Josh-the-Locksmith
22 Years Experience
Austin, TX
Male, 42
I've been a locksmith since 1998. I did automotive residential & commercial work from 1998 to 2008. From 2008 to 2018, I did some residential, but mostly commercial work. I have been project managing & estimating since 2018. I used to locksmith in the Chicago area, now the Austin area.
I can get in pretty much every lock. I might do some damage, but I can get in! I can't get into vaults & a lot of safes. Just because I've never actually been trained for it.
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Not to break in, no. My boss at my last job let someone into a business they didn't own, but since he had gotten all the proper documentation, he wasn't liable. They were caught though. I had an old man call me out to change the locks on a house once, & after I got there I could tell he wasn't all there. Turned out it wasn't even his house! It was a friend's who was in the other room. She came out & said she didn't even want me to do it, but he insisted she did. It was 9 oclock at night, I didn't feel like dealing with it so I just walked out.
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I broken into a few safes, & bypassed more deadbolts than I can count. Unfortunately no exciting stories. I did manage to get a door open that had a multi-point lock system installed that broke in the locked position. Not fun!
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I'm sorry to say, but our Industry has been saturated with phony locksmiths. There are national companies that subcontract people and pay them by commission. When you called that locksmith, you were probably talking to someone in call center in another state. They quote you the base price, and when the subcontractor comes to you he quotes you however much he wants to make. This is not typical for a 24 hour locksmith. I've worked for two companies in the 13 years I've been a locksmith. Both of them were 24 hours, and we never did anything like that. These phony locksmiths put a bunch of ads online and in the phone book to make themselves look local. They even have fake Company names, they use local addresses that go to peoples houses and other businesses, so people think they're calling a local company. I recommend that you find one or two reputable local locksmiths and store the number in your phone.
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I think that you're probably right about that. My first boss always told me that I would probably see the end of mechanical locks in my day. I think we have 20-30 years before we see it trickle down to lower & middle class due to the cost of it. Obviously it's currently being use regularly in office bldgs everywhere, but the cost is $800+ a door. So they have a ways to go before we see the price drop low enough and have products designed simple enough for the mechanically-inclined homeowner to install it himself. They already have touch-screen deadbolts, remote control deadbolts, & obviously regular keypad deadbolts. Generally the reason businesses want to eliminate keys is for more control. Audit trails, easy & costly elimination of a fired employee, lots of benefits really; but not a lot for residential reasons other than convenience. Which is why we prob won't see it for quite a while, & mostly in high end home with home automation.
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You can start a car by crossing wires on old cars, but you still can't just drive off. Steering wheels are locked & turning the key unlocks the wheel. Locksmiths don't do that anyways. We just make keys for the cars. Most newer vehicles have a chip in the key or the ignition. That security chip is required in order for the car to start, & every car's chip is different. That was designed to prevent people from "hot wiring" cars.
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I have never seen any tools designed to specifically unlock the chain locks. I would assume the reason would be that they're not difficult to cut and easy and cheap to replace.
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