Method first, damage last
Door opening in Santa Pola, matched to the door in front of you
A flat door in a 1970s block on Playa Lisa, the armoured door of a newer apartment, the PVC door of a Gran Alacant bungalow and a community gate are four different jobs. Here is how each one is usually opened.
Open 24 hours · 7 days
- Through the lock or the latch first
- Drilling only with your yes
- Proof of address asked for
In short: if you are outside right now, the call-out page says what happens at any hour. Most doors that were simply pulled shut open without a mark. A door locked with the key, or an armoured door, may mean replacing the cylinder, and you are told before it happens. The door leaf and frame are left alone.
Door by door
The doors of this coast, and how they open
About two in three of Santa Pola’s properties date from between 1980 and 2009, which shapes what we meet at the door: euro-profile cylinders almost everywhere, a lot of PVC and aluminium, and very few of the old wooden doors with box locks you find in inland towns.
Flat doors in the town blocks
The typical door in the centre and along Gran Playa and Playa Lisa: a wooden or steel-faced leaf with a latch and a euro cylinder. Pulled shut, it is usually opened through the latch in a few minutes. Most of these blocks also have a communal street door; if you are outside that too, a neighbour letting us in saves time.
Armoured doors
Common in apartments built from the 1990s on. Several bolts thrown by one cylinder, often with a protective escutcheon. If only the latch is engaged, it opens like any other door. If it was locked with the key, the cylinder is opened or, failing that, replaced.
PVC and aluminium front doors
Typical of bungalows and terraced houses in Gran Alacant and Santa Pola del Este. The multipoint lock means hooks and rollers along the edge. Opened through the cylinder; a gearbox that has seized with salt is then repaired or, for the terrace version of the same mechanism, see sliding door repairs.
Urbanisation gates
Gates with a lock, a code pad or a fob reader stand between the street and many front doors on the cape. They belong to the community, so they are opened only with the community’s agreement. What to do when it is the gate that keeps you out.
Your choice, every time
When drilling is on the table
Before any cylinder is drilled or broken you are told three things:
- why the non-destructive ways will not work on this lock;
- what will be replaced, and what replacement goes in;
- the price of the whole job, agreed with you before starting.
If the replacement cylinder is the moment to upgrade, an anti-snap model can go in there and then. For a full choice of cylinders on a day that suits you, book a lock change instead.
Who may enter
Why you are asked for proof of address
A locksmith who opens any door for anyone is a risk to everybody on the street. So before opening, you are asked for something that links you to the address: an ID or a bill, a rental contract, the booking of a holiday let, or the owner on the phone. If the papers are inside, they are checked once the door is open.
Holiday-let owners can make this simpler for their guests; see how we work with lets and second homes. Keys lost on a day out? It happens more often than you would think on the boat back from Tabarca.
Asked on the phone
Questions about the door itself
Will my door be marked after it has been opened?
On a door that was only pulled shut, normally not at all. If the cylinder has to be drilled or broken, the door itself is left intact and only the cylinder is replaced.
My armoured door was locked with the key, not just pulled to. Can it still be opened?
Yes, but it takes longer and the cylinder may have to be sacrificed. You will be told that before anything is done, and a new cylinder is fitted on the spot.
Can you open the pedestrian gate of our urbanisation?
Only with the community’s consent, because the gate belongs to all the owners. In practice that means the president, the administrator or a neighbour with authority on the phone. Your own front door behind it is a different matter.
The door of my PVC front door opens but the handle will not lift to lock. Is that opening or repair?
If you can get in, it is a repair: the multipoint gearbox or the keepers need attention, which is planned work and can be booked.
What people book after this
If the door needs more than opening
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Help when you are stuck outside
Keys on the wrong side of the door, a key that snapped in the cylinder, a lock that will not turn at midnight. Someone answers, asks where you are, and tells you plainly how long the drive is.
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Lock repairs
New cylinders for a front door, anti-snap upgrades, multipoint locks that have gone stiff with salt. Booked for a day and a time that suit you.
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A terrace slider that will not lock
Aluminium and PVC sliders on terraces and balconies that no longer catch, run or lock: hook locks, handles, rollers and keepers.
Guides that lead to this page
A photo tells us which door you have
It tells the locksmith which of these doors you have before setting off. Or just ring.
Open 24 hours · 7 days