In Which A Slight Tangent Begins And Most Certainly Doesn't End
After looking at our timelines, and getting sick of sleeping on the floor, we decided to focus our efforts on getting the master bed room ready to move in. That's not to say there aren't side projects going on. One high priority side project was replacing the locks on the front, back, and garage entry doors. After going back and forth on what design handle sets and deadbolts to use, we settled on keypad deadbolts and levers on the back and garage entry doors, and a standard D-handle with deadbolt on the front door.
Personally, I've never been a huge fan of electronic locks, but she really doesn't like getting her keys out so whatever keeps her happy. We went to Home Depot and played with their display models and decided we really didn't like the laminated membrane touchpads on the higher end Schlage models and all the Kiwkset units on display had the combination buttons, reducing the total possible combinations. We also decided we had to have a key backup and that pretty much left us with the Schlage BE365. It's not without downsides: it only allows for 4 digit pins, the white buttons may show wear over time and give away the combinations, and it's only graded at ANSI 2, whereas most of the other e-deadbolts on the market are grade 1. But at the end of the day, there is so much glass on and near the back door that if someone wants to get in that bad, it'll happen one way or the other.
Because we decided on the Schlage system for the deadbolts, we decided to keep things consistent and use Schlage parts for the rest of the house. For the front door, we went with the standard 5 pin B60N deadbolt from Schlage. I also bought a re-pinning set so I can like-pin all of the locks in the house.
The front door also had issues: the deadbolt was easy to replace, but the existing handle uses a discontinued Schlage with an oval cutout. I will need to make a dutchman for the door before re-boring the door for a standard single-hole installation. I'll also need to repaint the door after, so it's pretty low on the priority tree.
The garage door is another problem entirely. It looks like an interior door with a mortised handle that matches the interior doors, but has lites at the top that make me think exterior door. Either way, the paneling feels so thin I could put my hand through them. And then there is the frame, which doesn't look like it has enough meat for a bored deadbolt hole. I think they had this problem in the past so right now there is a surface mounted dead lock screwed into the side of the framing 2x4. And, of course, the door isn;t plumb anymore, so to get the latch to engage, you have to use the lock body to lift the door. At some point we're going to have to replace that lock and/or door, but it works for now.
Personally, I've never been a huge fan of electronic locks, but she really doesn't like getting her keys out so whatever keeps her happy. We went to Home Depot and played with their display models and decided we really didn't like the laminated membrane touchpads on the higher end Schlage models and all the Kiwkset units on display had the combination buttons, reducing the total possible combinations. We also decided we had to have a key backup and that pretty much left us with the Schlage BE365. It's not without downsides: it only allows for 4 digit pins, the white buttons may show wear over time and give away the combinations, and it's only graded at ANSI 2, whereas most of the other e-deadbolts on the market are grade 1. But at the end of the day, there is so much glass on and near the back door that if someone wants to get in that bad, it'll happen one way or the other.
Because we decided on the Schlage system for the deadbolts, we decided to keep things consistent and use Schlage parts for the rest of the house. For the front door, we went with the standard 5 pin B60N deadbolt from Schlage. I also bought a re-pinning set so I can like-pin all of the locks in the house.
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Unfortunately, none of the installations were as easy to execute as we had hoped. While I was scraping the master bedroom floors, she attempted to replace the knob and deadbolt on the back door. She got the handles swapped out no problem, but ran into an issue with the deadbolt: it seems that someone had decided to make the double-cylinder deadbolt tamper resistant by grinding off the lands on the flat-head machine screws. I got lucky with one (they did poor job grinding out the slot), but for the other, I had to break out the hacksaw. a minute of sawing, and I had a new slot cut into the screws and the deadbolt in pieces. The next problem we ran into was that the bolt housing was too long for the door mortise, so I had to drill out a bit of the foam core of the door. After that, the install went smoothly and we programmed in new codes.We didn't bother changing the strike plates because the previous owners had security plates installed into the framing. Unfortunately, the handle latch and the deadbolt latch aren't lined up so you have to pull the door closed while locking the deadbolt or it gets hung up on the side of the strike plate.The front door also had issues: the deadbolt was easy to replace, but the existing handle uses a discontinued Schlage with an oval cutout. I will need to make a dutchman for the door before re-boring the door for a standard single-hole installation. I'll also need to repaint the door after, so it's pretty low on the priority tree.
The garage door is another problem entirely. It looks like an interior door with a mortised handle that matches the interior doors, but has lites at the top that make me think exterior door. Either way, the paneling feels so thin I could put my hand through them. And then there is the frame, which doesn't look like it has enough meat for a bored deadbolt hole. I think they had this problem in the past so right now there is a surface mounted dead lock screwed into the side of the framing 2x4. And, of course, the door isn;t plumb anymore, so to get the latch to engage, you have to use the lock body to lift the door. At some point we're going to have to replace that lock and/or door, but it works for now.
Installing locks sounds far more complicated than I could have imagined. I'm glad this is a problem I won't have to consider for some time...
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