Mortice Locks

The UK Home Office recommends fitting five-lever mortise locks to all external doors and many insurance companies require this as a minimum requirement.

Mortice locks are embedded into the door itself and can only be opened with the key. They are commonly found on back doors and are often fitted to front doors in addition to a cylinder rim lock (Yale lock).

Mortice locks can often be described as a deadlock or sash lock. A deadlock is a mortice lock which has just a key hole and a bolt. A sash lock has a bolt and a latch and a pair of handles.

Mortice locks have several lever variations: a 2, 3, 5 or 7 lever mechanism. 5 lever and above can be British Standard or non British Standard. The higher the number of "levers" the more difficult the lock is to "pick" and the more secure it will be. The higher the number of levers the lock has the more key variations there are eliminating duplicate keys.

We recommend all locks should be upgraded to a 5-lever lock, tested to BS3621:2004, which can be identified by the British Standard Kitemark symbol. This is usually a minimum insurance requirement.

Mortice locks require a key to be turned to activate the deadlock. The major advantage of a mortice lock is that burglars cannot smash an adjacent window, reach inside and unlock the door. The deadlocks on a mortice lock also mean that if a burglar breaks in through a window they cannot escape through the door, providing you have not left the key in the lock on the inside.

Cylinder Rim Locks (Yale Locks)

Most front door locks and internal door locks are cylinder locks, commonly known as ‘Yale’ locks, after one of the leading brands. If your front door locks automatically when you shut it and you need a key to open the door from the outside, but it opens without a key from the inside, then you have a cylinder rim lock (Yale lock).

We will replace cylinders with lock cylinders of at least like-for-like quality, preferring to upgrade to a more secure high quality lock where necessary. In instances where keys have been lost or stolen, we would only change the cylinder of the lock.

Cylinder rim locks are fitted to the surface of the door and are mounted on the surface of the inside of the door with a connecting cylinder, which is fitted into the door with the keyhole on the outside.

Restricted cylinders provide physical protection against unauthorized key duplication, thus ensuring extra security to your property. Restricted keys guarantee keys can only be cut with the authorization of the owner usually within a security card system.

We recommended the fitting of mortice locks to supplement cylinder rim locks, particularly on front doors.

PVC & Multi Point Locks

Most PVC doors are locked in multiple positions by the lift of a handle and the turn of a key. When lifting the handle you are opperating a multi point door strip which will seal the door. When turning the key you are opperating a euro cylinder which will phisically lock the door. Both of these mechanisims can be opened repaired or replaced.

PVC doors meet most insurance requirements, however we would advise changing your Euro cylinder to a restricted or a 6 pin security cylinder.

Additional Door Security

We can also fit additional security such as door chains or bars.

Please contact our team for a free no obligation quotation.