We were contacted by Mrs Gilliford near Coverack TR12 to have a look at her faulty Mortice door lock. When we arrived we found that the lock was indeed faulty but also of poor standard and way below her current insurance requirements.
The lock was a 3 lever Mortice Dead Lock and the door should have been fitted with a 5 Lever Mortice lock to the current British Standards. As responsible professionals, we explained this to the customer and she decided that whilst we were there and the lock needed changing to get the up-grade done there and then.
We removed the lock case and then the first task was to enlarge the holes for the new one. In recent years, the insurance companies have decreed that the standard of locks be higher and certainly in the case of the British Standard locks this has meant that the manufacturers have increased the over-all size of the lock cases to accommodate the increased security requirements. Therefore, when carrying out up-grades, many times it will be the case that the new case will not fit into the old holes without some alterations.
We started off by enlarging the holes for the new lock case. This meant that we had to cut deeper into the door and also move the holes for the keyway back slightly by around 3 mm. The face had to also be enlarged slightly by around 4 mm top and bottom and 1mm either side. Once we had a good tight fit with the main lock case we then started work on the frame and had to enlarge the keep holes in a similar way. Once we had ensured that the lock and keep we in the correct positions and working properly, we finished the key ways off and fitted an enlarged escutcheon to cover the slightly larger keyway hole and the job was complete.
