Non-destructive entry first, always - and we re-key Schlage, Kwikset, and Baldwin locks on the spot while you watch
You get a price before we start. It does not change when we arrive. No surprises.
Fast, Reliable Lock Installation & Rekey Across Mount Lebanon
Lock installation and rekeying in Mount Lebanon typically runs $45-$95 per cylinder for rekey work and $180-$450 for a full smart lock or deadbolt installation, including labor. Most jobs on Mount Lebanon’s pre-1950s brick homes take two to three hours once our technician arrives, because the work often involves retrofitting modern hardware into original mortise door prep rather than a simple swap. If you’re calling from anywhere in Mount Lebanon, you’ll reach a live person at (331) 310-8471, and you’ll get a written price before a background-checked technician ever rings your doorbell.
Novak Lock & Security has worked on an unusual volume of Mount Lebanon’s original mortise locks. This matters more than most homeowners realize. When the door on your Washington Road Tudor or your Cedar Boulevard colonial still carries a 1930s Corbin or Sargent case, a technician trained only on modern cylindrical locks will either botch the job or tell you the whole door needs replacing. Neither is necessary. We carry the rebuild components and the patience to do it right.
Why Novak Lock & Security Is Mount Lebanon’s Preferred Lock Installation & Rekey Company
Daniel Novak founded this company in 2002 on one rule that runs through every job we do in Mount Lebanon: the price quoted on the phone is the price on the invoice. Haven Standard Clause 1. No dispatcher games, no technician who “discovers” an extra charge at the door. Our Mount Lebanon customers see the number in writing before we start, and the technician is contractually prohibited from changing it. That’s the entire argument for hiring us.
We’ve installed and serviced more than 60,000 locks and systems since 2002, and the proportion of that work involving genuine mortise-case rebuilds is highest in municipalities like Mount Lebanon. The housing stock here demands it. We don’t send a trainee who’s never opened a 1938 Yale case. We send uniformed, background-checked technicians who document every visit with a photo record left with you at completion, and who work under the same Haven Standard quality framework across all ten Haven brands.
When a Mount Lebanon homeowner calls with a rekey job on a solid-oak entry door, we arrive knowing the door prep is likely mortise, the jamb has probably moved through decades of freeze-thaw cycles, and the existing hardware is worth preserving. That local knowledge isn’t decoration. It’s the difference between a clean half-day job and a cracked brick lintel.
Our Lock Installation & Rekey Services in Mount Lebanon
We offer the full Lock Installation & Rekey spectrum across Mount Lebanon, but three services dominate in this municipality because of the housing stock and what our customers ask for after they move in. Here’s what we actually do most often.
Smart Lock Installation
Mount Lebanon homeowners want smart locks, and they also want to keep their original woodwork intact. On a 1940s Tudor off Bower Hill Road, that means we’re usually fabricating a custom plate to mount a modern deadbolt or smart lock over an existing mortise case without drilling new holes through the door face. A smart lock installation in Mount Lebanon runs $220-$450 depending on whether we’re replacing an existing deadbolt or retrofitting to a mortise door.
Keyless Entry
Keyless entry means different things to different houses here. For a condo near Uptown Mount Lebanon, it’s usually a straightforward keypad deadbolt on a standard cylindrical prep: $180-$300 installed. For a single-family colonial on Academy Avenue, it often means preserving the original lever hardware while adding a keypad-capable deadbolt above it. We program everything on site, walk you through the codes, and leave a written record of the setup. No dealer-style upsell on programming.
Keypad Lock
A keypad lock on a tall, heavy oak door that has warped slightly through western Pennsylvania’s freeze-thaw swings is a different job than the same lock on a new builder-grade door. We realign the strike plate, shim or adjust the jamb, and only then install the keypad. If the bolt binds when the temperature drops below freezing, the lock gets blamed, but the real problem is the door frame. We fix the root cause. Typical cost: $190-$320 installed.
Biometric Lock
Fingerprint-reading locks work in Mount Lebanon, but they need clean door alignment and a stable jamb to function reliably. On a brick colonial with a slightly settled frame, we align everything first, then install. Biometric lock installation runs $280-$480 in Mount Lebanon. We stock Yale and Baldwin hardware plus the mortise-adaptation plates that big-box installers don’t carry.
What happens when you call
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A real person answersNo phone trees - you reach a local pro.
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You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
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A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
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You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Trusted Brands We Service in Mount Lebanon
We work across the full spectrum: factory-authorized on Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, and Abloy, and fully experienced with Schlage, Baldwin, Yale, and Sargent. For Mount Lebanon customers specifically, we keep a local stock of mortise-case rebuild parts, period-style trim plates, and the machine tools to fabricate custom touch plates when a modern deadbolt has to be installed over a century-old mortise body. When we say we can source a part, we mean it’s already in the van or available same week, not a six-week special order.
Common Lock Installation & Rekey Problems We See in Mount Lebanon Homes
We see the same failure modes repeatedly across Mount Lebanon’s brick colonial and Tudor houses. These are the ones worth knowing about before you pick up the phone:
- Handyman-drilled cylindrical deadbolts through mortise door prep. A neighbor recommends a handyman who drills a round hole through a solid oak door that was built for a rectangular mortise case. The bore cracks the old mortise body, and the job becomes a repair instead of an installation. We fix this regularly. If you haven’t had the work done yet, have a mortise-competent locksmith assess the door first.
- Restricted keys copied at kiosks. A homeowner with a Medeco or Mul-T-Lock cylinder takes the key to a pharmacy kiosk and gets a brass blank that jams the pin stack. Restricted key systems exist specifically so they cannot be copied outside the authorized locksmith. We handle the extraction and cut proper replacement keys on the correct blanks.
- Freeze-thaw bolt binding. Every late winter, we get calls from Mount Lebanon homes where the deadbolt won’t extend or retract. The lock isn’t broken. The solid-wood jamb has absorbed moisture, frozen, expanded, and shifted. We realign the strike and adjust the door rather than replacing a perfectly functional lock.
- Worn mortise tailpieces and cams. The most common hidden failure on 1920s-1950s Corbin, Sargent, and Yale cases is a tailpiece or cam that’s worn paper-thin. The key still turns, but the bolt no longer moves reliably. A rekey won’t fix it. The case needs a rebuild. We keep the replacement tailpieces and cams on hand for the exact models found in Mount Lebanon’s housing stock.
Pricing for Lock Installation & Rekey in Mount Lebanon, PA
Here’s what you should plan for in Mount Lebanon. Rekeying a standard cylinder runs $45-$95 per keyhole, including the key blanks and labor, and most single-family homes with three or four exterior keyholes land between $135 and $380 total. A fresh deadbolt installation on standard cylindrical prep runs $140-$220. A mortise-case rebuild on an original 1920s-1950s door runs $210-$380 depending on what’s worn. Smart lock and keypad retrofits run $180-$450, with the higher end covering custom plate fabrication for mortise doors. The price we quote on the phone is the full price on the invoice. There’s no haul-away fee, no fuel surcharge, no added trip charge. If a competitor’s written estimate comes in lower, bring it to us. We review every written competitor quote at no charge and will tell you plainly whether it’s comparable.
Call (331) 310-8471 for an exact price on your doors. The estimate is free, it’s in writing, and it’s the number you’ll pay.
We Also Serve Cities Near Mount Lebanon
Novak Lock & Security serves Mount Lebanon and the surrounding region, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, and Reading. Dispatch and scheduling for Pennsylvania jobs are coordinated from the brand’s Philadelphia office, while local crews handle Mount Lebanon and the nearby municipalities. If you’re in a neighboring borough, call us anyway; if we can’t get there fast enough, we’ll say so straight.
Serving Mount Lebanon, PA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Mount Lebanon area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs - Lock Installation & Rekey in Mount Lebanon
Yes. We do this regularly in Mount Lebanon, and the method is almost always the same: custom plate fabrication that mounts the smart lock over the existing mortise case without drilling new through-holes in the door face or the brick surround. The original trim stays. Plan on $220-$450 depending on whether you choose a keypad deadbolt or a full smart lock with app control.
Almost never. A hard-turning key on a 1930s or 1940s Corbin mortise lock in Mount Lebanon usually means a worn cam, tailpiece, or return spring, not a dead lockset. We rebuild the case with replacement internals, clean and re-lubricate it, and reinstall your original hardware. Cost runs $210-$380. You keep your period levers and trim. Call (331) 310-8471 for a written quote.
March in Mount Lebanon is peak freeze-thaw season. The solid-wood jamb on your pre-1950s brick home absorbs moisture during the day, freezes at night, and shifts just enough to throw off the bolt-to-strike alignment. The lock itself is fine. We realign the strike plate and adjust the door so the bolt operates smoothly in all seasons. Rekeying or replacing the lock without addressing the jamb won’t solve it.
Yes. Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, and Abloy all build restricted or patented key systems where blanks are only available through an authorized locksmith with your signature on file. Kiosk copying machines cannot duplicate the blank, and the key won’t turn if someone tries. Installation on a mortise door in Mount Lebanon takes about an hour to two hours. We quote the full system price in writing before work starts.
Often yes, but it depends on the alarm panel and the smart lock protocol. Yale and Baldwin smart locks work with several major alarm platforms; we check your panel’s integration list before we recommend anything. If full integration isn’t possible, we’ll tell you plainly and set up a keypad that works independently. We don’t sell integration that your panel can’t support.
What Makes Mount Lebanon Door Hardware Different
Mount Lebanon developed almost entirely as a streetcar suburb between the 1920s and 1950s. That means the housing stock is not only old; it’s uniformly old, and it’s built from solid brick with heavy oak or fir entry doors pre-routed for full mortise lock cases. The cylindrical bored holes standard in post-1970s construction are the exception here, not the rule. A locksmith working Mount Lebanon has to carry genuine mortise-lock rebuild competency and know how to retrofit modern deadbolts or smart hardware into 70-to-100-year-old door prep without damaging the brick surrounds or the original millwork.
On a tree-lined side street just off Washington Road, we rebuilt a 1938 Corbin mortise lock on a solid oak Tudor entry door. The tailpiece had worn nearly paper-thin, and the homeowner insisted on keeping the original period lever hardware. We retrofitted the existing case with a precision-machined replacement tailpiece, reinstalled the original trim, and added a mortise-style Schlage B60 deadbolt above it with custom plate work to match the old brass. No new bore holes, no trim damage. That’s the job a generic cylindrical-trained locksmith can’t do, and it’s the job that keeps Mount Lebanon homeowners calling us back.
The brick construction also shapes what we carry. Along the densely built residential blocks near Washington Road and in quieter neighborhoods like Mission Hills and Sunset Hills, we regularly encounter original 1930s and 1940s mortise cases where the tailpiece is shot but the homeowner wants the period hardware preserved. We keep the rebuild components and the matching replacement cases on hand. For homeowners upgrading to high-security or smart hardware, we also keep the custom plate stock and fabrication tools to do the retrofit without the destructive drilling that voids the door’s structural integrity.
The Freeze-Thaw Reality in Mount Lebanon
Western Pennsylvania winters cycle above and below freezing dozens of times per season, and Mount Lebanon’s solid-wood door frames respond every time. The jamb swells, the brick holds firm, and the alignment between bolt and strike shifts by fractions of an inch. Most homeowners notice it in late winter or early spring, when the deadbolt refuses to extend or retract. We get a predictable spike of calls in March from every part of Mount Lebanon, from the blocks near the high school to the streets around Bird Park. The fix is usually a realigned strike plate and a shimmed hinge, not a new lock. If a big-box keypad was installed on a warped door without realignment, the bolt binds against the strike every time the temperature drops below 32°F. We fix that too, and we install the lock correctly the first time if we’re doing the install.
Documentation You Get From Us
Every job in Mount Lebanon ends with a written record and a photo log. Not a verbal summary. The technician leaves you with a documented photo record showing the condition of the lock before, the work performed, and the finished installation. You also receive a written scope stating what was quoted, what was done, and what the warranty covers. The 365-Day Done Right Promise applies to every lock installation, rekey, and emergency call: if it’s not done right, we make it right. Daniel Novak built the company on that single rule, and it’s never been an add-on.
Call Novak Lock & Security in Mount Lebanon
If you need a rekey, a mortise rebuild, a smart lock retrofit, or a restricted key system in Mount Lebanon, call (331) 310-8471. You’ll speak to a live person, get a written price on the phone, and have a background-checked technician at your door who knows the difference between a Corbin and a Sargent case without opening the panel. The price we quote is the price you pay. If it’s not done right, we make it right. That’s the whole arrangement.
Written by Daniel Novak, Owner at Novak Lock & Security, serving Mount Lebanon and the surrounding Pennsylvania region since 2002.