Door, lock and key questions, answered

Priority Lock and Security is a locksmith company based in Tampa, Florida, in business since June 2021 and owned by Steve Wathen. Commercial door hardware is the main work: door closers, exit devices and panic bars, commercial levers and mortise locks, storefront door hardware, rekeying, tenant turnover lock changes, master key systems and key control. We also rekey and change locks for homeowners. We do not work on cars or safes. Most of our customers are property managers, building owners and business owners with commercial and multi-tenant buildings in Ybor City, downtown Tampa and the surrounding area, within about thirty minutes of downtown. Call or text 813-421-4787.

Both. Commercial door hardware is the main work: office suites, storefronts, multi-tenant buildings and apartment communities. We also rekey and change locks for homeowners and landlords. We do not do car keys, car lockouts or safes, and we will point you to somebody good who does.

Tampa and about thirty minutes around downtown. Ybor City is where we do the most work, followed by downtown Tampa, the Channel District, Tampa Heights, Seminole Heights, Hyde Park, South Tampa, West Tampa, Westshore, Temple Terrace, Town 'N' Country, Carrollwood, Citrus Park, Brandon, Riverview and Lutz. If your building is a little outside that area and you manage other properties inside it, ask. We would rather look after all of one customer's doors than draw a hard line on a map.

Monday to Friday, 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM. We are a scheduled service company, not a 24 hour emergency lockout service. For customers whose buildings we already service, we help with business lockouts as they come up, because we already know the doors and the keys. We do not do car lockouts. If a lock or key problem is keeping a door from securing at the end of the day, text us what is happening and we will tell you plainly what we can do and when. For weekends and after hours, ask and we will see what we can work out.

Call or text 813-421-4787 and tell us what the door is doing. The most useful things you can give us are the building location, which door it is, what you are seeing (it slams, it will not latch, the key will not turn, the bar sticks), and who to contact on site. A photo of the hardware by text helps a great deal, because it often lets us identify the lock or closer and bring the right parts on the first visit. From there we tell you what we think is going on, give you a price, and schedule the work. When the job is done you get a plain description of what we found and what we did.

Insured, yes: Priority Lock and Security carries general liability insurance and can provide a certificate of insurance. Licensed, no, and neither is anyone else in the county: Florida does not license locksmiths at the state level, and Hillsborough County stopped issuing, monitoring and registering its locksmith licenses on July 1, 2025, after the state preempted local occupational licensing. Any company still advertising a county locksmith license number is citing a program that no longer runs. What is worth asking a vendor for instead is a certificate of insurance and references from buildings like yours.

Plain hourly rates, and the first hour on site is the visit. Starting at: remote support as low as $50 an hour, when we can settle a problem with you by phone, text or video instead of a visit; residential lock work $100 an hour; commercial lock work $125 an hour; after hours (evenings and weekends, by arrangement) $149 for the first hour and one and a half times the hourly rate after that; key copies $3 each. Labor is billed in quarter hours after the first hour. Real hardware, such as a lock, a closer or an exit device, is quoted as a part, and small consumables like pins, springs and screws are included. An estimate is a ceiling: the invoice does not go above it unless the scope changes and you agree first. Text a photo of the door and you get a price before anyone is scheduled.

A door slams when the door closer has lost control of its closing speed. A closer is a spring that shuts the door and a sealed hydraulic cylinder that slows it down. Two valves set the speed: one for the main swing and one for the last few inches before the latch. If a valve has been opened too far, the door slams and the valve can be reset. If the closer has leaked its fluid, no adjustment will bring it back and the closer needs to be replaced. Wind and air pressure from the building's air conditioning can also push a door shut hard, which is common on exterior doors in Tampa. A slamming door is hard on the frame, the glass, the hinges and the lock, so it is worth fixing before it breaks something else.

Usually something is resisting the door in the last few inches, or the closer does not have enough force left to finish the job. The common causes are a closer with its latch speed set too slow or its spring set too light, a latch that is hitting the strike plate instead of dropping into it, sagging hinges or worn pivots that let the door rub the frame, new weatherstripping that is too tight, and air pressure inside the building holding the door open. We check the door first and the closer second, because a stronger closer on a door that is binding only hides the problem and makes the door harder to open. A door that does not latch is an unlocked door, even when the lock is locked.

No. A closer that is leaking oil has a failed seal, and it has to be replaced. The oil is the hydraulic fluid that controls the door's speed. Once it is leaking out, the door will close faster and faster until it slams, and adjusting the valves will not help for long. When we replace a closer we match it to the door: the size and weight of the door, whether it is an interior or exterior opening, how the old closer was mounted, and how much traffic the door sees. A closer that is too light for the door will not latch it, and one that is too heavy makes the door hard to open. We also clean up the oil, because it stains the door and makes the floor slick.

Most often the closer spring is set stronger than the door needs, or the door itself is binding. Someone may have turned the spring power up to force a door to latch, which treats the symptom and makes the door heavy for everyone who uses it. Other causes are a backcheck setting that starts resisting too early in the swing, hinges or pivots that are worn or dry, a door rubbing the frame or the threshold, and air pressure in the building working against the door. Accessibility rules also limit how much force a door can take to open, so a heavy door is more than an annoyance. We find what is actually fighting the door, fix that, and then set the closer to the lightest setting that still closes and latches the door reliably.

A panic bar that will not latch is almost always a door alignment problem, a strike problem, or a bar that has been left dogged. If the door has sagged, the latch hits the strike instead of landing behind it. If the strike on the frame is loose or has shifted, the latch has nothing solid to catch. If the bar has been dogged, held in the pushed-in position with a hex key or a cylinder, the latch stays pulled back on purpose and the door swings freely. On doors with vertical rods, a rod that is out of adjustment will keep the top or bottom latch from catching. A weak or slow door closer can also leave the door resting against the latch without ever seating it. We check all of these in order, because more than one is often involved.

A bar that sticks or does not fully retract the latch usually has worn or broken parts inside, loose mounting, or a door that is pressing against the latch. Exit devices take a lot of abuse: carts, shoulders, kicks, and years of daily traffic. Springs break, internal linkages wear, end caps get knocked loose, and mounting screws back out so the whole device shifts on the door. On vertical rod devices, bent or misadjusted rods drag and bind. Sometimes the device is fine and the door is warped or out of alignment, which puts pressure on the latch so the bar has to be hit hard to release it. An exit device is life safety hardware. It has to open with one push every time, so a sticking bar should be repaired or replaced, not lived with.

Dogging is the feature that holds the panic bar in and the latch pulled back, so the door works as a push and pull door during business hours. On most devices you push the bar in and turn a hex key (or a regular key, on cylinder dogging models) to hold it. Undo it at closing time and the door latches and locks again. If a door keeps turning up unlocked in the morning, check whether someone left it dogged. One important exception: exit devices on fire-rated doors do not have mechanical dogging, because a fire door has to latch every time it closes. If you need that kind of door unlocked during the day, the outside lever or trim is what gets unlocked, and the latch still catches. We can tell you which type you have.

Yes. We repair and replace the closers, exit devices, latches and locks on fire exit doors so the door closes on its own, latches every time, and opens freely from the inside. Those are the basic things that hardware has to do, and they are the things that usually fail: a closer that no longer shuts the door, a latch that does not catch, a bar that sticks, or a door that someone has propped or wedged open. Replacement hardware on a fire-rated door has to be rated for that use, and we select it accordingly. To be clear about what we do not do: we do not inspect or certify fire door assemblies, and we do not replace doors or frames. We fix the hardware so it functions the way it was meant to.

Grade 1 is the heaviest duty commercial rating and grade 2 is a step below it, built for lighter commercial use. The grades come from ANSI/BHMA standards, which test locks for how many open and close cycles they survive, how much force and abuse they take, and how the finish holds up. Grade 1 belongs on doors that see heavy traffic or rough treatment: main entries, common area doors, public restrooms, stairwells, back doors that get hit with carts. Grade 2 is a sound choice for office suite entries and interior doors with normal traffic. Grade 3 is residential hardware and does not belong on a commercial door. Most of the failed levers we see on busy doors are the wrong grade for the door they were put on, not defective locks.

A loose lever usually means the mounting screws that clamp the lock through the door have backed out. A drooping lever means the spring that holds the lever level has worn out or broken. On a commercial lever lock, the two sides are bolted to each other through the door, and daily use works those bolts loose over time. Caught early, the lock can be taken apart, checked, and properly tightened. Left alone, the lock shifts in the door, the latch stops lining up, internal parts wear, and eventually the lever spins free or comes off in someone's hand. A sagging lever is a worn return spring, often in a light duty lock on a busy door. In that case replacement with the correct grade of lock is usually the better repair.

A mortise lock is a heavy lock body that sits in a pocket cut into the edge of the door, with the lever, the cylinder and often a deadbolt all working through that one case. Yes, most can be repaired. Mortise locks are built to be serviced: the case can be opened, cleaned, and rebuilt with new springs and parts, and the key cylinder threads in and out separately, so rekeying does not disturb the lock body. They are common in older commercial buildings, which Ybor City and downtown Tampa have plenty of. The catch is that the pocket in the door is cut for a specific size of lock body. When a mortise lock is past repair, the replacement has to match that pocket and the existing trim holes, so identifying the lock correctly matters before any parts are ordered.

The usual causes are a worn key, a worn or dirty cylinder, or a bolt that is binding against the frame. Here is a useful test: open the door and try the key with the door open. If it turns freely, the lock is fine and the door is out of alignment, so the bolt or latch is rubbing the strike. If it is still stiff with the door open, the problem is in the key or the cylinder. Keys that are copies of copies drift out of spec, and a fresh key cut from the original code often fixes it. Cylinders also wear and collect grit, especially on exterior doors. Avoid spraying oil into the keyway, because it holds dirt and makes things worse over time. A key that is getting harder to turn is a key that will eventually break off in the lock.

Only if the bolt is thrown all the way out. A bolt that stops halfway into the frame has almost nothing holding it and can be forced. If your key stops short or grinds, or you have to pull the door toward you to turn it, the frame or the strike needs correcting. That is a quick fix and it is the difference between a locked door and a door that looks locked.

Yes, for apartment and office buildings. We replace and rekey the tenant compartment locks on privately owned cluster mailboxes at turnover or when keys are lost. The carrier's master lock on the panel belongs to the Postal Service, and only they can service it.

On an aluminum and glass storefront door, the usual cause is that the door has sagged and the bolt no longer lines up with its opening in the frame or the other door. Most of these doors use a narrow lock in the door's edge with a hook shaped or swinging bolt that pivots out when you turn the key. When the pivots or hinges wear, the door drops a fraction of an inch and the bolt hits metal. On a pair of doors, the bolt locks into the second door, so that door's top and bottom bolts have to be engaged or the pair will pull open even when locked. Less often, the lock body itself has broken inside. It is a common problem on busy storefronts in Tampa, and the fix starts with getting the door hanging correctly again.

Yes, and it should be fixed soon. The key cylinder on a storefront door threads into the lock body and is held in place by a small set screw in the edge of the door. When that screw backs out, the cylinder loosens, turns with the key, and stops operating the bolt. You can end up with a door that will not lock, or one that will not unlock. It is also a security problem, because a loose cylinder can be twisted out of the door by hand. The repair involves resetting the cylinder to the right depth so its cam lines up with the lock, securing the set screw, and checking that the trim ring around the cylinder is tight and not easy to grip with a tool.

The door has dropped, and on a storefront door that almost always means worn or loose pivots. Most aluminum glass doors hang on a top pivot and a bottom pivot, sometimes with one in between, instead of regular hinges. The bottom pivot carries the weight of the door, and with years of traffic it wears, loosens, or its screws pull out of the thin aluminum. The door then sags toward the latch side, scrapes the threshold, rubs the frame at the top corner, and the lock stops lining up. We adjust or replace the pivots, check the closer (which is often hidden in the frame above the door), and reset the door so it swings clear and locks. We repair the hardware. We do not replace doors or frames.

Yes, and when the hardware is in good condition, rekeying is usually the right call. Rekeying means we take the lock cylinder apart and change the pins inside so it works with a new key and the old keys no longer turn. The lock, the lever and the door are untouched. It makes sense after tenant turnover, staff changes, lost keys, or buying a building with an unknown key history. Replacing the lock makes sense when the hardware is worn out, is the wrong grade for the door, or a different kind of lock is needed. We look at the hardware before recommending either one. Many commercial buildings in Tampa need some of each: most locks rekeyed, a few worn ones replaced.

The property manager or owner should control it, using the locksmith who keeps the building's key records. The lease decides who pays, but who does the work matters more than most people expect. In a master keyed building, every suite lock is pinned to work with both its own key and the building master. If an outgoing or incoming tenant hires their own locksmith, that suite usually falls off the master key, and nobody finds out until maintenance or the fire department needs to get in. Handling every turnover rekey through one vendor keeps the master working, keeps the key records accurate, and gives you a dated record of when the suite was rekeyed and how many keys were issued. For property managers in Tampa and Ybor City, tenant turnover rekeys are routine work for us.

Rekey the locks those keys operated. There is no way to know whether a key was copied, so getting a key back does not fully settle it either. Start with a list of which doors that person's key opened. If it was one or two doors, those cylinders get rekeyed and new keys go to the people who need them. If the person carried a master key, the exposure is wider and the plan needs more thought, because every lock under that master is affected. After that, a departing employee means collecting a key you know is the only one, because copies come from one place and are written down.

Usually yes. Keying locks alike means pinning every cylinder to the same key, and it works as long as the locks share the same keyway (the shape of the key slot) or can be fitted with cylinders that do. Where a building has a mix of lock brands, some cylinders may need to be swapped so everything accepts one key. Before doing it, think about who should open what. One key for everything is convenient for an owner and a problem if the same key is handed to every employee. Often the better setup is a small master key system: staff keys that open only the doors each person needs, and one key for the owner or manager that opens everything.

Yes, for the buildings and homes we service: keys cut to the codes on file for your key system, so copies come from one place and get counted. We are not a walk-in key shop, and we do not cut car keys.

A master key system is a planned set of locks where each door has its own key, and a master key opens all of them. Each tenant or department key opens only its own door. The master opens every door in the group, and larger properties can add levels, such as a master for each floor or building and a grand master above those. Your building likely needs one if you have multiple tenants or departments, if maintenance and management carry a ring of keys, or if you need reliable entry to every space in an emergency. The system is designed on paper first, as a keying schedule, so it has room to grow. The records are what make it work over time, and we maintain those records for buildings we service in Tampa.

A restricted key is a key that cannot be copied at a hardware store, a kiosk, or another locksmith shop, because the key blanks are not sold on the open market. The keyway is protected by a manufacturer's patent or by contract, and blanks are supplied only to authorized dealers. Copies are cut only for people the owner has authorized in writing, and each key is tracked. The result is that you know exactly how many keys exist for your building and who holds them. For a property manager, that changes turnover: when every key issued comes back, you know the suite is secure. Restricted keys are the practical foundation of key control for multi-tenant and commercial buildings, and they can be built into a master key system.

Restricted refers to who can copy the key. High security refers to how well the lock resists attack. A restricted key system controls key blanks so keys cannot be duplicated without authorization. A high security lock adds physical protection: resistance to picking, drilling and other forced methods, often tested to a published standard such as UL 437. Many high security cylinders also come with restricted keys, so you get both. If your concern is unknown copies of keys floating around among former tenants and employees, restricted keys address it. If the concern is a determined break-in through the lock itself on an exterior door or a room with valuable contents, high security cylinders are worth discussing.

No. The stamp is a request, not a control. If the key blank is sold on the open market, anyone with a key machine or a self service kiosk can copy it, and many will without looking at what is stamped on it. Real key control comes from a written key plan with counted keys, and from a restricted keyway where blanks are available only to authorized dealers. If you manage a building and your plan for controlling keys depends on the words stamped on them, assume there are more copies out there than your records show. The practical fix is to move to a restricted key at the next rekey, so the cost and disruption are folded into work you were already going to do.

Start with a survey of the doors and an honest list of who holds keys today. We walk the building, record each door and what hardware and keyway it has, test which existing keys open what, and note anything that is worn or not latching. From that we lay out a keying plan: which doors group together, who needs which level of key, and whether to stay on the current keyway or move to a restricted one. Then the building is rekeyed to the new plan, in stages if needed, with keys issued against a signed record. This situation is normal, especially in older multi-tenant buildings in Ybor City and downtown Tampa that have passed through several owners and managers. It is fixable, and once fixed it stays fixed if the records are kept.

Treat every lock under that master as exposed, and plan a rekey of the system. A lost master is different from a lost suite key, because it opens every door in its group. If the key could be tied to your building (it was on a labeled ring, or lost on site), act sooner. The work can be staged: exterior doors and sensitive rooms first, then the rest, so the building keeps operating while the change is made. Tenant keys also change, because each lock is pinned to both its own key and the master, so tenants need notice and new keys. If your building is still on a key that can be copied anywhere, this is the right time to move to a restricted keyway.

Yes. New house, lost keys, a roommate or a contractor who still has a key: we rekey every exterior door to one new key on site, replace worn locks and deadbolts, and cut the copies you need. See the residential locksmith page. We do not do car keys or safes.

Rekey, if the locks are in good condition: the old keys stop working and the hardware stays. Replace a lock only when it is worn, loose or the wrong kind for the door. Many houses need a rekey on most doors and a new deadbolt on one.

We are a scheduled service company rather than an emergency lockout line, so during business hours text 813-421-4787 and we will tell you plainly what we can do and when. We do not do car lockouts.