Locksmith in Sintra

About our service in Sintra

Diagnosis comes first in this microclimate, because the same symptom has two completely different causes and two completely different repairs. When a lock is genuinely worn, it feels the same in every season and in both directions. When the door is the problem, the difficulty is seasonal, worse after rain, and often affects the top or the bottom of the door more than the middle. In that second case, replacing the lock achieves nothing at all — you would be fitting a new mechanism into a door that will still be a few millimetres too big for its opening. What works is adjusting the hinges and keeps, easing the leaf where it binds, and getting the door to close under its own weight again so the lock has nothing to fight. Damp also works on the mechanisms themselves, particularly on anything outdoors or on a north-facing wall in the shade of the serra. Gate locks on the quintas, garden doors, cellar and outbuilding hatches and the hardware on old shutters all seize slowly, and because they are rarely used nobody notices until a gate that has stood open for a year will not close. Freeing and servicing that hardware, refitting hinges and keeps that have dropped, and repairing the ironwork of gates and railings where the metal has moved is a large part of what we do around here. Where fittings really are finished, we choose replacements that will cope with the conditions rather than whatever happens to match. The rest is the ordinary business of houses that change hands: a lock changed when a property is taken over, a set of keys cut for a family who inherited three unlabelled ones, an entrance upgraded from a single closing point to a proper security lock, or a holiday house made secure before it is left through the winter. Older or unusual locks in the vila often need parts ordered, so we tend to measure on one visit and fit on another, agreed in advance. What a quote comes to depends on the state of the door, the hardware chosen, the number of closing points and how many keys are cut.

What we do most often in and around Sintra:

Services Included

• Doors that swell and bind in winter realigned so the lock stops taking the strain
• Seized gate, cellar and outbuilding hardware freed, serviced or replaced
• Gates and railings on the quintas repaired where the metal or the anchoring has moved
• Locks changed on taking over a property, with a full new set of keys
• Parts measured and ordered for older locks in the vila, then fitted on an agreed visit

Areas We Serve

We work in Sintra vila, São Pedro de Penaferrim, the Estefânia, the Portela de Sintra, the Monte Santos and out to Colares, including houses up lanes where the van has to stop short of the gate.

Work Gallery