Gate, side gate, service door or front door
Four different problems hide behind the same call. A motorised gate that will not open, a pedestrian side gate whose cylinder has taken the rain for ten years, a service door at the back of the house, a front door pulled shut behind you: none of them calls for the same kit or the same approach. Say which of the four is stopping you before you describe the lock.
Access matters here as much as the mechanism. At Les Sources and around Vianney, a gravel drive, an unbroken boundary wall and a tall hedge stand between the street and the door leaf. Tell us whether a vehicle can come inside the grounds or has to stay on the road, and whether a second gate still separates the garden from the house.
In the old core, around the church and the mairie, it works the other way round. The door opens straight onto a narrow street with no parking, and this is the one part of Écully where you have to stop short of the address. Say whether the entrance is on the street front or through a courtyard, and whether a neighbour shares the passage.
Pulled shut or locked: the first question on the phone
A door that has only been pulled shut is held by the latch alone. On the recent, standard doors of the Charrière Blanche blocks, that case is usually dealt with without touching the cylinder. On a timber door in the old core, swollen and dried out over successive plateau winters, the leaf no longer sits square and the job takes more patience.
A locked door is another matter: the deadbolt is out, and a multipoint lock engages several points up the height of the leaf. Nothing is announced before the door has been seen. The survey happens on site, an itemised quote is put to you before any work starts, and an itemised invoice is handed over at the end.
Before any door is opened we check the home is yours: a rent receipt, an energy bill or a home insurance certificate all serve. If everything is behind the door, say so when you call. In a flat taken furnished for the academic year near the Écully campuses, a letter from the managing agent or the caretaker is usually the easiest document to produce.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our door opening page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Écully.