Daly City neighborhood · 24/7
Vista Grande: the prewar part of town, where the block holds shops and houses together and a good many homes never had a garage at all
The older streets that predate the big tracts: narrow parcels, houses built one at a time rather than by the thousand, small businesses mixed in among them, and a mix of door hardware with nothing in common from one address to the next. Sixteen minutes from the van.
~16 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
This is the one part of the city where the rule the rest of this site runs on does not automatically apply. Plenty of these houses went up before a car in the household was assumed, so there is no garage under the living floor and no lower door to be the real entrance. The door in daily use is simply the one facing the street, sometimes with three or four steps up to it, sometimes level with the sidewalk. What that means practically is that no assumption can be made on the drive over, so the call asks what the door looks like: a knob with the keyhole in the middle of it, a separate deadbolt above, a long plate set into the edge of the door, or a modern lever. That one answer decides what comes off the van.
The name is older than the city. When this end of the peninsula was first put forward for incorporation in 1908, the name on the proposal was Vista Grande; the city that finally incorporated three years later took another. That history shows up in the hardware. On a block like this it is normal to find a heavy old mortise case in one door and a builder's knob set from a 1970s remodel in the door next to it, and the honest advice differs completely between the two. A good mortise case is worth keeping and repinning at $29 to $46 per cylinder. A tired knob set with no deadbolt above it is worth replacing at $125 to $329, with screws long enough to reach real framing behind the strike.
The small commercial frontage is the other half of the neighborhood. A shop at the corner, a service business in what used to be a front room, a two-unit building with a business below and a flat above reached by its own street door. Those street doors are the ones that lock people out, usually at closing time when one key is already halfway across town. Business lockouts are $139 to $259, storefront door hardware is $159 to $469 per opening, and where the same building has a residential door on it as well, both are handled in one appointment with the $89 charged a single time for the address.
Parcels here are small and old, which means gates, side passages and back stairs that were added at various times by various people. A rekey that brings all of that onto one key is the single most useful hour anyone spends on one of these properties, and the count is nearly always higher than the owner expects once the passage gate and the back stair door are included. Evenings add $50 from 8pm and the overnight hours add $90, both inside the figure you hear on the phone, and the labor carries ninety days.
Describe the door rather than naming it, since on these blocks there is no standard plan to assume: how many steps up, what the handle looks like, and whether there is a separate deadbolt. If the address is a shop with a home above or behind it, say which of the two doors you are standing at, and say what time you lock up if it is the business.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Vista Grande
Our house has no garage, so which door is the one you keep writing about?+
Yours is the exception, and it is why this page is written differently. On the older parcels the entrance and the front door are the same door, and the work concentrates there instead of at sidewalk level. What still holds is the count: a side passage gate and a back stair door usually exist, both are usually on their own keys, and both are worth bringing onto the house key at $29 to $46 per cylinder.
There is an old lock set into the edge of our front door rather than through the face of it. Replace it?+
Usually not. That is a mortise case, it was made to a standard nobody sells at that price today, and if the latch still springs and the bolt still throws it is worth keeping and repinning at $29 to $46. Replacement at $125 to $329 is the answer when the case is cracked, the spring has gone soft or the door has been forced. The verdict comes with the case out of the door and open on a cloth in front of you.
I run a shop downstairs and live above it. Is that one visit or two?+
One. Both doors belong to one address and the $89 is charged a single time for it, so a storefront lock at $159 to $469 and a rekey of the residential door upstairs at $29 to $46 per cylinder happen on the same appointment. Mention both when you call so the van carries the parts for each, and say what time you close if the shop door is the urgent 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.