About

A city of new locks on old doors.

One van, out to any door at any hour: a garage-level door in Westlake that has been opened twice a day since 1952, a downstairs unit whose tenant changed on Saturday, a cylinder on the Palisades bluff that has taken ten winters of salt, a shop door on Mission Street that stopped meeting its keeper when the ground moved. Cutting equipment, cylinder stock and coastal-grade hardware ride with it, so nothing waits on a second trip. This is how a visit runs.

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Hageman Lock Works covers Daly City and the north Peninsula from a van rather than a storefront, working out of a spot near the Westlake center on John Daly Boulevard. Eight neighborhoods sit inside the city and the van reaches them in 12 to 26 minutes: Westlake about 12, St. Francis Heights 14, Westlake Knolls 15, Vista Grande 16, Top of the Hill 18, Westlake Palisades 21, Serramonte 24 and Bayshore 26. Eighteen minutes is the average. Broadmoor, Colma, Brisbane, South San Francisco, San Bruno and Pacifica are served at the same figures and run longer, out to about 35 minutes over the ridge on Highway 1. Calls are answered every hour of the day, every day of the year.

The idea this business runs on takes one line: in this city the door people actually use is not the front door. Between 1948 and 1962 Henry Doelger bought roughly 1,350 acres here and put up something close to 11,000 houses across two counties on a single plan, and that plan is a split-level on a 25 to 30 foot lot with a one-car garage at pavement level, the living floor half a story above it and an outside flight of steps climbing to the front door. So the car goes into the garage and the household walks up into the house from inside it. The lower door takes every arrival and every departure, it is the last thing locked at night, and it stands open to the wind every time the roller door goes up. The front door gets opened for guests. That is why a sixty-year-old cylinder at the top of the steps can still be sweet while its twin at the bottom is worn through, and it is also why the second half of the work here is keys rather than locks: the city allows the space under the house to become a separate home without replacing the parking, which turns that same lower door into a second front door with its own tenants. The salt is the layer underneath all of it. Less than a mile of open ocean means chloride in the keyway all year, and the satin chrome finish that gets sold for these doors is rated for interior use, which is a fact worth knowing before you buy the same lock twice.

Pricing follows one list and the $89 call-out is inside every figure on it. A house lockout is $129 to $239, a car lockout $105 to $199, a business lockout $139 to $259, and repair after a forced door $169 to $449. A rekey is $29 to $46 per cylinder, with cylinders after the first costing less because the drive only happened once. Replacement hardware runs $125 to $329, a keypad or app lock $189 to $479, and a safe opening $199 to $539. On the commercial side, exit devices are $299 to $779 per door and storefront hardware $159 to $469, while master key systems and access control are quoted after somebody has walked the building and written down every door. A car key is $155 to $419, a fob $95 to $199, an ignition $185 to $459, motorcycle keys $125 to $289. Arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $50 and between midnight and 7am adds $90, both counted in before you agree, so a late job moves up inside its range rather than past the top of it. Ninety days on the labor is printed on the receipt. What is not on the list is anything to do with garage door springs, cables, panels or opener motors, which is a different trade in a city full of garages, and you hear that in the first minute.

The Door at the Pavement

Four things that hold the same way on a garage door in Westlake, a hallway door in Serramonte, a shop front on Mission Street and a converted garage with its own tenants. Ninety days on the labor, written on the receipt instead of implied.

The lower door is priced as the door you actually useOn a split-level built to the Westlake plan the front door is ceremonial. The car goes in at street level, the household walks up into the house from inside the garage, and that lower door is opened four and five times a day for sixty years while the one at the top of the steps waits for visitors. Wear follows use, so the tired cylinder, the loose knob, the latch that has to be lifted are all down at the pavement. Say which door on the call and the whole conversation gets shorter. If only one lock in the house is going to be replaced this year, it is that one.

One number, with the hour already in itThe figure covers the visit, the labor and the parts, and the $89 call-out is part of it rather than a second line underneath. A van arriving between 8pm and midnight carries $50, and between midnight and 7am $90, and you hear either one while you are still on the phone. What turns up behind the escutcheon does not reopen the arithmetic: a cylinder older than the paperwork claimed, a strike screwed into trim, a slab that has swollen half an inch since the last dry week.

A mile from the ocean the finish is named out loudFog and wind come off the water all year, and the lower door meets them head on every time the garage goes up. Chloride settles in the keyway and works on the pins, the springs and the walls of the plug, so the first sign is not failure but a key that needs a lift and a wiggle. The honest answer at that point is not more lubricant. It is knowing which part is going back on the door: a satin chrome deadbolt, BHMA 626, is finished for an interior door and is sold for outside ones every day of the week. On this side of the hill the part worth fitting is 630, stainless. That gets said with the old lock still in your hand.

A garage that became a flat gets its own key planThe city allows the space under the house to be turned into a separate home and does not ask for parking back in exchange, which turns the lower door into a second front door with its own tenants and its own turnover. That needs deciding rather than improvising: a deadbolt on the unit that the household key does not open, one key for the owner that opens both if that is what you want, and a written note of which key opens what so the next change of tenant is one cylinder and not an afternoon. Ninety days on the labor either way, and the part carries the maker's own term.

Westlake — about 1,350 acres bought by one builder, near enough 11,000 houses across two counties on a single plan: 1948–62
Serramonte — the Gellert tract, a later plan on the wider ground east of the hill: from 1963
Vista Grande and Top of the Hill — the older part of the city, smaller lots, shops and flats on the same block: before 1940

Where we work

Daly City and the north Peninsula, any hour

Pick your area for its own arrival time and the jobs we run there most.

Westlake St. Francis Heights Westlake Knolls Vista Grande Top of the Hill Westlake Palisades Serramonte Bayshore Broadmoor Colma Brisbane South San Francisco San Bruno Pacifica

(650) 977-1855

Open 24 hours, 7 days

Say which door you are standing at and the call gets short

Daly City and the north Peninsula, every hour of the day. The door decides the work and the work decides the number, so the figure comes back on the call with the $89 call-out and the hour already inside it, and it is the figure on the receipt. Ninety days on the labor, in writing.

(650) 977-1855 Book online