The faults we meet on this commune
The door you have to lift before it will lock comes first in the centre of Oullins. The timber swelled through the wet months, dried out over the summer, and the hinges have dropped a few millimetres. The bolt no longer finds its keep. The lock is not at fault: reset the keep or take up the hinge and the door runs true again for several seasons.
On the Haute-Roche hillside the classic fault is the gate or side gate cylinder. It takes the rain full on, dust off the drives works into the keyway, and frosty mornings finish the mechanism off more bluntly than they would by the sea. The key catches, then has to be hunted into position, then one January morning it stops turning at all.
In the blocks of Les Hautes-Roches and Le Perron the faults are those of mass-produced doors: a worn spindle, a handle that goes soft and drops, a top point on a multipoint that no longer engages, a badly set closer in the hall slamming the leaf and tiring the mechanism a little more each day. Nobody reports any of it while the door still opens.
What not to do in the meantime
All-purpose penetrating spray is the commonest reaction and the most harmful. It leaves a greasy film that holds dust; on an exposed gate cylinder, up at Haute-Roche among the gravel drives, complete seizure follows quickly. A dry lubricant made for locks, applied once a year, does the same job without gumming anything up.
Never force a key that resists, least of all on the frosty mornings that grip the Oullins hillsides. Tired metal snaps clean off inside the barrel, and the fragment comes out far more easily if nobody has pushed it deeper. If the key has already broken inside, leave the door as it is, put nothing into the cylinder, and do not try the spare key on top of the piece.
Finally, do not replace a lock to cure an alignment fault. On a door in the old centre of Oullins that has been dragging for two winters, a new lock will meet exactly the same strain by the first wet spell and tire just as fast as the last one. The leaf, the hinges and the keeps are adjusted first; the part is changed afterwards, if it still deserves it.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our locksmith repairs page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Oullins-Pierre-Bénite.