Tuesday, October 06, 2015

     So this week started off with us getting a call from a Jim Anderson over at Copperstate Lock and Security. He needed  a little help covering a job this week. Jim only works with the best and most professional Locksmith in Phoenix so it is always a complement when he asks us for help. His schedule was slammed and he needed some assistance covering this job.

     He let us know the customer needed an electronic strike installed. We figured this would be a normal commercial property and scheduled the job for a Tuesday. When we showed up we found out that this is a residential house that was being used to house a few commercial suites. The unit we were working on was for a new tenant wanting to control access from foot traffic passing by an exterior door.

     We also found out that the contractor hired to do the renovations was the one that hired us to install the strike. He led us to the door and after Andrew got his first look at the door he noticed a few problems from the start. This property was old, nearly 100 years old and this door looked like one of the original doors that was on the house when it was built. The door and the door jam had been previously modified to fit different door hardware and had been patched and re-patched a few times.

     Andrews main concern was that the door jam didn't have enough material for the strike hardware to install to. Since the main purpose of this door was to restrict access and was going to be locked the majority of the time; it is important the hardware is mounted correctly and to a solid surface that can withstand being pulled on. We let the customer know we would need to bring in someone else, a colleague of Andrews named Vinnie.

     Vinnie is a general contractor that Andrew calls from time to time for special projects like this. Andrew wanted to modify the door jam and beef it up some so it could handle the new hardware. We let the customer know we had someone coming in to give us a consultation on the job and we would let him know what needed to happen after we spoke with him. Vinnie showed up and took a look at the door jam. He let us know that he would need to cut out the weak part of the door jam and make a custom piece to house the electronic strike and then mount it in to the current door jam.

     Andrew spoke with the customer and let him know the issues with the door jam and what we could do to solve the problem. He let the customer know this would need to be done before the electronic strike could be installed. After some more discussion Andrew scheduled us to come back out the next day with the custom made piece and install the strike. Vinnie went back to our shop along with some measurements as well as pictures of the door jam and got to work making the custom piece the strike would mount to.

     The next day we went back to the house and got to work installing everything. Vinnie cut out a section of the door jam and installed the custom piece he made. It is kind of complicated to try and explain everything Vinnie did in a blog post. The pictures I took at the job site are below and show what was done with better detail. After Vinnie was done Andrew and I got to work installing the strike. Because Vinnie built everything custom to house the strike that part went very smoothly.

     This job was a big learning experience for me. We saved the customer a ton of money by being able to salvage their current door jam and door. We were able to get the electronic strike they purchased installed so that it would line up with a 100 year old door and door jam that were never meant to work with an electronic strike. This is where a professional and experienced locksmith shows why he is needed.

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