Daly City neighborhood · 24/7
Top of the Hill: the old center on Mission Street, where the shop door is at the sidewalk and everything else is up a stair
The original heart of the city on the hill John Daly farmed before it carried his name: continuous shopfronts along Mission Street, narrow doors between them leading to stairs, offices and flats on the floors above, and a street that pitches hard in both directions. Eighteen minutes out, the same number as the average across this whole map.
~18 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
The commercial door here is the ground-level one and it works for its living. Aluminum frames, narrow stiles, glass, a latch in the stile and a closer overhead, cycled from open to close six days a week. The fault that fills the schedule up here is a small one with a large consequence. Beside the latch on that kind of door sits a little plunger, and the lock is only a lock when that plunger rests against the flat of the strike; if the door lands a fraction short, the plunger drops into the keeper hole with the latch and the whole thing can be shoved back with a card. Owners find out when someone walks in overnight. The correction is alignment rather than a purchase, and on a street that pitches this hard it is worth checking once a year. Storefront work is $159 to $469 per opening, a business lockout is $139 to $259, and the $50 that applies between 8pm and midnight sits inside the figure, which is the hour a lock-up problem is actually discovered.
Between the shopfronts are the narrow doors, and they are their own category. A door two and a half feet wide at the sidewalk, a steep flight behind it, and offices or flats at the top, with a mailbox bank and sometimes a buzzer on the way. Those doors were hung a long time ago in frames that have moved with the hill, and the common request is simply to make one key work for the street door and the unit at the top instead of the three that circulate now. Where the street door is shared, that request has to come from the owner or the manager, and it is worth settling on the phone rather than at the foot of the stairs.
The hill itself shows up in the work. Mission Street climbs steeply through this stretch, which means a shop floor that is level at one end of a building and a step down at the other, doors hung in frames that have racked, and thresholds worn on one side. A door that no longer meets its strike on a grade like this is a hinge and keeper job most of the time, and the technician will tell you when it is not. Where a door genuinely has to hold a crowd on its way out, exit devices are $299 to $779 per door and the fit is checked against the frame rather than assumed.
Homes above the shops get residential prices for residential work: a lockout at $129 to $239, rekeying at $29 to $46 per cylinder, replacement at $125 to $329. What is different from the tract streets below is that the door you use and the door at the sidewalk are two separate locks belonging to two separate people, so the first question on any call up here is which of the two stopped you. Ninety days covers the labor either way, and the parts carry whatever the maker gives them.
Give the block of Mission Street and say which door: the shop front onto the sidewalk, the narrow street door beside it, a unit at the top of the stairs, or a rear door onto the service side. For a shop, say what time you lock up. Parking on this stretch is a loading zone at best, so the technician often walks the last part with the case.
Most requested in Top of the Hill
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Top of the Hill
The key turns at closing but the door still pushes open. Do I need a new lock?+
Rarely. On a narrow-stile front the small plunger next to the latch has to land on the face of the strike to hold the latch out; when it drops into the hole instead, the door reads as locked and gives to a push. That is a matter of moving metal a few millimeters, and it sits at the bottom of the $159 to $469 storefront range. New hardware goes in when the latch itself is worn round, and you are told which of the two you have before anything is ordered.
Can one key open the street door and my flat at the top of the stairs?+
Technically yes and it is a good idea, but the street door is shared and belongs to the building, so the owner or the manager has to ask for it. Your own door is yours to arrange at $29 to $46 per cylinder. If you are locked out of the street door tonight, that is opened for a resident who can show they live there, which is a different matter from changing what is on it.
Our shop door is narrow and old. Will a push bar even fit it?+
Sometimes, and the frame decides rather than the door. Exit devices at $299 to $779 per door come in versions built for narrow aluminum stiles, but the frame has to be square enough to let the latch reach its keeper every time, and on a street this steep some frames have racked. That gets measured on site before anything is ordered, and if it will not work you are told so instead of sold one.
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.