Few towns are as surrounded by salt as Santa Pola. On one side, four Blue Flag beaches and a working fishing port. On the other, the Salinas de Santa Pola Natural Park, 2,470 hectares of salt pans and lagoons, still worked for salt and famous for its flamingos. And very little rain, under 240 mm a year, to wash anything off.
Locks feel it.
What happens inside a cylinder
A euro cylinder, the kind in almost every front door here, is a brass body with a row of small pins and steel springs inside. The key lifts the pins to exactly the right height so the plug can turn.
Salt-laden air settles in the keyway as a fine film. With humidity at night and sun during the day, it draws in moisture and attacks the springs and pins. Fine sand from the beach rides in on the key. Over months the pins start to stick, the key goes in stiffly and turns with a grind, and one day it will not turn at all, or turns and will not come out.
Doors that face the sea, ground floors near the beach and anything left unused for months suffer first. So do the steel parts of multipoint locks and sliding doors, which have more small parts exposed at the edge of the door. There is a separate guide on the terrace slider that jams every September.
Looking after a cylinder by the sea
- Use a dry lubricant: a graphite powder or a PTFE spray made for locks. A short puff into the keyway, then turn the key a few times.
- Never use oil or general-purpose sprays. They feel better for a week, then collect sand and turn into paste.
- Clean the key: an old toothbrush on the blade removes the grit you would otherwise push back in.
- Turn every lock when you arrive at a flat that has been shut, before you need it in a hurry.
When to stop and ring
- The key turns only with force, or only after jiggling.
- The key has bent, or you can see a crack.
- The cylinder has green or white crust on the face.
- The key goes in but will not come out.
Forcing a seized cylinder is how keys snap. At that stage a new cylinder costs less than an emergency later, and one with a brass or nickel body and a weather cover will last better on an exposed door.
If your cylinder is twenty years old
A third of the properties in Santa Pola date from 2000 to 2009. If you have never changed the cylinder, it has had up to twenty summers of salt: read a 2000s bungalow and the builder’s cylinders. Owners of lets will find the checks before a season on the holiday let page.