Looking for a Northern Virginia Locksmith

September 26, 2009 6:37 AM

Can you recommend a good locksmith in Northern VA?

I'd like to have the locks on my house replaced. I'm a bit leery of locksmith listings (for obvious reasons), and was hoping someone had a good experience with a locksmith in the Vienna/McLean/Falls Church area.

I've checked http://www.findalocksmith.com, and of the two results to my search, one, "Colonial Lock Supply" has a new name (Baldino's), and mixed reviews on Yelp. The other doesn't list a name, only an address.

So, do you know of a reliable, reasonably priced locksmith?

posted by i love cheese to home & garden (4 answers total)

I've heard pretty good things about Artie's Lock & Key near Fairfax. And I've had several keys made by Baldino's, which has locations near you as you've found. I think, probably, Baldino's bought or otherwise took over Colonial Lock Supply, since as far as I know, Baldino's has always been called that. But, I haven't read any online reviews. A local hardware store, Fischer's in Springfield, refers people to Baldino's for locksmithing Fischer's can't handle.

The place that I know of that's really awesome is Cintron, but they're kind of far away in east Fairfax county. And they're probably fairly expensive.

However, we just bought a new house and we did new lock sets ourselves with no problems. We used SmartKey from Kwikset, since we had three doors, so they could all share a single key. (SmartKey lets you rekey locks to new keys without changing the internals. Our searching online found mostly positives about it, with some people nervous just because it's a new lock.) I'd say if you don't have to drill holes for *new* locks, you can probably do it yourself. And if you like using a drill, then no problem then.

(I looked at Findalocksmith, and I'd, frankly, ignore it because it doesn't have a lot of them in the area.)
posted by skynxnex at 7:35 AM on September 26, 2009

If you are simply changing out locksets that is a very easy DIY project. Most locks are only held in place by a couple of screws on the inside of the door. Simply remove them, pull the lock and handle out from both sides of the door, then reverse the procedure to install the new locket. If you have lost the keys to a lock or something like that it'll be a lot cheaper to just put a new lockset in yourself.
posted by COD at 9:45 AM on September 26, 2009

I have used Baldino's before when I was still in NoVa and would use them again if I were still there.
posted by mikewas at 11:05 AM on September 26, 2009

If you're just doing a rekey, and you are worried about someone having keys to your house, ask a friend to watch your house, pull the knobs and take them in yourself - Pay cash so they have no idea where you live.

If you're worried about the expense, you can buy a Change-a-lock kit at your local hardware store that will let you rekey six locks (assuming they are the same brand) for under $15
posted by Orb2069 at 9:22 AM on September 27, 2009