One screw on the edge, or the whole case out
The cylinder is the part the key goes into; one screw on the edge of the leaf releases it. The lock is everything else: case, bolts, the linkage on a multipoint, the faceplate. A key lost somewhere between the Grande Rue market and home, a tenant handing back the keys of a furnished flat near the chemin du Grand Revoyet: in those cases the cylinder settles it.
The lock itself is touched when the mechanism is at fault: a bolt that no longer throws, a bent multipoint linkage, a faceplate pulled loose by a shoulder charge. That is what turns up on the original flat doors in the centre of Oullins, fitted when the building went up and never removed since, in stairwells where the damp of the valley floor rises through the winter.
One thing comes up again and again in the old rental blocks of central Oullins: the flat door, the stairwell door, the cellar, the letterbox and sometimes the courtyard gate all hang on the same ring. Take stock of what the bunch actually opens before ordering any part. Whatever can sensibly be brought onto a single key is aligned afterwards.
What the door will take, district by district
In old Oullins the lock is often surface-mounted: a case screwed to the inside face, on a leaf too thin to be mortised. You stay within the same family of hardware, or old joinery gets cut about for nothing. The distance from the cylinder axis to the edge of the leaf is measured before anything is ordered, and it is almost never a standard figure.
In the buildings of Les Hautes-Roches and Le Perron, as in the blocks of Pierre-Bénite centre, the multipoint rules: three or five points, linkage under the faceplate, sometimes a cover plate over it. Replacing the cylinder with one of the exact length is enough in most cases. A rough length leaves the barrel standing proud of the escutcheon, where pliers can reach it.
In La Saulaie the former workshop units and the terraced workers' housing keep their original metal doors, fitted with locks that appear in no current catalogue. We note the model, look for a compatible part, and adapt where nothing is made any more. Nothing is ordered before the door has been seen: on those closures that is the rule.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our lock and cylinder replacement page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Oullins-Pierre-Bénite.