Rekey the Locks on Your Mississauga Home

Inside a standard cylinder is a row of spring loaded pin stacks. Each stack is cut into a top pin and a bottom pin, and the correct key lifts every stack to exactly the height where the split lines up with the edge of the plug. When all of them line up, the plug turns.

Rekeying means pulling the plug out, swapping the bottom pins for a different set of heights, and cutting a new key to match. The lock body, the finish, the strike, the screws and the door prep are all untouched. From the outside nothing has changed. From the inside, the old key no longer lifts the stacks correctly and it will not turn.

This is why the phrase "changing the locks" is usually the wrong instruction. In nine cases out of ten what a homeowner actually wants is for the previous keys to stop working, and rekeying delivers that without buying new hardware.

The decision comes down to whether the hardware itself is still doing its job. If the lock is sound and you only want the keys retired, rekey. If the lock is worn, weak or wrong for the door, replace it.

The trigger is almost always the same: a key exists somewhere you cannot account for. That is a security problem regardless of who holds it or how trustworthy they are.

Most can, but not all, and the honest answer depends on the brand and the condition of the cylinder. Kwikset, Schlage, Weiser and Weslock residential cylinders are all routine. Kwikset SmartKey and Weiser SmartKey use a different internal mechanism that is rekeyed with a learn tool rather than by repinning, which is quick but has its own failure modes.

High security cylinders such as Medeco, Mul-T-Lock and Abloy can be rekeyed, but they use restricted keyways, which means the blank keys are controlled and cut only against a signed authorisation. That is a feature, not an obstacle, because it is exactly what stops someone copying your key at a hardware kiosk.

A cylinder that is genuinely worn out is the one case where rekeying is the wrong answer. If the plug is loose in the housing, if the key wobbles noticeably, or if it already needs jiggling to turn, repinning it just puts fresh pins into a tired shell. Replacing it is the better spend.

Keyed alike means several locks share one key. It is the right setup for most houses, because a single key on the ring is the thing you are least likely to lose or mix up.

Master keying is a layered version of the same idea: each door has its own key, and one master key opens all of them. In a house it is usually unnecessary, but it makes sense for a duplex, a basement apartment with a separate entrance, or a property with a rented room, where a tenant should reach their own door and the shared entrance but nothing else.

Keying several locks alike does require the cylinders to accept the same keyway. A Schlage front door and a Kwikset side door cannot share a key as they stand, so one of them has to be changed. That is a normal part of the quote and worth raising when you book.