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 Philadelphia
Lock rekeying in Philadelphia typically runs $25-$45 per cylinder, and most rowhouse jobs are completed in one visit. Lock installation starts around $85 for a standard deadbolt and runs higher when we’re working on the original mortise locksets found in pre-war homes across South Philly, Kensington, and West Philly. We quote a firm price on the phone before a technician ever gets in the van. No bait pricing, no surprise add-ons at the door. Call (331) 310-8471 for a written estimate.
Philadelphia’s housing stock is unlike any other city on the East Coast. Over 80% of the city’s homes are rowhouses, and a huge share of those still carry the original mortise locks installed when the brick went up between 1880 and 1940. That changes how we approach lock installation and rekeying here. A modern cylindrical deadbolt does not simply drop into a door cut for a mortise body, and a worn 90-year-old cylinder will not accept standard pinning the way a newer lock will. Our Lock Installation & Rekey team works with this reality every day, not against it.
Why Novak Lock & Security Is Philadelphia’s Preferred Lock Installation & Rekey Company
Novak Lock & Security has built its name in Philadelphia on one rule, written into every job since 2002: the price quoted over the phone is the price on the invoice. Haven Standard Clause 1. There is no dispatcher who lowballs and no technician who revises upward at the doorstep. Philadelphia homeowners who research before they call, the ones reading three-star reviews and asking for pricing in writing, often tell us that this single policy is why they called us over three other locksmiths.
Every technician who arrives at a Philadelphia address is background-checked and in uniform. Every visit ends with a documented photo record, showing the condition of the lock before work, the work in progress, and the finished job. It is not an upgrade and not optional. It is how we operate, the same standard applied across all ten Haven brands. Daniel Novak has held the line on this since the beginning.
We answer the phone with a live person, 24 hours a day. When a deadbolt will not turn on a South Philly rowhouse door at 11:40 on a Tuesday night, there is no voicemail queue and no automated attendant. A real person picks up, takes the address, and quotes a firm price. Our response time across Philadelphia is typically under an hour, and often closer to 30 minutes in Center City, University City, and the neighborhoods immediately surrounding them.
Our Lock Installation & Rekey Services in Philadelphia
Most Philadelphia jobs fall into four categories. Here is how each one works in this city’s specific housing stock.
Smart Lock Installation
Smart locks work on Philadelphia rowhouse doors, but the installation requires an honest look at the existing prep. If your door has a modern cylindrical deadbolt above the original mortise lock, a smart lock usually mounts in minutes and we can key it to match your existing deadbolt. If the only lock on the door is a mortise body from the 1920s, installing a smart lock means either adding a cylindrical bore above it or replacing the entire lockset, depending on the condition of the door. In neighborhoods like Fishtown and Northern Liberties, where converted factory lofts often have commercial-grade steel doors, we check the door thickness and backset before recommending specific smart lock models. We install Schlage Encode, Yale Assure, and August models among others, and we walk you through the app setup before we leave.
Keyless Entry
Keyless entry on a Philadelphia rowhouse most often means a keypad deadbolt installed in place of, or above, the original cylindrical deadbolt. The question we hear constantly from Queen Village and Fairmount homeowners is whether a keypad deadbolt can be installed without drilling new holes in a century-old door. The answer is usually yes, if the existing deadbolt is cylindrical. If the only existing hardware is an antique mortise lock, we will show you the options in writing before any drilling happens, including the option to leave the mortise lock untouched and add a keypad deadbolt above it.
Keypad Lock
Keypad locks carry a practical advantage in Philadelphia that doesn’t show up on spec sheets: rowhouse households are often multi-generational or shared, and needing physical keys for every person gets old fast. Keypads solve that without rekeying every time someone moves out, and without cutting new keys for the worn cylinders that older Philadelphia locks often have. We stock keypad deadbolts in finishes that match the brass and oil-rubbed bronze you’ll find on original rowhouse hardware, so the new lock does not look like a foreign object on a 1910 door.
Biometric Lock
Biometric locks use a fingerprint reader instead of a key or code, and they make sense for a small subset of Philadelphia doors. The reader needs a clean, dry finger and a door that is not exposed to direct weather on the exterior side. On a covered vestibule door in Society Hill or a finished hallway door inside a converted loft, a biometric lock works well. On an exterior-facing rowhouse door that takes freeze-thaw cycles and summer humidity head-on, we usually recommend a keypad or smart lock instead. We will tell you plainly which one fits your door, because installing a fingerprint reader on a door that will not support it is not a job we want our name on.
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 Philadelphia
We are factory-authorized for work on Baldwin, Mul-T-Lock, Abloy, and Schlage, plus entry-grade Kwikset and commercial Sargent. That authorization matters when you need a high-security cylinder pinned to a registered keyway, or when a Baldwin mortise lock on a Rittenhouse Square townhouse needs parts that a generalist locksmith cannot source. For Philadelphia customers, we keep common rowhouse parts in the van: mortise-cylinder adapters, strike plates in the old dimensions, and aftermarket cylinders for Corbin and Eagle locks that the manufacturers stopped producing decades ago.
Common Lock Installation & Rekey Problems We See in Philadelphia Homes
These four issues account for most of our service calls inside city limits, and each one has a specific cause tied to Philadelphia’s housing stock:
- Mortise cylinders that no longer accept standard pinning. When a Corbin or Eagle mortise lock has been rekeyed a dozen times over 80 years, the cylinder chambers wear out. Standard pinning stops holding. We see this routinely in South Philly and Kensington, and it means the cylinder needs to be replaced with a compatible aftermarket part, not rekeyed again.
- Deadbolts that miss the strike plate after a cold winter. Philadelphia averages more than 30 freeze-thaw cycles per winter. Wooden door frames in uninsulated brick rowhouses swell and contract through every cycle. By February, the deadbolt that lined up perfectly in September misses the strike by an eighth of an inch. This is a frame-alignment issue, not a lock issue, and the fix is adjusting the strike plate and sometimes the hinge screws, not replacing the deadbolt.
- DIY drop-in replacements that leave gaps in the door edge. Big-box stores sell “universal” deadbolts and knobs that are anything but universal on a 1905 door cut for a mortise body. We have seen doors where the new hardware left a gap around the edge large enough to slip a pry bar through. The security loss is severe, and repairing the door afterward costs more than doing the job right the first time.
- Summer humidity swelling unsealed wood doors. Philadelphia’s older rowhouses are often unair-conditioned, and the wood swells in July and August. Deadbolts bind. Forcing the lock twists the tailpiece and eventually strips the internal mechanism. The fix is honest: reseal or sand the door, then address the lock. We will tell you which came first.
Pricing for Lock Installation & Rekey in Philadelphia, PA
Here are honest Philadelphia market ranges, quoted in writing before any work begins. Rekeying a single cylinder runs $25-$45. Rekeying an entire rowhouse to one key set, typically three to five cylinders, runs $75-$175 depending on cylinder type. Standard deadbolt installation runs $85-$150 for the labor, plus the price of the lock, which ranges from $30 for entry-grade to $300+ for high-security Abloy or Mul-T-Lock. Smart lock installation runs $150-$250 in labor, plus the lock. Mortise cylinder replacement runs $60-$110 per cylinder, and mortise lockset replacement, when the lock body itself has failed, starts around $220 and goes up with the hardware grade.
What affects cost on a Philadelphia job: whether the existing lock is a modern cylindrical or an antique mortise body, whether the door frame needs strike-plate adjustment, whether we’re matching an existing keyway, and whether the hardware grade is entry-level or high-security. The price you are quoted on the phone is the price on the invoice. There is no call-out surcharge added when the technician arrives.
We Also Serve Cities Near Philadelphia
Our crews serve Philadelphia and the surrounding metro at the same written-price standard. We regularly take lock installation and rekeying jobs in Levittown, Bethlehem, Allentown, and Reading, covering everything from 1950s suburban split-levels to older brick mill-town housing. The drive time changes the logistics, not the pricing policy or the documentation you’ll receive.
Serving Philadelphia, PA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia
In most cases, an original mortise lock can be rekeyed if the cylinder still accepts pinning. We service Corbin, Eagle, and other pre-war mortise locks throughout South Philly, and we stock compatible aftermarket cylinders for locks that are worn beyond standard pinning. If the lock body itself has failed, meaning the internal springs or the deadbolt mechanism, the cylinder replacement will not solve it, and we will tell you that in writing before you spend a dollar. Call (331) 310-8471 and we will walk through what you have on the door.
Freeze-thaw cycles warp the wooden door frames in Kensington’s uninsulated brick rowhouses, and by mid-winter the deadbolt no longer lines up with the strike plate. The fix is adjusting the strike plate and sometimes resetting the hinge screws, which is a minor job when done early and a bigger one when a forced lock has stripped the cylinder. We see this every year from November through March, and we quote it as a flat-rate call, not an emergency upcharge.
Rekeying changes the internal pins so old keys stop working and new keys work, while the lock body and cylinder stay in place. Replacing means removing the existing lock and installing new hardware. On a Philadelphia rowhouse with an original mortise lock, rekeying is often the right call because it preserves the original hardware and avoids cutting new holes in a century-old door. Replacing makes sense when the lock body has failed, the cylinder is worn beyond pinning, or you want a smart lock or keypad with features the original lock cannot provide. We will show you in writing which one your door needs.
Yes, in most Fishtown rowhouses we can install a keypad or smart deadbolt above the original mortise lock without touching the antique hardware, as long as the door is sound and there is room in the door edge for a cylindrical bore. If the mortise lock is the only lock on the door and the door itself is in poor shape, we may recommend replacing the lockset entirely or repairing the door first. We will quote both options, in writing, and let you decide.
Multi-point locks in Philadelphia’s converted factory buildings, particularly in Old City and Northern Liberties, can usually be rekeyed, but they require a cylinder swap rather than standard rekeying in some cases. These are commercial-grade systems, often European in design, and rekeying them typically runs $50-$90 per cylinder. If the multi-point mechanism itself is binding or failing, we will tell you whether it is the door alignment, the lock body, or the cylinder, and you will get a written scope before any work starts. Call (331) 310-8471 with the lock brand if you can see it, and we will give you a firm price.
Written by Daniel Novak, Owner at Novak Lock & Security, serving Philadelphia since 2002.