How Much Does It Cost to Change All the Locks in a House?

For a typical house with a front and a back door, changing the locks with me usually comes to around £150 in normal working hours, locks included. The labour is £89 for one or two doors, and every extra door adds £20 to £30, plus the lock that goes in it.

Most people are braced for a much bigger number than that, for two reasons. They take the price of one lock and multiply it by every lock in the house, and they count locks that never needed changing in the first place.

She had braced herself for £840

A couple in Headstone rang me a few weeks after moving into a 1930s semi. She did the talking, and she had clearly prepared for the call.

“We want all the locks changed. There are seven. I have looked it up, so I know roughly what it is going to be.”

She had looked it up. Price guides online give you a figure for changing one lock. She had taken about £120, multiplied it by seven, and arrived at £840. She was ready for it, in the voice of somebody about to be very brave at the dentist.

So we went through the seven on the phone, one at a time.

The front door, the back door and the sliding patio door were all uPVC with euro cylinders, and nobody could say how many keys to them were out there. Those three wanted changing. No argument.

The side gate had a bolt on the inside and no keyhole anywhere. There is nothing to change on a lock nobody can open from the outside, and nothing to charge for either.

The garage had an up-and-over door the previous owners had bolted shut from the inside years ago. They used the door through the kitchen. Same answer.

The shed had a padlock. For most sheds, a decent padlock from a hardware shop is all you need, and you can fit it yourself. If there are a few thousand pounds of bikes or tools in there, that is a different conversation, and a proper high security padlock, which can run to a couple of hundred pounds, is worth having a locksmith sort out. Hers had a lawnmower and two deckchairs in it.

And the seventh was the downstairs loo. Internal doors do not count. Nobody outside your house has ever had a key to your bathroom.

That left three. She wanted one key for all of them, which was the right call, so I ordered keyed alike cylinders and came back three days later. The bill was £264, all in.

She had braced for £840 and paid £264. Not because I am cheap, but because she had been counting the wrong locks and multiplying the wrong number.

And the man who did the sum the other way round

This one really happened, and it is the same mistake turned inside out.

I quoted a gentleman in Greenhill £200 in labour to change eight locks. He thought about it, did some arithmetic, and came back with a counter offer. £200 for eight is £25 a lock, he said, so could I just do two of them for £50?

It is a perfectly logical sum. It is also not how the price works, and I told him so. Two locks is £89, because two locks still means me driving over, parking up, unloading the van and doing the job properly. The visit costs the same whatever is on the list. The longer the list, the less each extra door works out at, which is why eight came to £200 rather than the full £20 to £30 a door you would pay on a shorter job.

In the end he had all eight done. Two locks for £89 or eight for £200 is not a hard choice once you see the sum the right way round.

Both customers made the same mistake from opposite ends. She multiplied a one-lock price by seven. He divided an eight-lock price by eight. The first lock carries the cost of the visit. Every lock after it costs a fraction of that.

How the price is actually worked out

I do not charge by the hour. The price is for the job: how many doors, and what is on them.

That is deliberate. I work to save my customers time, and I am never going to stretch a job out to earn more from it. When the price is for the job, me being quick is good news for you, not bad news.

Labour, standard hours (8am to 6pm):

On top of the labour you pay for the locks themselves, and that is the part I cannot give you one number for. A basic euro cylinder, a 3-star anti-snap cylinder and a British Standard mortice lock are very different prices, and the right one depends on the door. I tell you which one you need, and what it costs, before I start.

No call-out fee and no charge for coming to quote. The price I agree with you before I start is the price you pay. My full rates, including evenings and weekends, are on my prices page.

On a front door I will always talk to you about a 3-star cylinder rather than a basic one, because a cheap cylinder is exactly the part burglars snap. If that is new to you, read what lock snapping is before you buy anything.

What can push the price up. That is the price of a lock change. Sometimes the lock is not the only problem. If the door has dropped and the lock is fighting it, or a multipoint mechanism has actually failed, a new cylinder will not fix it, and I will not pretend it does. Realigning a door is extra work, and you will hear about it, and what it costs, before I start. Not halfway through. If you want to know why doors drop in the first place, I wrote about it in what to put in a stiff lock.

What a whole house actually costs

Here is roughly how that adds up on the kind of houses I go to every week round Harrow, in standard hours, locks included. These are starting points with everyday cylinders, not quotes. Your doors decide the final figure.

Look at the first two lines. A whole second door adds about £30, because the visit is already paid for. That is the entire reason the multiply-by-seven method gets it so wrong.

Why “all the locks” is usually fewer than you think

When somebody asks me to change all the locks, the question I am really answering is which locks somebody outside the house could have a key to. Those are the ones that matter. That usually rules out:

• Internal doors. Bathrooms, bedrooms, the loo under the stairs.
• Anything with nothing on the outside. Bolts, and locks you can only work from inside.
• Most padlocks. A decent one from a hardware shop does the job on most sheds. A shed full of bikes and tools is the exception.

The quote should also be allowed to go down once the locksmith has seen the door. I once quoted a family in Eastcote for four locks and fitted two, because two of them were on sections of a bi-fold door with no handle and no keyhole on the outside at all. I told the full story in my post on changing the locks when you move into a new house, along with how soon to do it and which doors matter most.

Window locks are a separate job. Most sets in a house take the same key, and if yours are missing or you have found three you cannot explain, I cover those under window lock repair. Same for garage, gate and shed locks if there is something in them worth taking.

Keyed alike: one key for the whole house

Keyed alike means every lock in the set works off the same key. One key on the ring instead of four, and no more standing at the back door trying them in turn.

It costs a bit more per lock, on the parts, not the labour. Fitting a keyed alike lock takes me no longer than fitting any other, so I do not charge you more for it.

The catch is time. Keyed alike locks are made to order, so there is a wait of two to three days. Everyday cylinders I carry in the van, so a standard lock change can be done the same day.

Is it worth waiting for? If you are living in the house, usually yes. The risk from an old key is highest when the house sits empty, and for the three days you are in it, that risk is low. If you are going away before then, change them now with standard cylinders and do the keyed alike set another time, knowing you will pay for the parts twice.

One thing to know before you get your heart set on a single key. Mortice locks can be keyed alike too, which is exactly what you want if your front and back doors are both timber with mortice locks. What a mortice lock cannot do is share a key with a euro cylinder, because they take completely different types of key. So a house with a uPVC front door and a timber back door ends up with two keys, not one.

Why two quotes for the same house can be double

Because some people in my trade price per lock, and every lock they add to your list is another part sold.

Nobody has to lie for that to happen. Count every lock in the house, quote for every lock, fit every lock. The customer is delighted with a bunch of shiny new keys and has no way of knowing that half of them were never needed. Add a call-out fee for each visit and an “emergency” rate for a job that was never an emergency, and you are well on the way to the kind of bill I wrote about in why locksmiths advertise £49 then charge £300.

Two things protect you. Ask for one price for the whole job, not a price per lock. And get it agreed on the job sheet before any work starts, not after.

Book it in the daytime

Changing the locks after you move in is almost never an emergency, so there is no reason to pay emergency rates for it. My evening rate is £99, nights are £120, and weekends and bank holidays start from £99. Same job, same locks, more money, for nothing except the time on the clock.

The exception is if keys have actually gone missing, especially with an address attached. That is a different job and a different level of urgency.

What I would actually do in your position

Walk round the outside of the house and count the ways in. Not the internal doors, not the cupboards. The doors somebody could open from the street or the garden.

Cross off anything with nothing on the outside. Bolts, inside-only locks, the bi-fold panels with no keyhole.

Decide about keyed alike before you book, not after. Swapping a fresh set of cylinders a month later means paying for the parts twice.

Ask for one price for the whole job, agreed before work starts. If a locksmith cannot give you a figure for the labour on the phone, that is worth knowing before he arrives.

Then spend the money on the front door. A lock seller wants your list as long as possible. I would rather you had three good locks than seven cheap ones, because five cheap locks on a house is not five times the security, it is just five cheap locks. A short list with the right locks on it solves the problem. A long list of cheap ones just costs more.

Common questions about the cost of changing locks

How much does it cost to change all the locks in a house in the UK?

With me in Harrow, a typical house with a front and a back door usually comes to around £150 in normal working hours, locks included. Labour is £89 for one or two doors, and each extra door, garage, gate or shed adds £20 to £30, plus the lock. The locks themselves vary with the door and the level of security. If a door needs realigning as well, that is extra and should be quoted before work starts. Prices vary across the UK, but if you are quoted a price per lock multiplied by every lock in the house, ask for a single price for the whole job instead.

How much does it cost to change one lock?

With me, changing one everyday euro cylinder on a uPVC or composite door costs from about £120 in normal working hours, cylinder included. A 3-star anti-snap cylinder, or a British Standard BS3621 mortice lock on a timber door, costs more, because the lock itself costs more. There is no call-out fee on top.

Is it cheaper to change all the locks at the same time?

Yes, by a long way. The first lock carries the cost of the visit, so every lock after it costs a fraction of that. With me, labour covers one or two doors for £89, and each extra door adds only £20 to £30 plus the lock. Changing two doors on two separate visits costs far more than changing both on one.

How much extra does it cost to have all the locks keyed alike?

Keyed alike locks, where one key opens every door, cost a bit more per lock than standard ones. The extra is for the parts, not the labour, because fitting them takes no longer. They are made to order, so allow two to three days. Euro cylinders can be keyed alike with each other, and so can mortice locks, but a mortice lock cannot share a key with a euro cylinder because they take different types of key.

Do locksmiths charge per lock or per hour to change locks?

It varies. I do neither. I price the whole job by how many doors there are and what is on them, and agree that price before I start. Charging by the hour rewards a slow locksmith, and charging a full price per lock rewards a long list. A fixed price for the job rewards getting it done properly and quickly.

Does it cost more to change the locks in the evening or at the weekend?

Usually, yes. My labour is £89 in standard hours, £99 in the evenings, £120 at night and from £99 at weekends and on bank holidays. Changing locks after moving house is rarely an emergency, so book it in the daytime and keep the difference. The exception is lost keys, especially if they had your address on them.

Should I pay a call-out fee to have my locks changed?

You should not have to. A lock change is a planned job, and many locksmiths, me included, charge no call-out fee and nothing for coming to quote. If a price comes with a separate call-out charge on top, ask what the whole job will cost in one figure, and get that agreed before any work starts.

Want one price for the whole house?

Tell me how many doors you have got and what is on them, and I will give you one price for the job before I set off. Not a price per lock, and not a number that grows once I am through the door.

Call Andrew: 073 7617 6366 Or contact me at: andrewthelocksmith.com/contact-andrew-the-locksmith