To be candid the title of this article should really be re-phrased a little to what is the best method of opening a lock when you don’t have the key because using the key is of course the best way to open a locked door.
Nevertheless there are those exceptional occasions where you may need to call out a professional locksmith, you might have lost your keys whilst on a night out or out shopping, it’s easily done, and find yourself locked out of your house or it may be new house you are moving into and the previous owners have not provided a key for one of the doors – This does happen more often than you would think – you may be a landlord or housing association and have had to unfortunately evict a non paying tenant. In any of these scenarios you would need to call out a professional independent locksmith.
There are quite a few locksmith covering Derby and Nottingham and even small towns such as Alfreton and Belper even though they are not densely populated areas, there is a reason for this and many of them are not locksmiths at all but are locksmith call centres instead.
When the locksmith arrives the question on most peoples lips is usually “how will you gain entry?” now the answer that you get can determine whether you have in fact called out a professional locksmith or have simply been sent an unskilled handy man by one of the growing number of dodgy national locksmith call centres that are popping up all over the place.
Calling a national locksmith call centre is like using a middle man to call a locksmith for you which is silly really, but that’s not the main issue, the main issue is that the a national locksmith call centres are taking a massive cut, generally more than the locksmith so generally its the cheapest, less experienced, have a go locksmiths who can’t get any work of their own who usually sign up with them.
As a rule you should always ask when you call whether you are in fact actually speaking direct to a professional locksmith or just someone manning the phones in a call centre, if its the latter, then I suggest you hang up and try another number until you do in fact get hold of a professional, independent locksmith.
Assuming you have done everything right and avoided the call centres then a professional, skilled engineer should promptly arrive at your home or office. This is the perfect time to ask the engineer “how will they gain entry?”
A skilled locksmith will always attempt non destructive entry using by physically picking the lock or by means of a professional lock picking tool. With none destructive entry there is no damage to your locks or doorframe, which is ideal if you do in fact have spare set of keys in the house and do not need your locks changing.
If manual or tool assisted picking doesn’t work – Some modern high security locks simply cannot be picked – Then the next method is to drill out the barrel so only the lock/barrel is damaged. These are really the only methods of gaining entry through lock that a professional locksmith would use.
Please beware of the hammer and screwdriver handy men as you can smash your own lock, door and frame to gain entry or you could just hire a burglar to do the same job, you don’t need to hire a wannabe locksmith you want to hire a professional.