Locksmith in Midtown Atlanta: Unit Rekeys, Office Locks and Car Keys, 24/7

When a resident moves out, no one can say how many copies of the unit key left with them: a roommate's, a dog walker's, the one lent to a mover. Rekeying before the next resident gets keys closes that off without touching the hardware. Inside a pin tumbler cylinder, each chamber holds a key pin and a spring-loaded driver pin that block the plug until the right key lifts every stack to the shear point, where plug and cylinder meet. A rekey takes the plug out and fits key pins of new lengths, so a new key lines them up and the old one no longer does. The lock body and its bolt stay on the door.

When a building runs its units on a master key system, every unit has its own change key and a master opens all of them for maintenance. The cylinder does this with a spacer pin, also called a master wafer, that gives the pin stack a second shear point, one for the change key and one for the master. A turnover rekey therefore works from the building's key chart, the list of every combination in the system. The new combination has to keep the master working and must not match any other unit's change key. Rekeying without the chart is how a master stops opening a door, or two units end up on the same key. Designing a system from scratch is its own job, covered on the Dunwoody page and in the guide to planning a master key system.

Some buildings skip the repinning on turnover day with interchangeable cores. A small format interchangeable core (SFIC) has a figure-eight shape standardized across lock makers and comes out of the lock with a control key, so a spare core already pinned to a new change key and to the building master drops in, and the pulled core is repinned later for the next vacancy. The control key removes every core on the property, so it is guarded like the master itself. 4Keys pins spare cores to your chart ahead of move-out dates and swaps them unit by unit.

Units fitted with Kwikset SmartKey locks can be rekeyed quickly too, but only with the current working key, the SmartKey tool and the new key, as Kwikset itself states. When the departing resident kept the key, Kwikset points owners to a locksmith, and the cylinder is rekeyed or replaced. A keypad or app lock on a unit gets its codes cleared and its backup key cylinder rekeyed; the Snellville page covers smart locks in depth.

A unit door usually has two cylinders, the knob or lever and the deadbolt, and both move to the same new key. Lobby, garage and amenity credentials are a different system: fobs and cards are removed in the building's access control software, not by rekeying. Turnover work is quoted per cylinder and per key on the phone; booking it in daytime hours avoids the after-hours surcharge, which applies between 9 PM and 7 AM local time, and on Sundays and federal holidays.

Midtown is an Atlanta neighborhood, part of Fulton County, and it is served on the same 4Keys number as the rest of the city. Addresses here carry 30308 or 30309, and the Colony Square block of Peachtree Street is on 30361. Atlantic Station on 30363, across the Connector, and Georgia Tech and Home Park to the west are neighborhoods of their own, and the same van covers them.

From the Downtown Connector, exit 249D leads to Spring Street and West Peachtree northbound and to North Avenue southbound, exit 250 to 10th and 14th Streets, and exit 251A, northbound only, to 17th Street. Name the street and the nearest cross street; on Peachtree, West Peachtree or Spring, the block number helps too.

In a residential tower, give the building name, the unit number and where the van can stop, and warn the front desk to expect the technician. In an office tower, the security desk usually signs the technician in. In a deck, the level, the row and the exit gate matter more than the street address. The same dispatch reaches the Old Fourth Ward and Virginia-Highland to the east, Buckhead to the north, and the rest of Atlanta.