Polar Vortex Causing Increase In Frozen Locks

In the upcoming months our office will be flooded with calls from customers whose locks are frozen making them unable to unlock their home or office door and even worse the car door. We have come up with a few tips on how you can avoid being stranded in the cold with frozen locks.

 If you have access to a lighter or matches you can use them to heat up the key for the lock you are trying to unfreeze. After you have heated the key up insert it into the lock and jiggle it around a few times allowing the heat to thaw out the locking mechanism inside the lock and then turn the key. The lock should open right up, but you need to be careful when heating the key not only because metal heats quickly and you could burn yourself but also when metal is hot it is very pliable and too much force could cause you to bend the key making it unusable.

If you do not have a lighter or matches but have just stepped out of your vehicle and noticed the locks on your home or office are frozen you can use the heat the your vehicle generates to try to heat up the key. Your vehicles engine generates an extreme amount of heat so simply place the key on or as close to the engine block as you can and hold it there until the key is hot then try to stick it into the lock, again be careful not to damage your key while attempting to jiggle the lock.

There is a new handy little deicer on the market today that allows you to not have to worry about damaging your key it is called the The Hillman Group Lock De-icer available at some hardware stores. This device has a self heating pin inside of it that you can insert into the locks to thaw them out. Not very expensive so if you are living in a area where frozen locks are a common occurrence than it might be a great investment.

Maybe you do not have a lighter and your car is the one with the frozen locks do not worry we have a solution for you too. Hand sanitizer is carried by just about everyone and if you do not carry any right now we suggest you go get some. Since hand sanitizers are filled with alcohol you can use a little squirt on your key and the alcohol will thaw the locks in question for you. This is a much safer way than the lighter since you have no real chance of damaging your key but if your hand sanitizer is a lotion or one of the ones you get from Bath& Body works with the little beads in it DO NOT use it. If you do use it and put the key inside the lock residue will stay in there causing more problems down the road.

The best piece of advice we can give you is to stock up on the lock deicer which is sold at just about every hardware and drug store in the world. A little bottle will run you a few bucks but will save you quite the headache and stress of a frozen lock.

If all of our suggestions fail you we apologize but you need to call the professionals and we always have a full staff of licensed locksmiths standing by 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Electronic Locks; Never Need Keys Again.

If you are like me keeping track of my house keys is almost next to impossible, so many nights I arrive home after a long day of work only to realize I do not have my keys with me.
 Did I leave them at the office?
 Are the still in my car, or even worse did I never bring them with me in the first place and they are still sitting safely inside my home.
 Since I have been down this road quite a few times before I have strategically placed spare keys with my neighbors, in my mailbox and yes even under my welcome mat. All of these are big no no's when it comes to home security but I was sick and tried of going into my van to pick open my own lock.

It was not until a few months ago that I made the best decision ever and upgraded my locks to electronic locks. These gifts to forgetful people like myself make life so much easier. Now when I arrive home and can not find my keys I no longer need to worry, I simply input my code into the door and voila open says me!

The possiblitlies of electronic locks are endless, maybe you want to input a code like I do into a lock like this.

A simple pin number that YOU WILL NOT FORGET is all you need and you will never be locked out again. This type of lock also makes it much easier to give access to your home to your in-laws, neighbors or house sitter. No more making copies of keys you can give each person their own pin code or share the one you created. 

Or you can even take it one step further and use your fingerprint to gain access into your home. with a biometric lock like this.

With this type of lock you can also give access to whom you want but you will need to add in their fingerprint into the database where as with the lock above you can create the code and tell it to them no need to have everyone over your house at the same time. 

If that is not high tech enough for you, there is one more step up which is the locks controlled by your smart phone. a simple push of a button on your phone and you can open up your entire home.

These types of locks just like the others above allow you to give access to other people as well and even keep track of when the come and go from the home. This lock is not just a lock for your door this system allows you to add your thermostat and even light system into the app so you can control the temperature and electric usage inside your home while sitting at work. A few cable providers offer this service in the area to learn more contact our customer service department to see if we can add this convenience to your life.