A metal roller shutter spends every night outside. On the seafront of La Vila Joiosa, that means a few metres from the waves, in air whose relative humidity averages somewhere between 62 and 68 per cent through the year, with salt in it. The lock at its foot, or the padlock through its bar, is the first thing anybody touches in the morning and the last thing anybody thinks about until it fails.
Why it seizes
- Salt and damp corrode the pins inside the cylinder and the bolt that holds the shutter down. Each morning the key turns a little harder.
- Sand and grit blown in from the beach settle in the keyway, especially in locks close to the ground.
- The wrong lubricant. Cooking oil, general-purpose grease or a heavy spray collects grit and turns into paste.
- A bent bar or slat. If a shutter was knocked, by a delivery or a chair, the bolt may no longer line up even when the lock turns.
Four things to try before ringing
- Try the spare key, if there is one. A worn key can fail in a lock that would still work with a better one.
- Push the shutter gently down while you turn the key. If the bolt is trapped by the weight of the shutter, taking the weight off can free it.
- Use a dry lubricant made for locks, graphite or PTFE, sprayed into the keyway. Work the key in and out a few times before trying to turn it.
- Check the padlock separately if there is one. Sometimes the lock is fine and the padlock is the part that has seized.
Three ways to turn a stiff lock into a broken one
- Do not force the key. A key snapped inside the cylinder turns a stiff lock into a lock that has to be drilled.
- Do not hit the shutter with a hammer to “shake it loose”. Bent slats jam worse.
- Do not use a blowtorch or boiling water. Heat and water inside a cylinder near the sea make tomorrow worse.
When to ring
If the key turns but the shutter will not release, if the key will not go in fully, or if half of it has broken off, that is a job for a locksmith. Say what kind of shutter it is, where the lock is, and whether there is a padlock too, and send a photo. Tell us what time you need to open: the job is prioritised accordingly.
Afterwards, it is worth replacing a corroded cylinder before it fails again, and doing the same with the cylinders of the front door and the back door that face the same air.
For owners of flats along the seafront
The same air wears the cylinders of beachfront flats. If you let one to visitors, see a tourist flat in a community block, and if your building or your door has just been repainted, the door sticks after the façade is repainted may explain the stiffness better than salt does.
For shutters, glass doors and the rest of a business, see the commercial locksmith service.