A customer in Ashford asked me to look at a garden door that had become increasingly difficult to operate. The multipoint system had reached the point where it would sometimes fail to engage, leaving the door unable to lock.
I removed the mechanism, cleaned it, lubricated it and tried to bring it back into service. Sometimes it would engage and sometimes it would not.
I took it off again, worked through the obvious problem areas and tried reshaping some of the distorted sections, but the old mechanism simply would not operate reliably.
Unfortunately, the system was obsolete. That meant there was no straightforward gearbox replacement available and the customer would need a complete new multipoint mechanism and new keeps.
I secured the door temporarily with an overnight latch while I checked whether any colleagues or suppliers happened to have old stock of the original system. Nothing suitable could be found.
The following day I returned with the replacement mechanism. I fitted the new system and keeps, adjusted the hinges and worked through the alignment until the locking points operated cleanly.
The garden door was then opening, closing and locking much more smoothly than before.
