Guides
Plain answers for Redwood City, before you need them.
Prices, old hardware, gates, garages and lockouts, written for this city and read in a few minutes.
Oct 2026 · 8 min read
The 1920s Mortise Set on a Mount Carmel Door: What Is Inside It, What Wears Out and Whether to Keep It
The streets below Edgewood Park still open with the locks they were built with. What a mortise lock is and how it differs from everything fitted since, what a century does to the springs and the spindle, when a rekey is enough, when a new cylinder goes into the old case, when the case has to go, and how a modern deadbolt is added without spoiling the door.
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Aug 2026 · 7 min read
The Caltrain Commuter Who Lost the Only Key: Getting Back Into a Car at Sequoia Station
Parked at seven, forty miles of track, and at six in the evening the only key to the car is somewhere between here and the office. Lockout or replacement and how to tell, what a replacement key visit involves at the lot, the three kinds of car key and their figures, and the house key on the same ring.
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Jun 2026 · 7 min read
A Broadway Shop Door the Morning After a Break-In: What Is Fixed, What Is Rekeyed and What the Insurer Asks For
The order of the calls, the two kinds of door on Broadway and how each one fails, which keys are gone and which cylinders follow them, the rear door onto the alley, and the receipt and the written line that the insurer and the landlord will ask for. The 2026 figures in one place.
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Apr 2026 · 7 min read
An Emerald Hills Gate, a Long Driveway and a Locked House at the End of It
The gate is the first lock, the driveway is the second problem and the house has nine doors. Why the arrival to Emerald Hills is twenty-seven minutes and how that is said honestly, how a gate release works when the power is off, what the van needs from a steep drive, and what a whole-property visit costs.
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Mar 2026 · 6 min read
Keys Locked in the Car in the Jefferson or Marshall Garage After a Show at the Fox Theatre
Ten-forty on a Saturday, level three, the key on the passenger seat and the garage emptying around you. Which garage, which level and which stair to say on the call, how the door is opened without touching the glass, what an evening lockout costs downtown, and the two habits that end the story.
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Jan 2026 · 7 min read
Locked Out of a Redwood Shores Condo: the Garage Underneath, the Stairwell Door and What the HOA Needs to See
Three locked doors stand between the street and a Redwood Shores sofa, and only one of them is yours. Which door the technician needs to be let through, why the stairwell door causes most of the lockouts, what the HOA governs on your front door, and the 2026 figures.
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One call, one figure, settled before the van turns the key
Calls answered 24/7 for Redwood City and the towns beside it. One figure for the visit, the labor and the parts, with the $89 service call inside it, and a receipt that matches it line for line.