San Francisco · City and County
A locksmith who knows what is behind your door.
Nearly half the housing in this city was built before 1940, and that is why a locksmith who works mostly in new suburbs turns up without the part your door needs.
Why San Francisco doors are different
San Francisco Planning's own figures: 47 percent of the city's housing was built before 1940, against about 15 percent across the Bay Area, and the citywide median year built is 1939 or earlier. Only around 19 percent of it went up after 1980.
What that means at the door: mortise locks, rim cylinders on old apartment entries, skeleton-key furniture still in place on interior doors, original jambs that have moved with the house, and multiple layers of hardware added by seventy years of owners. None of it matches a modern template, and a lot of it cannot simply be swapped for a bore-hole deadbolt without a carpenter.
The Sunset and Parkside, which are their own job
West of Twin Peaks the city is a different age. Planning's adopted Sunset District historic context records a build-out of roughly 1925 to 1950, peaking in 1939–41, with 499 houses in 1940 alone, on 25-foot lots, by Doelger, the Gellerts, Galli, the Rousseau brothers, Standard Building and the Stonesons. The standard form is described as "a stucco-clad, single-family house, with integrated garage at the ground story and living spaces above", with the tunnel entry standard by 1940.
So in the Sunset, Parkside and the Richmond you usually have two locks to get past before you are inside: a garage or tunnel-entry gate at street level, then the house door upstairs. Being locked out of the outer one with the inner one unlocked is the single most common version of this call west of the park.
San Francisco Planning, housing age statistics and the adopted Sunset District Historic Context Statement.
Two local rules most locksmiths do not mention
Landmarked buildings are exempt from the state deadbolt rule
California Civil Code section 1941.3 requires a landlord to fit a deadbolt with a throw of at least thirteen-sixteenths of an inch on a rental's main entry. But subdivision (f) switches that duty off for a building designated as a historical structure. San Francisco has more than 300 Article 10 landmarks and over 1,100 lots inside Article 10 districts, and in those a permitted exterior alteration needs a Certificate of Appropriateness before the building permit. If you own or rent in one, the hardware conversation starts with Planning, not with us.
Your front door may not be master-keyed
San Francisco's own Building Code, chapter 10A on security requirements, states at section 1005A.3 that "Exterior and main entrance door locks shall not be on any master key system." If you manage a building here and someone has offered you one key for every front door, that is the provision to show them.
Civil Code §1941.3(f) via a secondary publisher (the State's own site was unreachable); San Francisco Planning on Article 10; San Francisco Building Code ch. 10A §1005A.3, read from the official code.
Car break-ins, and what the numbers actually say
San Francisco's reputation for vehicle break-ins is real but badly out of date. SFPD's own CompStat reporting shows theft from vehicle falling across comparable year-to-date windows from 10,817 to 4,972 to 1,459. That is a collapse, not a dip. Bayview is the one district running up rather than down.
What has not changed is the aftermath. A smashed window is glass; a stolen key, a stolen registration with your address on it, or a stolen garage remote is a different problem, and the fix is erasing the missing key from the car rather than only replacing it.
San Francisco Police Department CompStat reports.
Where we go in the city
All of it. The Mission, Bayview, Potrero Hill and Dogpatch are closest to our base south of Market; the Sunset, Parkside and the Richmond, the Excelsior, Bernal Heights, Noe Valley, the Marina, North Beach, Chinatown, the Tenderloin, SoMa, Visitacion Valley, Lakeshore and Treasure Island are all ordinary runs.
In an emergency, 20 to 30 minutes. In practice the hills and the one-way grid matter more than the mileage, which is why the honest number is a range and not a promise of fifteen.
Questions people ask here
I am locked out of the garage, and the house door upstairs is open.
Extremely common west of Twin Peaks and in any tunnel-entry house. Say it on the phone because it changes what the technician brings, and it is usually a faster job than a front door.
My building has a lobby door and an apartment door. Can you do both?
Your own apartment door, yes, on your identification. The common lobby door belongs to the building and most managers require their own authorization. Ring the manager while we are on the way.
I have an original mortise lock and I want a modern deadbolt.
Sometimes straightforward, sometimes a carpentry job, and in a landmarked building potentially a Planning matter. Send a photo of the door edge and the lock face on WhatsApp before you buy anything.
Do you cover Treasure Island and the Presidio?
Treasure Island yes, as an ordinary call. The Presidio is federal land under the Presidio Trust and some buildings there have their own access rules. We will still come, but tell us the building.
Need a locksmith in San Francisco now?
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