Don’t let cowboys throw away your antique locks

I had an instance last week where I was called out to a restaurant in Hadleigh. The building that the restaurant was in was well over a century old and very nice, with loads of period features typical of a building built around the turn of the last century.

The locks securing the restaurant were some 120 years old and unusual to find these days, but a good quality set of brass Victorian locks mounted in a cast iron chassis, as most things made years ago were. Being collectable they are probably worth in the region of £200-350 if you were to buy another set.

The restaurant owner had previously called a locksmith out that morning to have one of the locks fixed as it was not working and had broken internally. The locksmith that arrived was highly unprofessional and before even looking at the lock had charged a £100 call out fee, something I do not and will not ever do.

Without liaising with the owner of the restaurant, who was extremely proud of his well kept building, they proceeded to remove the old locks from the antique doors and threw them away in the bin. Bear in mind that this was an irreplaceable set of locks and an antique door that had years of wear and patina on it and were highly collectable and valuable locks.

They fitted a new style Chubb lock to the restaurant door and then charged the owner £400 for the job as it was a “difficult” install due to the nature of the building and its age. As you can imagine the owner was livid and quite saddened that his antique building had been violated in such a manner. He argued the cost with the Locksmiths, who he had found on Google and were a national firm, expecting them to do a good job, but in the end had to accede to their demands for payment.

I arrived at the restaurant after all this had occurred and as you can well imagine, the owner was extremely agitated, but after having calmed him down I managed to luckily retrieve the original lock from the bin, which fortunately were still there.

I then spent some time carefully disassembling the lock and finding out the problem, which was a stuck lever. After getting to the root problem I then rebuilt the locks with new internals, specifically new levers and after checking and lightly oiling the assembly and giving it a nice clean, reinstalled it onto the door. I even retrieved and tidied up the original brass screws that the previous people had removed and chewed the heads up on.

After checking it all worked ok, by operating the lock with its new key and ensuring it latched and turned properly, both on the key and handle, I showed the owner who was so happy it brought a tear to his eye. He was very pleased and made me a nice cup of tea and we sat down and discussed for a while about antique buildings and locks and how things that were made in older days seem to be much better made than things that are manufactured in this day and age.

I left happy as I had carried out my work to a standard I was proud of and I enjoy keeping my customers happy as it builds working relationships that can last for years which is what every business owner wants to achieve.

Please remember it’s very important to research the company who you want to provide you with a service and make sure they are a local company, one that’s going to go the extra mile to give you that good old fashioned customer first service. You may even be pleasantly surprised to find out they are often cheaper than larger national companies and more often than not provide a much friendlier and professional service as a smaller local business has to care for its customers far more.

Always check customer reviews on Google, Checkatrade Yell and local trade directories to see if the customers are happy with the service and always check where the company is based.