How Long Does Rekey Locks Take? Timelines and What to Expect

How Long Does Rekey Locks Take? Timelines and What to Expect

A locksmith who bills two hours to rekey three deadbolts is either using the wrong tools or billing for time that isn’t yours to pay. Our Rekey Locks services are among the fastest, most predictable jobs in the trade, yet rekeying is also one of the most commonly padded. This guide breaks down exactly what a rekey involves minute by minute, what affects the clock, and how Los Angeles homeowners can spot billing that doesn’t add up.

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Quick Answer

Rekeying a standard lock takes 15 to 30 minutes per cylinder for a trained locksmith. A typical Los Angeles home with three entry locks (two deadbolts and a knob or lever) is usually done in 45 to 90 minutes on site. If a single-lock rekey is being quoted at over an hour, something is off.

Table of Contents

• What Rekeying Actually Involves
• The Minute-by-Minute Breakdown
• How Lock Brand Affects Rekey Time
• Los Angeles Scheduling Realities
• Billing Red Flags: When the Clock Doesn’t Add Up
• What a Written Upfront Price Means for Time Disputes
• Common Mistakes to Avoid
• When to Call a Professional
• Frequently Asked Questions

What Rekeying Actually Involves

Rekeying means swapping the internal pins inside a lock cylinder so the old key no longer turns it. The lock body, bolt, strike plate, and trim all stay exactly where they are. Nothing about the door changes. Only the key changes.

Here’s why that matters for time: a rekey does not involve drilling, chiseling, mortising, or any modification to the door. The locksmith removes the cylinder from the lock, replaces the pin stack inside, and puts the cylinder back. That’s the whole job. When you see a quote that pairs rekeying with words like “installation” or “replacement time,” someone is conflating two very different jobs to justify a bigger bill.

In Los Angeles, where most homes we service were built between the 1920s and 1990s, the hardware mix is almost always Schlage or Kwikset deadbolts with matching knob or lever sets. Those two brands account for roughly 80% of what we rekey. Both are straightforward cylinder pulls. The job is fast because the lock design is fast, not because anyone is cutting corners.

A full lock replacement, by contrast, runs 45 minutes to two hours per lock depending on door prep and hardware grade. If you are being told a rekey will take two hours per lock, you’re being quoted replacement labor for a rekey price. That’s a red flag worth naming.

The Minute-by-Minute Breakdown

For How Long Does Residential Locksmith Take? Timelines and What to Expect, here’s what a standard rekey looks like on the clock, from a locksmith’s perspective. We’re laying this out so you can compare any quote against what normal actually looks like.

1. Arrival and walkthrough (5-7 minutes): The locksmith confirms which locks you want rekeyed, checks the brand and condition of each cylinder, and verifies the existing key still works. If the key doesn’t turn smoothly, the cylinder may have internal wear that adds a few minutes.
2. Cylinder removal (3-5 minutes per lock): For a knob or lever, this means removing the interior handle and retainer. For a deadbolt, it’s two screws and the cylinder slides out. No special drill, no sawdust, no drama.
3. Pin replacement and keying (5-10 minutes per cylinder): The locksmith dumps the old pins, counts the new key cuts, and loads matching pins. This is the actual “rekey” moment. A locksmith who rekeys by hand with a pin kit can do this faster than one who fumbles with preloaded cylinders that don’t match.
4. Reassembly and test (3-5 minutes per lock): The cylinder goes back in, the key gets tested in both directions, and the locksmith confirms the old key is dead. This step catches pin misloads and spring tension issues.
5. Cleanup and paperwork (3-5 minutes): A quick wipedown, key count confirmation, and the written invoice. Before-and-after photos, which we include on every job, take under a minute.

Total for a single lock: 15 to 30 minutes in skilled hands. Three locks, if they’re the same keyway and the locksmith isn’t fighting rusted hardware: 45 to 75 minutes, plus drive time. That’s the honest math behind the numbers we quote.

How Lock Brand Affects Rekey Time

Not all cylinders are built the same way, and the brand stamped on the face matters more than most homeowners realize.

Kwikset: The fastest to rekey, full stop. Kwikset’s SmartKey cylinders can be rekeyed in under two minutes without removing the cylinder at all, using a small learning tool. Standard Kwikset pin-and-tumbler cylinders are also quick because the keyway is wide and the pins are easy to access. Most Los Angeles apartments and entry-level homes run Kwikset hardware.

Schlage: Slightly more involved. Schlage uses tighter tolerances and a narrower keyway, so pin loading takes a bit more care. Add 2 to 4 minutes per cylinder compared to Kwikset. Still well within the 15 to 30 minute range.

Medeco: A different animal entirely. Medeco high-security cylinders use angled cuts and sidebar pins that must be loaded precisely, and they require specialty pin kits. Expect 25 to 45 minutes per cylinder. If someone quotes you 15 minutes for a Medeco rekey, they either don’t have the right pins or they’re not actually rekeying it properly.

Yale and Baldwin: These land in the middle. Yale commercial-grade cylinders are straightforward but often have more pins (6 instead of 5), adding a minute or two. Baldwin residential hardware sometimes hides the cylinder behind a decorative trim plate, which adds disassembly time. Budget 20 to 35 minutes per lock.

At Preston Locksmith & Security, our technicians are trained on Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, Abloy, Baldwin, and Sargent alongside the everyday Schlage and Kwikset stuff. That training means we quote the right time for the actual hardware on your door, not a blended guess.

Los Angeles Scheduling Realities

Drive time in Los Angeles is not a footnote. It’s a line item in any honest scheduling conversation. A rekey that takes 60 minutes of wrench time can consume half a day when the destination is in the wrong corridor at the wrong hour.

Here’s what actually affects scheduling for a Los Angeles rekey:

• Neighborhood density: A locksmith coming from the Valley to rekey a single deadbolt in Silver Lake is spending more time on the 101 than on your lock. That’s why we quote arrival windows based on real GPS data, not optimistic averages.
• Parking: In Koreatown, Westlake, and parts of Hollywood, finding a spot can take 10 to 20 minutes. In Brentwood or Sherman Oaks, it’s usually easy. Honest locksmiths factor this in, and so do we.
• Apartment buildings: Rekeying a unit door in a high-rise often means coordinating with a front desk, getting elevator access, and sometimes working in a narrow hallway. Add 10 to 15 minutes of logistics that a single-family home in Eagle Rock or Van Nuys simply doesn’t have.
• Coastal neighborhoods: Salt air accelerates cylinder corrosion. Locks in Playa del Rey, Venice, and Marina del Rey often need a little extra coaxing to come apart, especially on older Baldwin or brass hardware. That’s not padding; that’s the California coast doing what it does.

We give every customer a live trackable arrival time, which we call The Relay Visibility Guarantee. You see the technician moving toward you in real time, same way you’d track a rideshare. No four-hour windows. No “we’ll call you when we’re close.”

Billing Red Flags: When the Clock Doesn’t Add Up

Most rekey billing disputes come down to one thing: a homeowner being charged for time they never agreed to. Here are the patterns we hear about regularly from Los Angeles customers who call us after a bad experience.

• Single-lock rekey quoted over 45 minutes: Unless it’s a Medeco or a badly corroded cylinder, no single lock rekey should exceed 45 minutes of labor. If the quote says 60 or 90 minutes for one standard deadbolt, ask what exactly is being done in that window.
• “It took longer than expected” added after the fact: A written price signed before work starts eliminates this. If the locksmith won’t put the price in writing before touching the lock, that’s a signal the clock may grow.
• Charging separately for “cylinder removal” or “test time”: These are part of a rekey, not add-ons. If a quote lists them as separate line items, the price is being engineered, not earned.
• Rekeying a lock that doesn’t need it: If a locksmith says all your locks must be rekeyed because “they’re old,” but the key turns smoothly, you’re being upsold. Old doesn’t mean bad. Wear matters more than age.
• Travel time billed at the same rate as wrench time: Some shops bill from the moment the tech leaves the last job. That’s their policy, but it should be disclosed upfront, in writing. If it appears on the invoice for the first time, you’re within your rights to refuse that line.

What a Written Upfront Price Means for Time Disputes

Every rekey we quote carries a written price before a single tool leaves the bag. That’s The Relay Visibility Guarantee in practice: you know the number, you agree to the number, and that number is the one on the invoice.

Why does that matter for a time-based question? Because most rekey disputes aren’t really about minutes; they’re about minutes converting into dollars you didn’t authorize. A vague $49 service call that becomes $240 “because it took longer than expected” is a billing problem disguised as a labor problem.

Here’s the reality: rekeying three standard Kwikset deadbolts in a Los Angeles home typically runs $75 to $160 total for labor, including the new keys, depending on the hardware and the key count you need. High-security stuff like Medeco runs more, sometimes $25 to $45 per cylinder just for the specialty pins and key blanks. The point is not the exact number; it’s that the number should be fixed before the work starts, written on paper or on your screen, and unchanged when the job is done.

We don’t bill by the hour for residential rekeys. We bill by the job, which means the clock is our problem, not yours. If a cylinder fights us because it’s been painted over or corroded by Santa Monica fog, that’s our time, not your bill.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Confusing rekeying with replacing: Rekeying swaps pins; replacing swaps hardware. If the quote mentions new locks, new bolts, or new strike plates, you’re being quoted a different job entirely. Ask which one you’re actually getting.
• Accepting an hourly rate for a job that should be flat-priced: Rekeying is predictable work. Hourly billing on a rekey gives the technician an incentive to go slow. A flat per-lock or per-job price removes that incentive.
• Not confirming the key count you’ll receive: Two keys and four keys are different line items. Know how many you want before the work starts, and make sure that number is on the written price.
• Skipping the old-key test: After the rekey, the old key should be visibly dead, not just “probably won’t work.” Watch the test. Any locksmith who won’t test the old key in front of you is hiding something.
• Hiring on price without a written guarantee: The cheapest rekey in Los Angeles is often the one that gets redone in six months when a pin misload shows up. Every repair we do carries a written 365-Day Done Right Promise: if it’s not done right, we make it right, including a free second visit if the repair fails.
• Not asking about the technician before they arrive: You should know the name of the person coming, what they look like, and that they’ve been background-checked. We send all of that before the knock. If a company won’t tell you who’s coming, that’s an answer in itself.
• Rekeying fewer locks than you should: If your front and back doors are on different keys, rekeying only one of them means you’re still carrying two keys and the old one still works somewhere. Most Los Angeles homes have two to four entry locks, and rekeying them all to one key at the same time is faster and cheaper per lock than doing them piecemeal.

When to Call a Professional

Rekeying is not a DIY-friendly job for most people. The tools are specialized, the pin sizes are tiny and easy to mix up, and a misloaded cylinder can fail at the worst possible moment, leaving you locked out or locked in. If you’ve just moved into a new home in Los Angeles, ended a lease, fired a contractor, or had a set of keys go missing, rekey every exterior lock the same day. See our How to Hire a Locksmith Contractor in Los Angeles: A Step-by-Step Guide to avoid hiring the wrong pro. If the key turns with resistance, if the cylinder is painted over, or if you’re dealing with anything labeled Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, or Abloy, call a pro. Preston Locksmith & Security offers free estimates in Los Angeles; call (409) 405-4485 and a live person answers, day or night.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

Rekeying is a 15 to 30 minute job per lock when it’s done by someone who knows the hardware. The time only grows when the locksmith is fighting unfamiliar cylinders, has the wrong pins, or is padding the bill. The best defense is a written price agreed before the work starts, a live arrival time you can see, and a guarantee that outlasts the invoice. For Los Angeles rekeying with all three, call Rekey Locks in Los Angeles at (409) 405-4485. If your locks need more than new pins, our Door Lock Repair in Los Angeles page covers the fix, and the Preston Locksmith & Security home page lists everything else we do.

Written by Kevin Yoon, Owner at Preston Locksmith & Security, serving Los Angeles since 2008.