A major item that protects your home and family from dangerous intruders and thieves is your door locks. So you should do everything you can to ensure they are working properly. Let’s take a look at some reasons why you should maintain your door locks and steps you can take.
Why?
There are few reasons why you should seriously considering maintaining door locks. One reason is avoid serious damage. Over time, when you open and close your doors, your door locks go through a lot of wear and tear. If you don’t perform proper maintenance, some of the resulting damage may include keys that don’t work, latches that don’t work, or doors that won’t even close properly which in turn threatens the safety of your home, family, and property. You should also maintain your door locks because the steps are easy to do and will save you more money and time in terms of costly repairs or replacement as a result of damaged locks.
Steps
Maintaining your door locks should not be time consuming or difficult to do. Here some simple steps you can take periodically to perform proper maintenance.
Cleaning
Your door knobs come in constant contact with your hands which contain dirt and acidic material that can cause damage. To avoid this, periodically clean door knob surfaces with a household cleaning solution you normally get from the store.
Apply Lubrication
Door locks are complex pieces of equipment that contain many moving parts vulnerable to wear and tear. Just like your car needs oil to run properly and lubricate internal components, your door locks also require lubrication to ensure parts don’t get stuck and in turn make your door locks last longer. Use a chemical like WD-40 or a similar chemical found at your local hardware store. Spray the sides of the door locks and use a cloth to clean the dirt that comes out.
Scratching
Another preventative maintenance tip for your door locks is to prevent scratches from forming in first place on important components such as the keyhole. Take care to insert your keys properly when opening or closing the doors.
Slamming
Sometimes, a door’s closer mechanism gets damaged causing the door to slam more easily when shut. This not only causes damage to the door, but also to the door locks. Check the closing mechanism regularly and make sure your doors close properly and repair any damage.
Call a Professional
Though these steps can be done on your own, sometimes extra steps are needed that involve taking apart door locks. Call a professional to do the steps outlined above plus extra steps to ensure a longer life for your door locks. Don’t hesitate, call us today!