Daly City neighborhood · 24/7
Westlake Knolls: ridge streets like Lakeshire Drive, wind that never lets up, and garages that have quietly become somebody's apartment
The streets that run along the ridge above the rest of the tract, in a city whose ground rises from sea level to around 780 feet. Same postwar plan, considerably more weather, and a growing number of lower floors that have become separate homes. Fifteen minutes from the van.
~15 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Two things define a call up here. The first is the wind, which arrives off the water with nothing to slow it and drives damp air into every opening on the exposed side of a house. The second is what has happened to the garage. Daly City permits the space under the house to be converted into a separate dwelling without requiring the parking to be replaced, and on the ridge streets a good number of them have been, which turns the door at sidewalk level from a family entrance into somebody's front door with its own tenant, its own hours and its own turnover.
That changes the keying question completely, and it is worth thinking about before hardware is bought. The household upstairs and the household downstairs should not be on one key, but the owner usually needs access to both, and the two doors are often three feet apart. The tidy arrangement is separate cylinders for the two dwellings with the owner carrying both, or a keypad on the lower unit at $189 to $479 so a code can be issued and retired between tenants while the upstairs stays mechanical. Rekeying between tenancies is $29 to $46 per cylinder, and doing the lower unit on its own is a short visit rather than a whole-house job.
The wind produces a failure people find surprising. On a house where the family uses the lower door year round, the front door at the top of the steps may go untouched for years, and an unused cylinder facing the weather does not stay ready. It sits, it takes salt air through the keyway, the springs stiffen, and the first person to try it is somebody who needed it in a hurry. If your upstairs key has not turned since last winter, try it on a calm afternoon rather than finding out on a wet night. When one has genuinely seized, the visit is a lockout at $129 to $239 and often a cylinder at $125 to $329 on the same call.
Everything else here is the standard list with the ridge added on. Views cost minutes, not dollars: fifteen is the honest run and it does not move a figure. Doors that have stopped meeting their strike are common on ground that pitches this hard, and half of those calls end with a hinge tightened and a strike moved instead of a lock sold. Evening work adds $50 from 8pm and overnight adds $90 from midnight, both stated before you agree, and the workmanship carries ninety days.
If the lower floor is a separate unit, say so on the call and say who is asking: a tenant can have their own door opened, but changing what is fitted to it is the owner's decision. Give the street and the nearest cross street rather than the number alone, since the ridge streets curve and numbers face away from the road. If it is the upstairs door and the key has not been used in months, mention that too.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Westlake Knolls
The downstairs is rented out now. Should both doors take the same key?+
No. Two households sharing one key is the arrangement that produces the awkward phone call later. Keep the cylinders separate and let the owner carry both keys, or put a code lock on the lower unit at $189 to $479 so credentials can be handed out and taken back without cutting anything. A rekey between tenants is $29 to $46 per cylinder and can be done on the lower door alone.
Our front door key has not been turned in about two years and now it will not go round.+
That is the standard result of a cylinder sitting unused in this wind. Air off the ocean gets through the keyway whether or not the lock is being worked, and the springs and pins stiffen where nothing is moving them. Sometimes it washes out and comes back. Sometimes it has pitted and takes a new cylinder at $125 to $329. Either way it is worth testing that key on a quiet afternoon rather than at eleven at night.
I rent the converted lower floor. Can I call you myself?+
For a lockout on your own door, yes, with identification at the door. Anything that changes the hardware, a rekey or a new lock, has to be asked for by the owner or whoever manages the property, and a text or an email from them covers it. Saying which of the two you need on the call puts the job in front of the person entitled to approve it.
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.