Danville neighborhood · 24/7
Westside Danville: one block can hold four decades of front doors, so the call starts with the age of yours
The streets between the old center and the hills on the west side, filled in over a long stretch of years: a small house from the forties, a ranch from the sixties and a rebuild finished last spring standing within sight of each other. Fourteen minutes out, and no two doors on the block are the same job.
~14 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Nothing can be assumed on the drive over here, which is why the first question on a Westside call is the age of the house and the second is what the front door carries. A knob with the keyhole in the middle of it, a separate deadbolt above, a long plate set into the edge of the leaf, or a keypad. That one sentence decides what comes off the van and whether the visit takes twenty minutes or an hour. Give it on the phone and the range you are quoted closes to a single number before anybody sets off.
What every one of those doors has in common is the weather. This valley sits behind the ridge from the bay, so a February night near forty and a July afternoon over a hundred are the same year on the same leaf, and a solid slab hung decades ago moves through that range further than anything a factory allows for. A quarter of an inch is the figure a technician will give you from experience rather than from a gauge, and on a front door it is more than enough for a bolt that dropped cleanly in March to catch the edge of its keeper in July. What people say on the phone is that the lock broke. What is usually true is that the strike is screwed into casing instead of framing, the hinge screws have lost their bite, and the leaf has come to rest a few millimeters lower than where it was hung. All three are corrected inside a normal visit.
On the rebuilt houses the story runs the other way. The door is new, square and bored to modern sizes, and the trouble arrived with the build: a keypad the contractor set up, an entry code that half a dozen trades used for eight months, and an override cylinder whose blank is still taped inside its packet in a kitchen drawer. Clearing all of that in daylight costs almost nothing. Codes come out and yours go in while you are standing there, the metal key is cut at the van and turned in the cylinder before anyone leaves, and any mechanical lock on the property is repinned at $31 to $49 each. A keypad going onto an older leaf is $215 to $529, and what moves you inside that range is the door rather than the badge on the lock.
The top end of the neighborhood runs uphill and that is the part of the fourteen minutes that varies. Driveways climb away from the road, numbers sit back behind planting, and the last stretch is done at walking pace with a flashlight if nobody has left a light on. A house lockout is $145 to $265 with the $89 visit already inside it, replacement hardware is $139 to $359, and evening or overnight arrival adds $55 or $95 to the figure before you agree to it. Ninety days covers the workmanship, and on this street that includes the carpentry as well as the lock.
Say roughly what decade the house is from and describe the front door rather than naming it: how many steps up to it, whether there is a separate deadbolt above the handle, and whether anything on it lights up when touched. If the driveway climbs, give the nearest cross street and leave a light on at the road.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Westside Danville
Is it the lock or the door? The key turns but the bolt does not go anywhere.+
That description is nearly always the door. A bolt turning freely and going nowhere means it is meeting the face of the strike plate instead of the hole in it, which happens when a leaf settles or when heat has swelled the frame around it. The lock is doing its job into thin air. Tightening the hinges, moving the strike into real framing and easing the edge of the door is part of a visit, not a purchase, and it is worth having done before somebody starts shouldering the door and cracks the casing.
We just bought on this street. What is worth doing in the first month?+
Start by walking the property and writing down every door and gate a key or a code opens, because that list is nearly always longer than the one handed over at closing. Then the cylinders on it get repinned onto a single key at $31 to $49 each, and any keypad has its stored numbers wiped and replaced with yours. Last, check whether an outside door is relying on a latch with no bolt above it, which on the older houses along here happens more than you would expect.
The keypad came with the house and the previous owner set it up. Can that be handed over properly?+
Yes, and it should be. The unit goes back to a blank slate under your own account, anything the previous household stored is deleted along with any phone still paired to it, and the numbers you want are entered and tried twice before the technician packs up. The override key is cut at the van at the same time, so a battery that dies on a hot evening is an annoyance rather than a night outside. Where a builder unit has no support left behind it, a replacement falls inside $215 to $529.
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.