A customer in Staines got in touch because her husband had locked himself out and, even though she was still inside the house, the front-door lock had jammed completely. The inside lever would not move and the key would not operate the lock from outside.
As soon as I saw the lock, I knew it was going to be one of those jobs. It was an auto-deadlocking high-security nightlatch and the mechanism had failed while the door was shut.
Luckily, there was a large ground-floor window, so both the customer’s husband and I could get in and out of the property while I worked on the problem.
I tried the key and the internal lever with no success. Because of the way this type of lock deadlocks automatically, removing it from a closed door can become destructive once the mechanism has failed. Before reaching for the grinder, I gave it a few more minutes of persuasion and, against the odds, managed to release the lock from inside without filling the house with smoke — which suited both me and the customer just fine.
Once the lock was off the door, the broken internal part was easy to identify. As the job was just before Christmas, the customer decided not to replace the failed section immediately and chose to continue using the lock without the deadlocking function for the time being.
I explained the advantages and disadvantages of that choice so they understood exactly what functionality had been lost before leaving the door operating as agreed.
