35 Years a Locksmith: This Is Not a Lock

I spent thirty-five years as a locksmith and changed about four thousand doors. The thing on your bedroom door is not a lock, and it never was. The box says privacy, and privacy is exactly what it gives you. Here is the whole video in one minute, so you can do it tonight without watching all of it. 1) THE TEST (10 seconds). Open your bedroom door and look at the skinny edge, where the metal tongue sticks out. If one side of that tongue is cut at an angle, like a little ramp, that is a spring latch. The ramp is there so the door can close by itself, which means the metal is designed to move out of the way when something pushes on it. A thing built to retreat under pressure cannot be a lock. 2) WHAT THE BUTTON ACTUALLY DOES. Nothing to the latch. It disconnects the outside knob from the spindle, so the outside knob spins loose. That is the entire security event: one knob will not turn. 3) THE HOLE IN THE OUTSIDE KNOB. It is there on purpose, and it is the right call: a four-year-old can push a button and then not be able to work the knob. But nobody puts a release hole on the outside of a real lock. 4) THE FIX, about eleven dollars. A steel surface bolt (some people call it a barrel bolt or a slide bolt). It mounts on the FACE of the door, so no new hole, no new knob, no locksmith. Four screws in the door, two in the frame. 5) THE PART ALMOST NOBODY DOES. The screws in the little bag are three quarters of an inch long. Throw them out. Buy a box of three-inch wood screws, about four dollars, and use those for the part that mounts on the frame. Three quarters of an inch stops in the pine trim. Three inches goes through the trim, across the gap, and into the stud that holds your house up. Same bolt, same twenty minutes; one of them is jewelry and one of them is a door that closes. 6) FIRE, and this is not optional. If you fit a deadbolt on a bedroom or bathroom door it must be a THUMBTURN on the inside. Never a key on both sides. Double cylinder belongs on a front door with glass beside it, never on a room somebody sleeps in. 7) THE ORDER I WOULD DO IT IN. Three-inch screws in the strike plate of every door you care about (four dollars). Then the surface bolt on the one room that matters (eleven dollars). Then, only if it is the room you would be behind, a solid core door. What not to buy: the hundred-and-twenty-five-dollar brand-name reinforcement bar (the plain generic one is about twenty-five and does the same job), a smart lock on a hollow core door, the chair under the knob, and a chain on an interior door. And the honest part: none of this stops a determined person with time. What a bolt buys you is time and noise, and time and noise are the whole game. It turns a quiet ten-second problem into a loud two-minute one, and that is what buys you the phone call. THE WRITTEN VERSION raykessler.vercel.app — "The Thousand Dollar Afternoon". Three guides, ninety-nine pages, twenty-seven dollars: the whole door done in one afternoon (jamb, strike box, hinges, bolt, what to buy and what length), the phone script for calling a locksmith at eleven at night, and thirty-seven fixes that cost nothing. It is a paid set — if you would rather not spend anything, buy the four-dollar box of screws and do your front door and your bedroom. That is the best part of it. Ray Kessler · Locksmith, 1989-2024 · The Four Thousand Doors 00:00 This is not a lock 01:48 The ten-second test on your own door 03:16 The one thing to do tonight: the surface bolt 04:01 The screws in the bag are the problem 05:04 Inside a privacy knob 06:09 The hole in the outside knob, and why it is right 07:55 The other animal: the deadbolt 09:03 Fire: thumbturn on the inside, always 10:11 The lock is not the lock. The frame is the lock. 12:02 The order I would do it in, cheapest first 12:55 Hollow core: knock on your own door 14:02 Who actually calls a locksmith about this 15:30 Time and noise 16:37 Why the bathroom is the worst room in the house 17:40 What not to buy 19:39 The short version 20:39 The written version, and what it costs