An estate agent in Feltham got in touch about a communal entrance-door lock that had been causing problems.
As soon as I arrived, the previous installation was hard to ignore. It made me laugh and feel slightly sorry for the door at the same time — there were several things about it that simply did not make much sense.
Because the door opened outward, I fitted an anti-thrust plate to improve the protection around the latch side. The bigger challenge was the keep and the surrounding frame.
The frame had previously been cut all the way back to the brickwork, leaving very little sensible material to secure the keep into. I had a piece of oak in the van, so I fixed that securely back into the brick and then mounted the keep to the oak.
I also added additional fixings into the masonry to reduce the chance of the keep being pulled outward.
It was one of those repairs where the job is less about swapping a standard part and more about making the best safe, solid repair possible with the condition left by earlier work. By the end, the communal door was operating properly and the keep side was considerably stronger and tidier than when I arrived.
