Frequently Asked Questions.

Yes. The emergency line operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including public holidays. Call 0413 613 190 and describe what has happened so the right response can be arranged.

It depends on where you are, the time and what is already booked, so no blanket figure is advertised here. You will get a realistic estimate on the call, which lets you decide whether to wait or make other arrangements.

Non-destructive entry is always the preference. Some high-security and digital locks are specifically built to resist that, and drilling the cylinder may be the only route. If that is likely it is explained before work starts, along with what replacing the cylinder involves.

Something reasonably linking you to the property or vehicle. A licence showing the address is simplest; a lease, rates notice, utility bill or registration in your name also works. This is not optional, for reasons that should be obvious.

Usually recoverable. Broken key extraction is routine and the lock is normally left serviceable with a fresh key cut. Do not use pliers or glue, and do not push the fragment further in: those attempts turn a simple extraction into a cylinder replacement.

Rekey if the lock is sound and you just want old keys to stop working. Replace if the lock is worn, damaged, or too weak for the door it is on. Rekeying changes who can open a lock; it does not make the lock harder to defeat.

Rekey everything. The keys handed over at settlement are the ones somebody knew about, not the ones cut over the years for cleaners, tradespeople, agents, relatives and previous tenants. Do every external door at once, and consider bringing them onto a single key while you are at it.

Usually, where the locks share a compatible keyway. Where they do not, swapping a cylinder is often enough to bring the odd one into line: cheaper than replacing whole locksets. Mention it when booking a rekey so it happens in one visit.

It was almost certainly copied from a worn key. Brass wears, so a copy inherits that wear plus the tracing tolerance of the machine. Cutting a fresh key to the lock's code, rather than copying a sample, produces a key to the original specification.

It is a restricted or patented profile. Those blanks are not sold openly and are cut only by an authorised locksmith against the system's holder list. That is the system working exactly as intended.

No. Household oils and general-purpose sprays attract dust and grit and will gum the mechanism up within months, turning a repairable lock into a replacement. Also worth knowing: stiffness is often the door or frame moving rather than the lock failing, which is an alignment fix.

They warn well in advance, usually for weeks. Most also have a backup: a key override, or terminals letting you power the lock briefly from an external battery. Which one your model uses is covered at handover, and it is worth knowing before you need it.

Fewer than most packages suggest. It depends on genuine approach and entry points, not building size: a typical house has two or three that matter. Placement matters far more than camera count or resolution, and at least one camera should be framed at face height on the path people must walk.

It depends on people rather than doors. If staff turnover means you would otherwise rekey a few times a year, cancelling a fob instead pays for itself quickly. A stable team of three probably does not need it.

A properly installed system has battery backup, so a power failure, deliberate or otherwise, does not disable it. Batteries degrade over a few years, so this is one of the things worth checking periodically rather than assuming.

Audio recording is subject to separate and stricter rules than video. Many systems ship with microphones enabled by default, which is worth checking and usually worth turning off unless you have a specific reason and have confirmed the position.

No. Cameras record, alarms detect, access control manages permissions, none of them physically stop anyone. The lock, the door and the frame do that. Electronic systems are a layer on top of sound hardware, not a substitute for it.