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.
Lock Installation & Rekey in New Albany: What It Costs and How It Works
Lock installation and rekeying in New Albany typically runs $25-$45 per cylinder for a standard rekey and $95-$260 for new hardware installation, quoted in writing before we dispatch anyone. A full-house rekey of a 1920s Silver Hills bungalow with five locks usually lands between $125 and $225. For historic mortise locks along Mansion Row, rekeying costs more because the cylinder is not a standard Kwikset or Schlage unit; it’s often a century-old cast-iron mechanism that has to be opened, cleaned, and timed by hand. Call (331) 310-8471 and a live person answers; you’ll get a firm price before we leave the office, not after we’re standing on your doorstep.
Fast, Reliable Lock Installation & Rekey Across New Albany
If you own a home in New Albany, the odds are good that your door hardware predates your grandparents. We work on 1880s Italianates on East Main, 1920s bungalows in Silver Hills, and mid-century ranches off Charlestown Road. The oldest homes still carry cast-iron mortise locks and skeleton keys. The newer ones carry Kwikset cylinders that haven’t been touched since the Clinton administration. Neither one surprises us. We dispatch crews to New Albany from our Indianapolis office, and we carry period-hardware parts, high-security Medeco and Mul-T-Lock cylinders, and smart-lock retrofit kits on the van. Call (331) 310-8471 and you’ll reach a person who can tell you, right then, what the job should cost.
Our Lock Installation & Rekey team handles everything from a single deadbolt on a Grant Line Road rental to a full master-key system for an office on Pearl Street. If you’re in New Albany, we’re the crew that knows what’s behind your door frame before we unscrew the first plate.
Why Novak Lock & Security Is New Albany’s Preferred Lock Installation & Rekey Company
Daniel Novak founded this business in 2002 on one rule: the price quoted on the phone is the price on the invoice. That rule is Haven Standard Clause 1, and it has never been waived. Not once. When a New Albany homeowner calls about a mortise lock that won’t throw, we quote the rekey over the phone. When the tech arrives and finds the lock body seized with Ohio River rust, the price doesn’t change. We eat the extra time, not pass it to you.
Every job here ends the same way: a documented photo record of the work, a written scope of what was done, and the 365-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If it’s not done right, we make it right. That promise covers every lock installation, every rekey, every keypad we mount. We also background-check every tech and put them in uniform. You’ll know who’s at the door because their name is on the van and on the invoice.
New Albany presents a specific problem that most locksmiths never train for. The historic housing stock here, particularly along Mansion Row, still functions on hardware that hasn’t been manufactured in 80 years. A tech who only knows modern Schlage cylinders will stare at an 1870s cast-iron mortise body and either drill it out (ruining century-old trim) or walk away. We carry the tools and the patience for period work, and we charge the same written-price discipline either way.
Our Lock Installation & Rekey Services in New Albany
Smart Lock Installation
Smart locks are the most-requested upgrade we install in New Albany, and for good reason: you can stop carrying keys to your own front door. We install Schlage Encode, Yale Assure, and August locks on doors from Silver Hills to the historic district. On older doors we take an extra step most installers skip: we measure the door stile thickness before drilling. A lot of 1870s doors are too thin at the edge for a standard smart-lock bolt; we reinforce the stile or use a retrofit plate so the lock doesn’t split the frame the first time someone leans on it.
Keyless Entry and Keypad Lock Installation
Keypad deadbolts make sense for New Albany households with kids, cleaners, dog walkers, or Airbnb turnover. We install keyless entry systems that let you assign temporary codes and delete them by phone. For rental owners near the downtown core, we recommend a lock with audit trail: it records which code opened the door and when. That’s useful when a guest swears they never had anyone over. Pricing starts around $160 installed for a quality keypad deadbolt, quoted in writing before we start.
Biometric Lock Installation
Fingerprint and face-recognition locks are still niche, but they solve one real problem in New Albany: lost keys. If your teenager has gone through three house keys in a school year, a biometric deadbolt removes the key entirely. We’re honest about the tradeoffs: biometric locks need a backup power source and a mechanical override, because a dead battery at 11pm is a lockout. We install biometric units with a hidden keyway fallback, and we show you both before we leave.
Key Duplication
Not all key copies are equal, and in New Albany the difference matters more than most places. A kiosk-copied key for an original skeleton lock is cut from a thinner blank than the original; it works once, then jams and forces a destructive entry that damages century-old trim. We cut keys from the correct blanks and verify them in the lock before we leave. For high-security cylinders from Medeco or Mul-T-Lock, we handle the key-control paperwork so the blank can’t be copied without your authorization. That’s the whole point of a restricted system.
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 New Albany
We’re factory-authorized for Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, Abloy, Baldwin, and Schlage, and we cut and program keys for Yale as well. What that means for a New Albany homeowner: when we quote a high-security rekey, we’re quoting the actual cylinder and blanks we stock, not a substitute we’ll pick up at a supply house. We carry Medeco and Mul-T-Lock cylinders in standard and mortise formats on the van, so a Pearl Street commercial owner with a restricted system doesn’t wait a week for parts. Baldwin mortise trim, the kind you’ll find on custom doors in the historic district, we can usually match or source within days without sending you to a showroom.
Common Lock Installation & Rekey Problems We See in New Albany Homes
- Seized cast-iron mortise locks on pre-1900 doors. The Ohio River corridor’s humidity works its way into every unpainted metal surface. On Mansion Row, we routinely open mortise bodies that haven’t been serviced since the Eisenhower administration. The spring tumblers are rusted, the keyway is packed with grime, and the lock either won’t turn or won’t catch. We clean, lubricate, and rekey these in place rather than drilling.
- Kiosk-copied skeleton keys that jam once and then trap the bolt. This happens weekly. The blank is too thin, the shoulder is wrong, and the key jams halfway through the throw. The homeowner forces it, the key snaps in the lock, and now the door is locked shut with a broken key inside a 140-year-old mechanism. We extract and rekey without harming the trim plate.
- Deadbolts that bind every January. Freeze-thaw cycles swell the wood door frame, especially on east-facing doors that catch morning sun after a cold night. A deadbolt that worked in July suddenly won’t throw. We re-align strike plates, deepen pockets, and if necessary shave and seal the frame so the lock works year-round.
- Layered lock generations on downtown commercial doors. Walk down Pearl or Market Street and you’ll find doors with a mortise body, a rim lock, and a modern deadbolt all installed by successive tenants. Three generations, one door. If you own or rent one of those storefronts, we can consolidate the locks to a single keyed system without leaving the door looking like a hardware museum.
Pricing for Lock Installation & Rekey in New Albany, IN
Here’s what we charge in this market, in writing, before we dispatch:
- Standard cylinder rekey: $25-$45 per cylinder. A typical three-lock house runs $75-$135.
- Full-house rekey to one key: $125-$225 for five to eight locks, depending on hardware type.
- Mortise lock rekey (Mansion Row or Victorian homes): $60-$110 per mortise body. The higher end covers seized mechanisms that need cleaning and spring replacement.
- Keypad deadbolt installation: $160-$280 installed, depending on the lock you choose and door prep.
- Smart lock installation: $140-$260 installed, including app setup and a walkthrough.
- Biometric deadbolt installation: $220-$360 installed. The price reflects a more expensive lock body and additional drilling/template work.
- High-security key control system (Medeco or Mul-T-Lock): $180-$420 for cylinder and keying, per door, quoted in writing before any work starts.
Every quote includes the full installed price. There is no call-out surcharge added on arrival. Haven Standard Clause 1: the price on the phone is the price on the invoice. Call (331) 310-8471 for an exact quote; estimates are free and you’ll speak to a live person.
The Mortise Lock Problem: Why New Albany Is Different
New Albany was the largest city in Indiana in the 1850s, and the evidence is still standing. The antebellum and Victorian homes along Mansion Row, and the Federal-style houses scattered through the downtown grid, were built before standardized lock cylinders existed. They use cast-iron mortise locks, the kind where the lock body slides into a pocket chiseled into the door edge, and the key is a skeleton bit that turns a set of internal levers. These locks do not take a standard Schlage or Kwikset rekey. You cannot walk into a hardware store and buy a replacement. If you drill the cylinder out of a mortise lock, you are not solving a problem; you are creating a trim repair that costs more than the lockwork.
This is the single biggest difference between lock work in New Albany and lock work in Jeffersonville or Clarksville. Those markets have newer housing stock. Most of their doors have standard cylindrical locks from the last 50 years. Our neighbors across the river rarely see a mortise lock. We see them every single week. A locksmith who doesn’t know how to open, clean, and rekey a cast-iron mortise body is not a locksmith you want touching a Mansion Row door.
A Recent Job on East Main Street
We recently rekeyed an 1880s Italianate on East Main Street where the original cast-iron mortise lock was seized from decades of Ohio River humidity. The key would turn about five degrees and stop. Our tech pulled the lock body, cleaned the rust off the spring tumblers, recut the lever spacing, and cut new keys for a Medeco key control system so the owner had a restricted, copy-proof system. Then we added a discreet smart deadbolt above the mortise. Daily entry is now a keypad code; the 140-year-old mortise lock still works with its original hardware. That’s the job in a sentence: modern security, period trim untouched.
Smart Locks on Historic New Albany Doors: What to Know
The most common failure we see on smart-lock installs in New Albany’s historic district is a soft door stile. A standard smart deadbolt needs a 2-1/8-inch bore through the door edge, which a lot of 1870s doors barely have. When the wood around the bore is thin, a firm shoulder or a stiff wind can split the stile and leave the door hanging on the hinge with a deadbolt still thrown. We fix this before it happens by reinforcing the stile or using a slimmer retrofit plate. We also take the time to check the strike plate screws: in older New Albany houses, they’re often 3/4-inch screws into soft door frame, which is why a kick-in attempt is so much easier here than in a newer home. We replace them with 3-inch screws on every install, because a lock is only as strong as the wood behind it.
We Also Serve Cities Near New Albany
Our Lock Installation & Rekey crews serve New Albany and the surrounding metro. If you’re in Jeffersonville, Greenwood, Plainfield, or Indianapolis, we bring the same written-price rule and the same period-hardware capability. For this page, though, the focus is New Albany and its one-of-a-kind housing stock.
Serving New Albany, IN - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the New Albany 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 New Albany
Yes. We rekey cast-iron mortise locks in place without replacing the lock body, face plate, or skeleton-key hardware. We open the mortise case, clean the internal levers, and recut or reposition them so the old keys no longer work. We can cut new skeleton keys to the new pattern, or we can add a modern keyed cylinder to the same mortise body if you’d prefer a standard key. The period trim stays untouched. Call (331) 310-8471 for a written quote; we’ll tell you the price on the phone.
Indiana’s freeze-thaw cycle swells the wood door frame, and on an 1880s door that frame is soft, old, and has likely shifted over 140 years. The deadbolt pocket no longer lines up with the bolt, so the lock binds. We re-align the strike plate, deepen the pocket, and seal the frame to reduce moisture absorption. It’s a permanent fix. Call us at (331) 310-8471 and we’ll quote the alignment over the phone.
Yes, and we do it regularly. The most common approach is to install a smart deadbolt above the original mortise lock and leave the period hardware in place. That preserves the visible trim and gives you keypad or app entry. If you’d rather not add a second lock, some manufacturers make a smart retrofit cylinder that replaces the existing cylinder but leaves the face plate and exterior trim alone. We’ll show you both options and quote firm prices for each. Call (331) 310-8471.
Yes. That’s one of the most common jobs we do in Silver Hills. We inventory every lock in the house, identify which cylinders can be rekeyed and which need replacement, then rekey everything to a single key. You get one key that works on every door, and we’ll cut as many copies as you want. We can also set up a keypad or smart lock on the entry door if you’d rather not carry keys at all. Call (331) 310-8471 for a written quote before we dispatch.
We consolidate. Most downtown New Albany commercial doors have a mortise body, a rim lock, and a modern deadbolt all installed by successive tenants. We map each lock, then remove or rekey the redundant ones so the door works on a single keyed system. If the previous tenant still has a key to any of those layers, the rekey changes that. We do this during business hours or after close, whatever the tenant prefers. Call (331) 310-8471 and we’ll give you a written price for the consolidation.
Contact Novak Lock & Security in New Albany
Every lock job starts the same way at Novak Lock & Security: you call, a live person answers, and you get a firm price in writing before anyone drives to New Albany. The tech who arrives will be background-checked, uniformed, and working under the same Haven Standard that has governed this company since Daniel Novak founded it in 2002. You’ll get a documented photo record at the end of the job, the 365-Day Done Right Promise, and the price you were quoted. Call (331) 310-8471 for a free estimate on lock installation or rekeying in New Albany.
Written by Daniel Novak, Owner at Novak Lock & Security, serving New Albany since 2002.