When Should a Business Rekey Their Building?
When you’ve terminated an employee or just moved your business into a new location, perhaps maybe even a theft, it’s time to rekey you business locks. Rekeying your door locks means that only authorized team members will have keys to your business。
Rekeying your business lock cylinders is only slightly more expensive than rekeying those in a home.
Commercial locks are built a bit differently; they are built more durably for higher traffic situations, and there are many more types of hardware which have lock cylinders to be rekeyed.
Commercial locks rekeying in the field typically costs from $20-35 per cylinder depending on the lock type. A lock cylinder is where you put a key into a keyhole. So every keyhole you have is a cylinder and if you count keyholes you can arrive at your total cost.
For commercial locks, there are a few variables that could change the cost of the rekey:
Rekey Standard business lock:
Most businesses use standard keyways. Unless someone, at some point, added high-security locks, nearly all businesses will have a standard keyways. The cost to rekey a standard business lock cylinder will be about $21.
Rekeying locks with no existing business key:
If you don’t have the existing key, the locks can still be rekeyed but it will cost slightly more as it will take longer to perform the rekey. Expect around $7 additional per lock cylinder (keyhole).
High-security locksets: High security locks are ideal for businesses because your employees cannot make copies of these keys at the new automated machines. This stops you from having to rekey the locks due to employee turnover. However, if you have them and the employee has not returned your business key, rekeying is the safest option.
These rekeys will use component parts that are more expensive than standard-pin locks and are take longer. The rekey cost will reflect this. The keys will likely be more expensive, too. The cost to rekey a high-security business locks will be around $32 per cylinder (keyhole). ASSA, Mul-t-lock, Marks, and Medeco are common commercial high-security locks.
Rekeying exit bars surcharge (panic bars, crash bars, fire bars are some other common names):
Exit devices may have to be partially disassembled to get to the cylinder, which is a fair bit more complicated than normal locks. Locksmiths will add a surcharge to the cost to rekey the cylinder within the lock because of this. Exist Bars will add between $10 and $20 to the cost of the rekey.
The Cost of Master Keying Your Business:
It’s possible to arrange the pins in locks in a way that allows the lock to work with more than one single key. That is, a key with a completely different cut, can open the lock. See What is a Master Key System
So, a business owner may have a key that operates all the locks within a building, but a division head’s key will only work the locks within his division, and a key to lower level manager may only work his office door.