equally secure alternative? In fact, most lock replacement services are unnecessary. Year after year, people look up their local residential locksmith, tell them they need to change the locks around their home, and end up spending an unreasonable amount of money in the process. The real shame is that most locksmiths will gladly perform the service, take the money, and never mention rekeying as an option! However, Ontario’s own Locksmith Geeks are here to educate! Rekeying is a much more inexpensive process than changing all of the locks in a residence, ultimately because it requires fewer materials.

Whereas changing the locks requires all new parts and hardware, rekeying only requires new lock pins and keys. So why replace a bunch of metal parts if you can the same effect by replacing a fraction of them?
Of course, there are some instances where it is necessary to replace all of a residence’s locks completely, but these cases are less common than those where a simple rekeying process may do the trick.
Thus, the real question is, how do you know whether you should rekey or change the locks?

This article will first give a brief overview of each process, and then finish off with tips on how to decide which process is best for your home. Let’s get started!

What is Rekeying?

Rekeying is the process of changing the internal mechanisms of a lock, so that it functions with a different key design.
This allows you to keep all of the old locks, while disabling the use of the old keys.
Therefore, it’s effective in changing the security access to your residence, while keeping most of the same hardware.
By utilizing most of the existing lock hardware, the process of rekeying remains to be one of the most inexpensive ways of changing the security of your home.
In fact, some hardware stores sell rekeying sets, which means that it is entirely possible for you to perform the service yourself, without the help of a residential locksmith.
However, if you decide to go the DIY route, you should make sure that you have a good understanding of what you are doing. Here is a video giving a brief overview of the process.
It should also be noted that, to ensure the highest possible level of safety and security, the services of a professional locksmith are always recommended. Any mistakes made during the rekeying process can seriously compromise your home security.

To rekey a lock, one must first remove the lock from the door it is installed on, in order to gain access to the lock cylinder. The key pins within this cylinder are the main elements that are to be changed. They can either be rearranged or replaced entirely, as long as they form a different pattern than the original pin arrangement. A new key that is compatible with the new pin arrangement is then required and voila!, you have successfully reset the key control for your home. For a residential locksmith, this is a quick, easy, inexpensive, and secure way to nullify all of the previous keys that functioned with the lock. Whether you’ve just moved into a new house, or you’ve decided that it’s time to upgrade the security of your home, rekeying is a great option for resetting access control. However, if your locks are of subpar quality to begin with, rekeying will leave them just as vulnerable as they were before.

Sometimes, Rekeying Isn’t Enough

While rekeying is the preferred solution for many problems concerning home security updates, there are some times when it makes sense to go ahead and just change locks entirely. As mentioned above, rekeying cannot solve all the problems that come with a low-quality lock. There are often other design flaws that can make such a lock vulnerable to unwanted access, such as ways to break the lock unit entirely. Since it requires more materials and installation time, changing locks is a much more costly process than rekeying, but it does come along with its perks. For starters, it enables you to upgrade to a higher-quality, more secure lock. It also provides you with the option to change lock styles, if for instance, you wanted to switch from a cylinder lock to a deadbolt. These options for upgrades and customization are well worth the extra cost of replacing locks, but once again, they aren’t always necessary. So finally, how do we know when to rekey and when to change the locks? Changing access control should never compromise lock security.

You must consider what you wish to achieve by changing the security systems of your home.

Do you simply want to reset the key control of your locks, or do you want to upgrade to more secure, high-quality locks?
Do you feel like your home is at some security risk?
Were you renting a room to someone who moved out and forgot to give you the old key back?

There are a seemingly infinite number of possibilities for why you are looking into the two services, and the truth is, you’re the only one who can decide which one is right for you. If your home as been recently broken into, you probably want to upgrade all of your locks. On the other hand, if you recently lost your keys, and are concerned about someone out there having a spare key to your house, you might just want to consider rekeying, so that key won’t function with your home locks anymore. As you can see here, there is no clear-cut ‘right answer” when it comes to the question of access control. Either process is an effective solution to resetting the key control of your home, but they come with their own upsides and downsides. Feel free to visit us at LocksmithGeeks.com or to give us a call at (909) 774-1444 for more assistance with this subject. We are more than happy to help however we can. Also, remember that we are a professional residential locksmith based in Ontario, California who can perform either of these services for you! At Locksmith Geeks, your security is our priority.