Santa Clara's locksmith. One figure on the call, no revision at the door.

Twenty-one minutes is the average across the city, which is flat and about eighteen square miles, so the spread is narrow. The Old Quad and Downtown and Franklin Street are usually 18, Central Park and Kiely 19, Killarney Farms and Forest Park 20, Rivermark and Bowers Park 21, Santa Clara Square and Lawrence 25, North Santa Clara and Tasman 26. Sunnyvale is about 26, San Jose 27, Milpitas 29, Cupertino 31 and Campbell 32. On event days the Levi's Stadium and Great America lots run longer because the traffic plan closes lanes, and the window you are given on the call is built on what the roads look like at that minute, not on the average.

Weekends and holidays are charged at daytime figures. Arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $45, and arrival between midnight and 7am adds $80. Both are counted inside the figure at the moment you agree to it. A $115 house lockout is therefore $160 in the evening and $195 overnight, and that is the number quoted, not a daytime number with a surcharge produced at the door.

The $89 service call, the labour, the parts fitted, and any evening or overnight hour, combined into one number before you say yes. Distance, stairs, a gated complex or a parking structure do not change it. The only thing that adds to it is a second job you ask for once the technician is there, such as rekeying the other doors after a lockout. That is quoted as its own line, and it starts only after you agree.

Only if you agree to it after non-destructive methods have been tried. Apartment cylinders, residential deadbolts, most aluminum storefront hardware, wafer locks on mailboxes and cabinets, and most car doors open with picks, decoders, bypass tools or an air wedge and keep working afterwards. Drilling comes up when a cylinder is high-security, already damaged, or seized by a snapped key or corrosion. In that case the technician explains the mechanism, names the replacement part and its cost, and the total stays at the figure agreed on the call.

For a house, townhome or apartment: photo ID with the address, or ID plus a lease, a utility bill or addressed mail on your phone if the ID says somewhere else. For a car: ID plus registration or an insurance card, digital is fine. For an office, shop or lab: ID plus a lease, a business licence, or confirmation from the property manager or the company. Without one of those the lock stays shut, and that is the same rule that protects your own door.

Rekeying repins the cylinders already on the door so every old key stops turning, at $24 to $39 per cylinder with the $89 visit inside the total. For one unit that usually means the entry door and the mailbox keyed alike; a garage or storage lock can be added to the same key. A building master, if your complex runs one, keeps working. The receipt lists each cylinder by unit and door, which is the format property managers and relocation coordinators tend to want. If you have several units turning over in the same week, say so on the call and they are quoted as one visit rather than several.

Often, yes. Mid-century knob sets and the early deadbolts fitted alongside them can be cleaned, re-sprung and rekeyed on site, and worn latches are usually replaceable without touching the door face. Where the original knob has an interior push-button lock with a coin-slot release, a proper deadbolt above it makes the door secure without discarding the hardware. When a mechanism is genuinely worn out, a modern replacement is sized to the existing bore so there is no new hole in the door. The same applies to the older mortise sets in the Old Quad. Which route applies is decided at the door, with the figure agreed beforehand either way.

Yes. Car lockouts, key cutting and fob programming are done in the Levi's Stadium and Great America lots, the Caltrain station lot, corporate garages along Tasman Dr and Great America Pkwy, and the multi-storey structures at Santa Clara Square. Say which lot, which level and roughly where the car sits. For a badge-controlled garage, have someone able to let the van in, or meet it at the gate. On event days the lots are honestly slower, and the window you get on the call will say so. The figure does not change for any of this.