Explain the way in before you describe the door
In Le Bourg the street number is not always enough. Several homes around place Chanoine Coupat and the lanes running down to the church are reached through a covered porch passage into a shared courtyard, where two or three doors open onto the same landing. Say which porch to walk through, then describe the courtyard: stairs on the left, door at the back, ground floor on the right.
Towards Les Barolles and Basses-Barolles the problem is a different one. The lanes are narrow and walled, and a van that enters from the wrong end cannot turn round. Give the direction to approach from, a landmark visible from the road — a gatepost, a blue gate, a high clipped hedge — and say whether the shared gate to the drive is locked in the evening.
Le Vallon needs one more detail: the way in is sometimes at the level of the garage cut into the bank, half a storey below the road. Around chemin du Grand Revoyet and the metro terminus it is usually the building number and the exact name on the entryphone that are missing, since several residences share one postal address.
Slammed, deadlocked, or swollen shut
A slammed door is held only by the spring latch. On the old doors of Le Bourg, often low and hung on a frame that has shifted over a century, the gap available differs from one leaf to the next. The narrow staircase already limits what can be carried up to the landing, and a recently renewed seal changes matters again.
A deadlocked door has the main bolt thrown, and on the multipoint locks of the Beauversant houses several bolts at the top and bottom of the leaf. The mechanical resistance is not remotely comparable. Nothing is announced before the door has been seen: the assessment on site comes first, then the written quote, then the work itself.
There is a third case, common on the valley floor after a wet week: the door is neither slammed nor locked, it is binding. The timber has swollen and the bolt no longer meets its keep, so you push harder without noticing. Proof of occupancy is asked for before any opening, and an itemised invoice is handed over at the end.
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 Saint-Genis-Laval.