About

A city of new locks on old doors.

One van, out to any door at any hour: a front door in Greenbrook that has locked every winter and stopped locking in August, a side gate whose strike has walked out of line, a fob that no longer lifts the gate at a community entrance, a shop door on Hartz Avenue that stopped meeting its keeper. A chisel and shims ride with the cylinder stock and the key machine, so the frame can be put right on the same visit rather than on a second one. This is how a call runs.

(925) 431-6470 Book online

Magee Lock Co. covers Danville and the San Ramon Valley from a van, with no storefront to drive to, since the lock that has stopped working is bolted to your door and cannot be carried in. The name comes from Magee Ranch at the south edge of town, where the streets end and the open hills begin, and the working base is the old center near Hartz Avenue. Eight neighborhoods sit inside the city and the van reaches them in 12 to 26 minutes: Downtown Danville about 12, Westside 14, Greenbrook 16, Danville Station 17, Sycamore Valley 19, Magee Ranch 21, Crow Canyon Country Club 23 and Blackhawk 26. Nineteen minutes is the average. Alamo, San Ramon, Diablo, Walnut Creek, Dublin and Pleasanton are worked at identical prices, at 15, 20, 22, 24, 27 and 29 minutes. The phone is answered at three in the morning and on Thanksgiving.

The idea behind this business fits in a sentence: here the heat moves the door, and what gives out is not the lock but the thing the bolt is meant to land in. Danville lies behind the ridge from the bay, so a July afternoon can push past a hundred while a January night settles near forty, and the entry doors show it more than anything else in the house. The town went up mostly between the 1970s and the early 2000s, which means wide solid leaves on three hinges, very often with a glass sidelight alongside, heavy enough to sag on their own before the weather contributes anything. Across a season the leaf and the jamb travel and the strike plate does not, and the bolt begins landing on brass rather than passing through it. What gets described on the phone is a broken lock. What is generally waiting for the technician is a strike that wants moving, a top hinge that wants a shim and two long screws, and a stop that has not met the door square since spring. Under Mount Diablo that is the routine call, and it is the least expensive repair a house here will need all year. The other half of the work stands at the entrances: fobs and remotes for the gated communities out east, and the question of who is entitled to order work on a shared gate, which is the board or the management company rather than whichever resident is standing beside it.

Every figure on this site comes off one list, and the $89 service call is already inside each of them. Getting back into a house runs $145 to $265 and into a car $115 to $219, while a shop, a suite or an office is $155 to $285. After a forced door, putting the jamb, the strike and the cylinder back is $185 to $489. Rekeying is $31 to $49 a cylinder, with everything after the first sitting at the low end because the van is already parked. New hardware is $139 to $359, a keypad or app lock $215 to $529, a safe opened $219 to $589. Downtown: exit devices $335 to $849 a door, storefront hardware $175 to $519. Master key systems and access control carry no published range, because both get counted door by door on site and quoted afterward. For vehicles: a key $169 to $455, a fob $99 to $215, an ignition $199 to $495, motorcycle keys $135 to $315. The clock adds $55 from 8pm and $95 from midnight, folded in while you are still deciding rather than produced at the door. Labor is warranted ninety days, and that warranty follows a relocated strike as readily as a new lock. Nothing on this list touches garage door springs, cables, panels or opener motors, which belong to a different trade and will be described that way instead of guessed at.

The Frame Gets Looked At First

Four rules that behave the same on a Greenbrook tract house, a wide entry off Sycamore Valley Road, a gate fob in Blackhawk and a glass shop door on Hartz Avenue. Labor carries ninety days, written on the receipt where you can read it.

The strike and the hinges get settled before anyone sells you hardwareA bolt that will not go home is usually a bolt arriving at the wrong height, and a new lock repeats the miss for more money. So the leaf is checked for square, hinge screws are driven long enough to bite framing, a shim goes behind the top hinge on a door that has dropped, and the strike is relocated with its mortise recut so the bolt falls straight through. A good share of these calls end right there, with no lock leaving the van. When one is genuinely needed you hear the reason, and it goes onto a door that can hold it.

One figure, and the clock is already in itWhat you hear on the phone covers the visit, the labor and the parts together, with the $89 service call built in rather than waiting underneath. Arrive between 8pm and midnight and the figure carries $55, between midnight and 7am $95, and you learn that while you are still deciding. A jamb softer than it looked, a hinge screw stripped by somebody years ago, a strike mortise cut in the wrong place at the factory: none of it reopens the arithmetic.

On a community gate, the question of who may order the work comes firstA fob, a remote or a key for your own house is yours to order and yours to pay for. Anything on a shared entrance, an entry gate, a pool door or a mail enclosure belongs to the association, and the board or the management company authorizes it, not the resident who happens to be standing at it. That gets asked on the phone rather than at the gate, so nobody drives out to a job that cannot legally start. Blackhawk and Crow Canyon Country Club both run this way, and so do the smaller gated streets.

Ninety days, which here reaches into the next change of seasonNinety days on the work, and the warranty follows the carpentry as much as the lock. A relocated strike and a shimmed hinge are workmanship like anything else, so a door that closed cleanly in spring and starts catching again inside that window brings the van back at no charge. Parts carry the maker's own term. Everything is itemized on a receipt that lands in your email, and an owner, a manager or an insurer can be sent a written description whenever one is asked for.

Greenbrook — a flat tract of a few repeating floor plans with two-car garages: the 1970s
Danville Station — streets laid along the old rail branch that carries the Iron Horse Trail today: the 1980s
Sycamore Valley, Magee Ranch, Crow Canyon Country Club and Blackhawk — bigger lots, longer driveways, gated entrances: the 1990s onward

Where we work

Danville and the San Ramon Valley, any hour

Pick your area for its own arrival time and the jobs we run there most.

Downtown Danville Westside Danville Greenbrook Danville Station Sycamore Valley Magee Ranch Crow Canyon Country Club Blackhawk Alamo Diablo San Ramon Dublin Pleasanton Walnut Creek

(925) 431-6470

Open 24 hours, 7 days

Tell us whether the door has to be pushed before it locks, and the call is short

Danville and the San Ramon Valley, at any hour. The condition of the door sets the work and the work sets the price, so you get one number on the phone with the $89 service call and the hour already inside it, and that number is what the receipt shows. Ninety days on the labor, in writing, covering the frame as well as the lock.

(925) 431-6470 Book online