Non-destructive entry first, always - and we re-key Schlage, Kwikset, and Baldwin locks on the spot while you watch
You get a price before we start. It does not change when we arrive. No surprises.
Fast, Reliable Residential Locksmith Across San Anselmo
A residential locksmith call in San Anselmo usually means one of two things: a lockout on a pre-war door you don’t want drilled, or an aging mortise lockset that finally stopped turning. We handle both, and everything in between, across San Anselmo’s older bungalow streets and the newer hillside homes too. Our techs know the difference between a 1915 Baldwin mortise case and a 1990s Kwikset knob before the van is even parked, because in this town that distinction changes the whole job. Call (910) 714-4287 and a live person answers, any day, any hour. The price goes in writing before any work starts.
Why Dunmore Locksmith Is San Anselmo’s Preferred Residential Locksmith Company
Dunmore Locksmith has served homeowners through San Anselmo since 2007 as part of the Threshold Group family of independent local locksmith businesses. The name itself comes from the old words for a great fort, a stronghold built to keep what is inside safe. That’s the standard we hold to on every job in town.
San Anselmo homeowners call us because of the Threshold Standard: every technician is background-checked, identity-verified, photo-badged, and sent to you by name and photo before the visit. Before you open the door to a stranger, you know exactly who that stranger is. The tech arrives in a clean marked uniform and shows a photo ID badge at the door. If anyone shows up who you were not told to expect, that visit is covered at no charge. No confusion, no guessing.
Response time to San Anselmo neighborhoods like Barber Avenue, Lansdale, and the flats around San Anselmo Creek runs about 35 to 50 minutes for most lockouts. Every job, from a simple rekey to a full mortise rebuild, carries the 365-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If the repair fails within a year, we return at no charge. That guarantee is stamped on every invoice, not buried in fine print. Our Residential Locksmith team is the one making the call, and the one who shows up.
House Lockout in San Anselmo
House Lockout in San Anselmo happens most often on older front doors with original mortise assemblies still in place. You step onto the porch, the spring latch snicks shut behind you, and the skeleton-key cylinder on the other side has a dead spindle. The first instinct, drilling, is usually the wrong move in this town. A 1918 Craftsman door with its original two-piece mortise lock is worth more than the replacement lock itself, and once drilled, that face is gone for good. Our techs open San Anselmo residential doors non-destructively in the large majority of cases, using bypass tools and shims matched to the lock’s actual profile before anything harder is even considered. Typical cost for a daytime house lockout in San Anselmo runs $95 to $160 depending on the lock type and whether it is a standard cylinder or an older mortise. Late-night calls run higher, $145 to $220, which is honest pricing for a real tech on a wet winter night.
Non-Destructive Entry on Original Mortise Locks
We approach every San Anselmo lockout trying to preserve the door. On a 1920s bungalow door, that often means working the latch through the strike gap or picking the skeleton-key cylinder with the same respect a restoration carpenter would give the trim. If the lock is too corroded to open cleanly, we tell you before doing anything that leaves a mark. The written price you got before dispatch is the price on the invoice.
When a Lock Seized From Creek Flooding
Houses near San Anselmo Creek, especially in low-lying parts of town near downtown, come to us with locks that seized after floodwater worked silt into the bolt mechanism. That is a specific failure we see every heavy winter. The housing swells, the strike plate shifts, and the deadbolt will not throw. These locks often open with patience and a proper lubricant flush rather than a drill. We save the hardware when we can.
Deadbolt Installation in San Anselmo
Deadbolt Installation in San Anselmo is rarely a simple drop-in job on the town’s older housing stock. Doors built between 1895 and 1940 have thin pre-standard slabs and original prep dimensions that do not match a modern deadbolt backset. A tech who ignores this drills a fresh hole, tears out the original mortise pocket, and leaves you with a ruined door. We do not do that. Our installers carry retrofit kits, reinforced strike plates, and jigs designed to fit old door prep cleanly. A standard single-cylinder deadbolt install on a normal modern door in San Anselmo typically runs $145 to $210, including the hardware. On a pre-1940 door requiring mortise-to-modern conversion work, expect $195 to $320 because the job involves careful hole sawing, chiseling, and often repairing the edge of the door. The quote is written and fixed before we touch the drill.
Bump-Resistant and High-Security Deadbolts
Many San Anselmo homeowners who have had a break-in or a bump-key scare ask for something stronger than a builder-grade Kwikset. We stock and install Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, and Baldwin high-security deadbolts, and we can key them with restricted keyways so no one can walk into a hardware store and get a copy. That is a real step up in key control, especially on a door with original glass or brass hardware you want to keep in place.
Reinforcing a Vintage Door Without Losing the Look
You can add a modern deadbolt above an original mortise lock and keep the antique brass escutcheon below. We have done it repeatedly on San Anselmo bungalows. The door gets a bump-resistant top lock, the lower mortise remains operational, and the period look stays. The job requires a steady hand and the right backset, because older slabs are often only 1 3/8 inches thick, and an off-the-shelf bolt will not fit without shimming. That is the difference between a locksmith and someone with a drill.
Trusted Brands We Service in San Anselmo
Our San Anselmo customers bring us the hardware they actually have on their doors, which spans a century of manufacturers. We service and source parts for Kwikset, Schlage, Medeco, Yale, and Baldwin, and we keep a compact parts stock on the van for the old locks this town is full of, including original skeleton-key blanks and two-piece mortise cases. When a 1920s Baldwin mortise lock needs a new spindle and a fresh pin-and-tumbler stack, we do not tell you to replace it with a modern knob. We rebuild it. That is why we carry the parts. Turnaround on harder-to-source vintage components is usually 2 to 4 business days, with a temporary lock fitted if the door needs to stay secured in the meantime.
Common Residential Locksmith Problems We See in San Anselmo Homes
- Seized mortise locks after creek flooding: Homes along the San Anselmo Creek corridor, particularly the low streets near downtown, get silt inside the lock body during wet winters. The bolt seizes, the strike plate corrodes, and the door frame swells enough to throw the alignment off. Cleaning and re-pinning usually fixes it, and it costs far less than replacing the whole set.
- Copy-copied skeleton keys that no longer work: A skeleton key copied five times over sixty years is basically a blank with attitude. On original mortise locks in the pre-1940 bungalows, the keyway wears wide, the pins drift, and one day the key just spins. We rebuild the cylinder and cut fresh keys for a clean start.
- Multi-tenant key control on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard properties: Landlords and building owners along the Sir Francis Drake corridor deal with tenants who made copies at the hardware store. Now five unknown keys open the building. We install restricted keyways, from Medeco and Mul-T-Lock, so no additional copies can be made without the owner’s authorization.
- Pre-standard door prep on 1895 – 1940 homes: The door is too thin, the backset is wrong, and the modern deadbolt someone bought at the big-box store will not fit without tearing up the slab. This is the most common problem we see in San Anselmo. Proper retrofit requires knowledge of the old prep, not just a bigger drill bit.
Pricing for Residential Locksmith in San Anselmo, CA
Residential locksmith work in San Anselmo reflects the age and variety of local hardware, not some national chart. Rekeying a standard modern knob or deadbolt runs $75 to $130 per cylinder. Rekeying an original mortise lock, which requires disassembly and pin work inside a century-old case, runs $130 to $210. House lockout service is $95 to $160 in daytime, $145 to $220 at night. Deadbolt installation runs $145 to $210 on a modern door, $195 to $320 on a vintage door needing retrofit. Full lock replacement on an exterior door runs $165 to $340 depending on hardware grade. Every quote is written before work begins, and the price on the phone is the price on the invoice. No call-out surcharge added on arrival. Call (910) 714-4287 for a free estimate on your specific lock.
We Also Serve Cities Near San Anselmo
Our crews cover the whole Ross Valley and the surrounding central Marin areas. That includes Fairfax, Kentfield, San Rafael, and Larkspur. If you are in a neighboring town and have a lock problem, the same background-checked technicians and written pricing apply. See our full San Anselmo service area for details on coverage and response times across the region.
Serving San Anselmo, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the San Anselmo area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs About Residential Locksmith in San Anselmo
Yes, and that is the standard approach we take. Most San Anselmo apartment lockouts end with a non-destructive bypass using the lock’s actual mechanism, not a drill. The freeholder owns that door, and a drilled cylinder becomes a door-replacement bill that no tenant wants to explain. We open the lock, re-key it if needed, and leave the door as we found it. Call (910) 714-4287 for a written quote before the dispatch.
Yes, and that is what we do most often on San Anselmo’s pre-1940 homes. We disassemble the mortise case, rebuild or replace the pin-and-tumbler stack, cut fresh keys on the original blank, and often add a bump-resistant cylinder without touching the ornate brass on the outside. The cost runs $130 to $210, and the job is covered by the 365-Day Done Right Promise. The lock stays, the old look stays, the key control is yours.
Yes, with the right prep work. Old Craftsman doors are typically thinner than modern slabs and the existing bore may not match a standard deadbolt backset. We carry retrofit kits and jigs designed for doors built between 1895 and 1940, and we install a deadbolt above the original mortise without destroying the vintage hardware below. Typical cost on these doors runs $195 to $320 including hardware.
In most cases, yes. The silt that comes up with San Anselmo Creek water works into the lock body and seizes the bolt or the cylinder. We flush the mechanism, clean the pins, re-lubricate with the correct product, and often the lock works like it did before the flood. If the corrosion is too deep, we tell you before recommending replacement. A cleaning and re-pinning runs $85 to $145; a full replacement is only quoted if it is genuinely needed.
Install a restricted keyway. Medeco and Mul-T-Lock cylinders require a special card to authorize copies, so tenants can no longer walk into a hardware store and duplicate keys. We re-key the whole building, issue numbered keys to each unit, and document every copy issued. That gives the owner full key control again. Pricing depends on the number of cylinders and the keyway chosen; call (910) 714-4287 for a written scope and a flat per-lock price.
Written by Perry Osgood, Owner at Dunmore Locksmith, serving San Anselmo since 2007.