Daly City neighborhood · 24/7
St. Francis Heights: the same postwar plan set higher up the slope, where the driveway runs down to the garage door and so does the rain
The blocks climbing the southern slope, built in the same period as the flat tract below but on deeper lots, with driveways long enough to hold a second car in front of the garage and a house that sits well above the street. Fourteen minutes from the van.
~14 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
The difference a longer driveway makes is that the front steps stop being used entirely. Where a car can be left on the drive and a second one put inside, everybody comes and goes through the garage, including visitors, and the porch at the top becomes decoration. So the lock under discussion here is nearly always the lower one, and it is doing the work of a front door without ever having been specified as one. Builders' hardware from that period was chosen for an interior opening, and a great deal of it is still in place. A house lockout is $129 to $239 with the $89 visit already inside the number, and if the door is opened and the cylinder then turns out to be finished, a replacement at $125 to $329 goes on during the same appointment rather than on a second trip.
There is a second thing a sloping driveway does, and it costs people money quietly. Every drop of rain that lands on that concrete runs downhill and stops at the garage threshold, which means the bottom of that opening is the wettest square foot on the property for months of the year. Add coastal air to standing water and the parts that suffer are the ones nearest the ground: the strike, the lower hinge, the shackle of any padlock left on a side gate, and the bottom of a cylinder mounted low in a pedestrian door. When the key on that door starts to want a lift and a jiggle while the upstairs key turns sweetly, drainage is usually the reason and not age.
That is where the finish conversation belongs. The standard builder's finish, satin chrome, is rated for interior doors and was never meant to spend a decade a mile from open ocean at the bottom of a wet driveway. Stainless in the 630 finish costs more on the invoice and stops being an annual nuisance, and it is the one upgrade worth arguing for on a low door in this neighborhood. On an interior door inside the house it is a waste of your money and nobody here will suggest it.
The rest is ordinary work on houses that hold three generations comfortably. Rekeying is $29 to $46 per cylinder, and on these lots the count usually includes a side gate that gets forgotten until somebody is locked out beside the bins. Where a household wants one person to have a way in without a key going into circulation, a keypad on the garage-side door runs $189 to $479 and is the sensible place for it, since that is the door everyone uses anyway. Evening work adds $50 from 8pm, overnight adds $90 from midnight, and ninety days covers the labor.
Say how long the driveway is and whether a van can stop on it or has to sit on the street, because on the steeper blocks that decides the last two minutes. Say whether the trouble door is at the bottom of the drive or at the top of the steps. If the key has been getting stiff for more than a season, mention it, since that changes what the technician brings up the hill.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about St. Francis Heights
The key on the garage door drags and the one upstairs is perfect. Same house, same age.+
Same house, very different position. The lower door sits at the foot of a driveway that drains onto it, so it lives in damp and salt while the upper door stands six feet above all of that under an overhang. The cylinder is usually cleanable the first time and replaceable the second, at $125 to $329 fitted. Getting it looked at while it still turns is far cheaper than getting it looked at after a blade snaps in it.
Is stainless hardware actually worth paying for down at the garage?+
On that door, yes. The common builder's finish is a chrome plate specified for interior use, and at the bottom of a wet drive this close to the coast it is a consumable. The 630 stainless equivalent costs more once. On the doors inside your house it buys you nothing at all, so it does not get quoted there.
Can a code lock go on the door we actually use instead of the front?+
That is the right place for one here, and it is what most households on these blocks end up doing. A keypad on the door between the garage and the house is $189 to $479, and the mechanical key that comes with it gets cut and pinned during the same visit so a dead battery is an inconvenience rather than a lockout.
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.