New Lock Installation for Mississauga Homes

The lock itself is the easy part. What separates a lock that works for twenty years from one that starts sticking in six months is whether the latch or bolt lands cleanly in the strike, with the door hanging as it actually hangs rather than as it did on the day it was hung.

Doors move. A wood door in a Mississauga winter is a different shape than the same door in August, and a house that has settled will have pulled the frame slightly out of square. If the strike plate is even two millimetres out, the bolt drags on the way in, and every time you throw it you are wearing the lock and pulling the screws.

So a proper installation ends with the door closed, latched, and thrown, then checked again with the door swung from open and allowed to close under its own weight. If the bolt needs a shoulder against the door to throw, the strike gets moved. That five minutes is the difference between a good job and a callback.

Residential locks are graded by ANSI/BHMA on a three tier scale, and the grade describes tested durability and forced entry resistance rather than marketing. Knowing the difference stops you overspending on a back door and underspending on a front one.

The right hardware depends on what the door is made of, how exposed it is, and what is behind it. A back door onto a fenced yard that backs onto a ravine is not a lower risk door just because it is at the back.

A double cylinder deadbolt needs a key on both sides, which stops someone reaching through broken glass to turn a thumbturn. It also means that in a fire, in the dark, in smoke, nobody leaves through that door without finding the key.

The Ontario Building Code requires that a means of egress can be opened from the inside without a key on many door assemblies, and some condo corporations and insurers prohibit them outright. We will fit one where it is permitted and where you have decided it is the right trade, but we will tell you the trade first.

In most cases the better answer to a vulnerable sidelight is laminated or security film glazing plus a single cylinder deadbolt, which removes the risk without locking anyone in.

Fresh installation means boring the door: a large cross bore for the lock body and a smaller edge bore for the bolt, then mortising the faceplate flush and cutting the strike pocket in the jamb. Done with a proper jig it is clean and quick. Done freehand it produces a hole that no escutcheon will ever quite cover.

Steel and fibreglass doors need the right bit and a slower feed rate, and a steel door with an internal frame has to be bored where the frame actually is, not where it looks like it should be. Fibreglass skins chip if the bit is dull or pushed.

If the door is fire rated, boring it can void the rating. Fire doors on condo suites and on the garage to house opening in many Mississauga homes are labelled on the hinge edge. If there is a label, the answer is a lock listed for use on that assembly and prepped within the permitted limits, not a hole drilled where it suits.