A customer in Teddington got in touch because the patio-door multipoint mechanism was becoming harder and harder to operate and he wanted it checked before it failed completely.
When I tested the mechanism with the door open, there was already significant resistance, so the first sensible step was a thorough clean and lubrication.
These were large French doors and the rubber strip had to come off before the full multipoint mechanism could be removed. After what felt like a million screws, the strip was finally free and the mechanism could come off the door.
It looked as though the system had not seen proper lubrication since it left the factory roughly 20 years earlier. Recent interior building work had also introduced plenty of dust and debris, which had not helped.
I stripped the mechanism down, cleaned out the contamination and lubricated the moving parts before refitting everything.
The rubber gasket tested my patience far more than the lock itself, but once the system was back together the multipoint mechanism was operating smoothly again.
