If you’ve ever had to experience key trouble such as losing your car keys or losing your house keys, chances are you called someone to come help you out. That someone you call is known as a locksmith. If you accidentally locked yourself out of the house, a locksmith can help you get inside by simple unlocking it. But what does rekeying a lock mean?
So, if you forgot your car keys inside your car, and locked it in, a locksmith can help you. But of course, you’ll be required to pay for such services. And depending on how serious your key or lock situation is, locksmiths can be quite expensive in the UK.
So, perhaps you’ve heard about the term rekeying. But you’ve never actually considered asking someone about it, or maybe you’ve hired a locksmith before to change and replace the locks in your house or unlock your car, but they never mentioned anything about rekeying.
Perhaps they did, but they might’ve put it in such a way that you may not have understood. Well, in this article, we’ll be telling you all what rekeying a lock is about.
What does rekeying a lock mean
Rather than giving you a basic definition of what rekeying means, we’ll tell you what rekeying means with a simple example to provide you with a much better understanding of the term.
Now, you just moved into a new home. And as you moved in, you met the old homeowners lock just laying there. If you take security very seriously, then you will want to have the locks changed or replaced.
Read also: Can You Tell If A Key Has Been Copied
If you decide to call out a locksmith and have the locks changed completely due to the fear of someone somewhere having the keys to the old lock, that’s fine. Nothing wrong with being careful.
But changing a lock is different from rekeying a lock. When you rekey a lock, you don’t change the whole thing. Meaning you don’t buy a new lock for your door, all you have to do is rekey the lock. You’re using the same lock, but with different keys.
In other words, rekeying a lock also means replacing the old working key of a lock to a new key. Not necessarily having to change the lock entirely. When you rekey a lock, you get to keep your lock. You will have new keys to the lock, while the old keys will no longer work on the lock.
So, when next you plan on changing your lock, consider rekeying it instead. Rekeying will save you a good amount of money as it is cheaper and is not as expensive as replacing your lock entirely. If you’re financially stable and wouldn’t mind to spare a few pounds on a new lock, then changing your lock isn’t such a bad idea either.
But if you aren’t willing to let go of your lock, maybe you’ve had a lock for so long that you haven’t changed it in over five years, and suddenly you lose the keys. If you don’t want to stop using the lock, then all you have to do is hire a professional locksmith to have the lock rekeyed.
When that is done, you get to keep your old lock, but your locksmith will give you new keys. Rekeying a lock will not harm your lock’s security. Neither does it make your new lock more secure than the old one.
If you decide to rekey a lock, it should be for a relevant purpose. Some people who are not familiar with rekeying always choose to have their locks replaced instead.
Conclusion
From the above elaborations and basic insights on what rekeying a lock is all about, we believe you now know the difference between rekeying a lock and changing it entirely. However, just as we mentioned above, rekeying a lock does not increase or decrease the security of your lock.
If you’re okay with letting off a few hundred pounds to get a better-secured lock for your house, changing the locks entirely to new ones with better and tighter security patterns is the way to go.
Rekeying your lock does save you some money and is becoming more common among homeowners.
Nowadays some Locksmiths won’t even bother telling you about rekeying. When you hire them to have your locks changed, they go right ahead and replace the whole thing. You will have your brand new lock quite alright, but it’s more money for them.
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