A returning customer in Chesham got in touch about a parking bollard I had installed a few years earlier. The lock had become extremely difficult to open and she wanted to get it working properly again.
She had been lubricating it regularly, so we agreed that if the original lock had finally had enough, it made sense to replace it with something a bit better rather than simply fit another identical unit.
Once on site, I just about managed to get the lock open. It really wasn’t interested. At one point I even wondered whether we had the wrong key, that’s how solid it felt. After a good few minutes of lubricant and some very carefully placed persuasion, it started moving a fraction at a time until it finally opened.
With the lock removed and the bollard lowered, the cause became obvious. Road dirt and debris had worked their way into the mechanism despite the regular lubrication and had effectively packed everything up inside.
I cleaned the bollard plate and mechanism, then fitted a new lock with a dust-proof cover to give it a better chance of staying clean. Everything was tested and operating properly again.
