Master Key Systems in Daly City
Quoted after the doors have been counted. One key sitting above a key for each door, for an owner holding a row of units or a manager with a corridor of them. Nobody prices this over the phone, because a building that has not been walked cannot be priced honestly.
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A master key system is a set of levels cut into metal. Each tenant, department or crew opens their own door and nothing beyond it. A master opens a floor, a row of units or a whole property. Sometimes a grand master sits above that for the owner. Drawn properly it replaces a ring of unlabeled keys with one key worth protecting. Drawn carelessly it produces keys that open doors nobody intended, which is worse than having no system.
Nothing here is priced over the phone, and that is why there is no range printed on this page. Every opening is walked and counted first: what hardware hangs in it, whether that cylinder can carry the extra pin stacks, who needs to reach it, and which doors have to stay outside the system entirely. There is always at least one of those and usually more than the owner expects. A meter cupboard. A stock room. The space where the records live.
Daly City throws up four shapes of this work again and again. A house with the garage converted into a separate dwelling, where the owner wants one key that reaches both and the tenant wants a key that reaches only their own door. An owner holding several properties across Westlake and Vista Grande, who is otherwise carrying a dozen keys and trusting the labels. A short retail row on Mission Street sharing a rear corridor. And a unit in the Bayshore blocks with an office, a yard gate and a roll-up personnel door on three different keys for no reason anybody remembers.
The drawing is the job and the pinning is the afternoon. After the walk the levels are sketched on paper and agreed with you, a restricted keyway goes underneath so copies cannot be cut over a counter, and each cylinder is pinned at the van bench and then tried in its own door with both keys before anyone moves on. Cylinders in sound condition are repinned into the system rather than thrown away, which is normally the largest saving on the quote. Keys are stamped by level, entered in a log by number and signed for when they change hands. You keep a chart of every door against every key that opens it, with blank rows for the doors you add next year.
Cost is one itemized figure after the walk, because door count, key levels, keyway choice and the condition of each cylinder move the number too far for a published range. The $89 call-out is the survey and it counts toward the job. Once approved, the quote holds. Repinning a single door later, when a tenant leaves, is $29 to $46 and stays inside the system.
Sixteen jobs, fourteen of them with a range and two quoted once the openings have been counted on site. What moves a figure inside its range here is which door you mean and what the salt has done to it: a cylinder still turning cleanly takes the low end, a plug pitted by years of fog takes the high one. Say which door and how the key feels, and the range closes to a single number on the call.
- Daytime (7am–8pm)standard rates
- Evening (8pm–12am)+$50
- Overnight (12am–7am)+$90
FAQ
Master Key Systems: quick answers
Why is there no price on this page?+
Because the figure follows the door count, the number of key levels you need and the state of each cylinder, and none of those can be read from a description. The walk settles all three and the quote comes out itemized afterward. A number offered before the walk gets corrected later, usually with the cylinders already apart.
I own a house with a rental unit in the old garage. Is that too small for a system?+
No, and it is the most common version here. Two levels is enough. The tenant carries a change key that opens the unit door and nothing else, and you carry a key that opens the unit and the house above it. When the unit turns over, that one cylinder is repinned at $29 to $46 and your key keeps working.
Our master went missing with a former manager.+
The chart tells you precisely which doors that key reached, so only those cylinders are repinned and the change keys underneath stay as they are. Because the keyway is restricted, no counter cut a copy of it, which means one key is missing rather than an unknown number. The figure follows the door count on the chart and is given before work starts.
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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.