Questions and Answers

Yes, mostly.

A home owner called last Tuesday morning. His lock was rusted out and stuck and he wanted to work on it, though his room mate insisted that a professional locksmith had to be hired to legally work on it. I told him that, according to my understanding, in Alberta, Canada, people can work on locks that they own. Locksmith licencing is needed to work on other people's locks, in most circumstances. As long as he was handy and competent at the work, I said it should be fine and dandy. He also wanted to know how to properly lubricate the lock, which is the subject of the next question.

We have special locksmith grade lock lubes (LPS), which are also food grade. For home owners, you can use a spray lube, teflon or graphite or silicone, to lubricate most parts of the lock, except for the key hole itself. For the key hole area, try to only use dry graphite lock lube. It looks like pencil shavings. For rusty parts, WD-40 spray is good too, but in general WD-40 tends to gum and freeze. WD-40 however is great on rusty parts.

If lube does not fix a stuck deadbolt, it is most often a mis-alignment of the deadbolt with the hole it goes into in the door frame. We adjust those for quite a few homes in Calgary.