Danville neighborhood · 24/7
Blackhawk: a staffed entrance, more than one gate, and entry doors wide enough that a quarter inch of movement is easy to feel
The community on the east side of town: an entrance with a guard post, several gates serving different parts of it, lanes of large houses set back on their own drives, and entry doors that are wide, solid and usually flanked by glass. Twenty-six minutes to the gate, the longest run inside the town.
~26 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
The drive is twenty-six minutes and the gate is separate from it, so both get said on the call rather than one of them being discovered later. The practical version is short: leave word at the entrance that a van is expected and who is in it, or have somebody ready to clear it on arrival. Then say which gate, because more than one serves this community and the wrong one adds several minutes of driving on the inside. Once through, the lanes and the drives repeat enough that a landmark, a mailbox or the position of the house relative to a turn is worth more than the number on it, particularly after dark.
The doors here are the largest on this map and that is the whole story of the work. A wide, heavy slab on three hinges, often with fixed glass beside it, has more material in it than an ordinary entry door, and more material means more movement between a winter night and a July afternoon. Ask a technician how far one of these travels over a year and the answer comes out of years of shimming hinges rather than off a gauge: enough to put the bolt somewhere other than the middle of the hole it was cut for. What people describe on the phone is a lock that has failed or a key that turns in empty air. What is found at the door is hinge screws that no longer bite, a strike set in casing instead of framing, and a leaf resting lower than where it was hung. Screws into the stud, the keeper moved, the mortise recut, the edge eased. Half these visits end with no hardware sold at all.
The ownership line is the other half of a Blackhawk call and it saves wasted trips. Everything on your own lot is yours to arrange: the entry, the door in from the garage, a side gate, an outbuilding. A house lockout there is $145 to $265 with the $89 visit already inside the figure and identification shown at the door. The community entrances, the gates, the credentials that open them and any building shared by the residents are not a resident's to change, and instructions for them come from the board or the management company in writing. Fobs and remotes for the gates are issued by the community office rather than duplicated by a locksmith, which is exactly how it should be. The mechanical locks on those same properties are ours.
Beyond the door itself, houses of this size generate a predictable list. Repinning after a purchase runs $31 to $49 per cylinder and the count is usually five or six openings before anybody remembers the pool gate. Safes turn up regularly in closets and offices with a combination that left with a previous owner, opened where they stand at $219 to $589 and then set to a number you pick. A keypad on an entry of this weight is $215 to $529 with the override key cut at the van the same day. Evening arrival adds $55 and overnight $95, both inside the number you agree to, and ninety days covers the workmanship, carpentry included.
Say which gate the van should use and how it gets cleared, since that is often the longest part of the visit rather than the drive. Then say whether the work is on your own lot or on something the community shares, and give a landmark along with the number, because the lanes here look alike at night.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Blackhawk
It is two in the morning and I am locked out. How does the van actually get in?+
The same way it does at two in the afternoon, but it needs one sentence from you first. While you are still on the phone, either the entrance is told that a van is coming and who is driving it, or you say who will clear it when it pulls up. Twenty-six minutes measures road and nothing else, so the quote you hear, $145 to $265 with the overnight $95 folded in, assumes the gate has been arranged.
The front door has to be pushed with a shoulder before the key will turn.+
That is a door that has moved, and on a leaf this wide it does not take much. The bolt is meeting the face of the strike instead of the hole, so you are supplying with your shoulder what the alignment used to supply on its own. It is fixed by moving metal rather than by buying any, and it is worth doing before the casing splits or somebody snaps a key off in a cylinder that was never at fault.
The board wants the lock on a shared gate changed. What do you need from them?+
A short written instruction from the board or the management company naming the opening and who is authorized to approve the work. That is all. A resident cannot order it and will be told so politely, because work on common property that was never authorized gets reversed at somebody's expense. Once the instruction exists, the openings are walked and counted, and master key or access control work is quoted from that count rather than from a phone call.
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.