Non-destructive entry first, always - and we re-key Schlage, Kwikset, and Baldwin locks on the spot while you watch
You get a price before we start. It does not change when we arrive. No surprises.
Fast, Reliable Rekey Locks Across University of California-Davis
Rekeying a lock in University of California-Davis typically costs $85 – $180 per cylinder, and most single-cylinder deadbolts on campus-area rentals take under 30 minutes on site. If you’ve just taken over a lease near Russell Boulevard or handed keys back to a property manager on Sycamore Lane, a rekey is almost always the cheapest way to guarantee old keys stop working. We’re Preston Locksmith & Security, and we serve the whole University of California-Davis area with background-checked, uniformed technicians who give you a written price before a single tool leaves the bag. Call (409) 405-4485 and a live person answers, day or night.
Why Preston Locksmith & Security Is University of California-Davis’s Preferred Rekey Locks Company
University of California-Davis runs on a schedule you can set a watch to: leases flip in June and September, and every property manager within a mile of campus has the same problem at once. We know that rhythm, and we staff for it. When a landlord near Anderson Road needs five units rekeyed before 4 p.m. because the new tenants move in tomorrow, we don’t treat it like a surprise. We treat it like a Tuesday in Davis.
Our reputation in University of California-Davis rests on two things: we answer the phone, and the price we quote is the price on the invoice. No dispatch fee added at the door, no “the pins are worn” up-charge after the fact. Kevin Yoon built Preston Locksmith & Security in 2008 around a simple promise, the 365-Day Done Right Promise: if it’s not done right, we make it right, backed in writing on every job. For a college town where subleases and roommates shuffle every quarter, that written guarantee is the difference between a one-time rekey and a recurring headache.
We cover all of University of California-Davis, from the tree-lined blocks off Covell Boulevard to the apartment clusters south of campus. Dispatch and scheduling are coordinated from the brand’s Los Angeles office, but the crews serving University of California-Davis live and work locally. That means realistic response windows, not a hopeful guess from a call center.
Keyed Alike in University of California-Davis
Keyed Alike in University of California-Davis is the standard fix for landlords and homeowners who are tired of carrying a janitor-style ring of five different keys. The job involves pulling each lock cylinder, replacing the internal pins so every cylinder matches the same key cuts, and reinstalling the cylinder without replacing any hardware. In campus-town rental stock, where a single Davis student house might have a front deadbolt, a back door knob, and a side gate lock from three different brands, keyed alike collapses all of them onto one key.
Keyed alike pricing in University of California-Davis runs $95 – $190 for the first cylinder plus $25 – $45 per additional cylinder, with the written price confirmed before we start. The bigger cost variable is key control afterward: if you want restricted blanks that can’t be copied at a kiosk in downtown Davis, we stock Medeco and Baldwin options that require an ID card for duplicates.
When a Student Rental Needs It
A Davis landlord with a four-bedroom near Sycamore Lane doesn’t need four separate keys. They need one key that opens the front door and the deadbolt, and maybe a unit-only key for the tenant. Keyed alike means the landlord’s key still works after move-out, but the old tenant’s copies are dead.
What We Physically Do
We pull the cylinder, dump the old pins, insert new pins cut to the new key’s depths, and reassemble. Most Kwikset and Schlage cylinders in University of California-Davis homes take about 20 minutes each. The work happens on your door, not in a shop.
Rekey Deadbolt in University of California-Davis
Rekey Deadbolt in University of California-Davis is the single most-requested job we run during June and September lease turnovers. A deadbolt rekey means pulling the cylinder from the lock body, replacing the pin and tumbler stack so the old key no longer turns the plug, and reinstalling everything without swapping the deadbolt itself. On the older single-cylinder deadbolts common to wood-frame campus rentals, that’s a 20 – 30 minute job and it saves you the cost of new hardware entirely.
A single deadbolt rekey in University of California-Davis runs $85 – $150, while doing front and back deadbolts together usually lands at $150 – $260. The price is written before we dispatch, and it doesn’t change when the technician sees worn pins. If the deadbolt is a Kwikset SmartKey, we can rekey it in minutes using the SmartKey tool, but we’ll also check whether the cylinder has been rekeyed so many times that the sidebar teeth are worn past reliable operation.
Deadbolt Wear on Campus-Area Doors
Old wood-frame doors near the UC Davis campus settle. When that happens, the strike plate shifts and the bolt no longer lines up cleanly. A rekey fixes the key; it doesn’t fix a door that racks. We check strike-plate alignment on every rekey because a deadbolt that fights you is a deadbolt that eventually fails.
Key Control Between Turnovers
The conversation Davis landlords actually need is key control. A rekey only matters if you know who has copies of the new key. We can cut restricted blanks, issue numbered keys, and set up a simple log so you know exactly how many copies exist for a unit.
Trusted Brands We Service in University of California-Davis
We stock parts and pins for the brands University of California-Davis homes and apartment buildings actually use: Schlage and Kwikset on most residential deadbolts, Medeco and Baldwin on higher-security doors near campus administrative buildings. Because we carry these cylinder kits on the truck, a standard rekey in University of California-Davis doesn’t wait on a parts run. If your rental has a Yale knob or an older Baldwin deadbolt, we service those in place rather than telling you to replace them.
Common Rekey Locks Problems We See in University of California-Davis Homes
- Unreturned keys after a sublease ends. A tenant on Sycamore Lane moves out, two roommates stay, and three keys are “in the mail.” Rekeying the deadbolts is the only way to make those missing copies worthless. We’ve handled this exact scenario more times than we can count.
- Worn pin and tumbler stacks on old campus rentals. Davis rental stock skews older, and pins wear flat after a decade of daily use. A rekey that just swaps pins without checking the stack can leave a lock that works with the new key but also works with a jiggled old one.
- Landlords rekeying but skipping key control. The new key gets duplicated at a big-box kiosk in Davis before it’s even handed to the tenant. Restricted blanks prevent that, and most property managers don’t know that’s an option until we show them.
- Strike-plate wear on racked doors. The deadbolt rekey goes fine, but the door still binds because the strike plate has drifted. We adjust or replace the strike plate as part of the rekey so the lock actually holds.
Pricing for Rekey Locks in University of California-Davis, CA
We Also Serve Cities Near University of California-Davis
Beyond University of California-Davis proper, our Rekey Locks crews handle work in nearby metros including Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco. If you manage properties across multiple cities or just need a reliable reference for a friend outside Davis, the same written-price standard applies everywhere we send a technician. For the full scope of how we serve Rekey Locks in University of California-Davis, this page covers local pricing, timing, and the lease-turnover realities that shape the work here.
Serving University of California-Davis, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the University of California-Davis area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs About Rekey Locks in University of California-Davis
Yes. The price is written before anyone is dispatched, and it is the price on the invoice. We do not add a call-out surcharge when the technician arrives, and we do not re-quote the job after seeing the lock unless you add work. Call (409) 405-4485 for an exact quote, free, with no obligation.
Twenty to thirty minutes for a standard single-cylinder deadbolt, assuming no strike-plate repair is needed. A full unit with front and back doors usually runs under an hour on site. We schedule University of California-Davis work around real travel times, not optimistic dispatch estimates.
Our technicians are background-checked and arrive in uniform, and you get a live trackable arrival time before they knock. That’s part of The Relay Visibility Guarantee: you see who is coming, what they look like, and when they will arrive, with before-and-after photos of every job. Call (409) 405-4485 and a live person confirms the dispatch details.
Almost always, yes. Kwikset and Schlage cylinders rekey in place. If a cylinder is too worn to hold reliable pin depths, we tell you before doing the work and quote replacement separately. We stock both brands on the truck for University of California-Davis jobs.
For a single-unit rental, keyed alike on the front and back doors is usually enough. For multi-unit buildings, a master key system lets the landlord open every unit while each tenant holds a unit-only key. We’ll walk you through the trade-offs and give a flat per-lock price either way. Call (409) 405-4485 for a quote on your specific building.
Written by Kevin Yoon, Owner at Preston Locksmith & Security, serving University of California-Davis since 2008.






