Smart locks
House lockouts
Re-keying
Deadbolt upgrades
Schlage
Kwikset
Car keys & fobsNon-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.
Get your free estimateLocksmith in Albany, CA
Rekeying is the locksmith service Albany homeowners call us for most, and it looks a little different here than it does in the surrounding East Bay. The housing stock off San Pablo Avenue and up toward the hills runs heavily to 1920s Craftsman bungalows and small mid-century stucco homes, and many of those doors still carry their original mortise locks rather than modern cylindrical deadbolts. That means our Albany rekey jobs often involve restoring vintage hardware, not just swapping pins. If you’ve just moved into a home in Albany or you’re changing tenants, call Cypress Lock & Key at (877) 265-4385 and we’ll walk you through exactly what your locks need.
Why Albany Homes Are Different
Albany is a small, tight-knit city in ZIP code 94706 with housing stock that skews old. The dominant homes are early-20th-century Craftsman bungalows, 1930s and 1940s Mediterranean revivals, and modest mid-century stucco houses. A remarkable number of these still have their original mortise lock bodies, glass knobs, and single-cylinder deadbolts. Working on those locks is not the same as working on a Kwikset you can buy at a hardware store today. It takes a locksmith who knows how to extract a worn mortise cylinder, source or refurbish vintage internals, and get the lock functioning without destroying the original trim.
Albany’s climate adds another layer. We get mild but persistently damp winters, and salt air from the bay drifts over the city. Exterior locks and strike plates corrode more quickly here than they do five miles inland. Wooden doors swell in the wet season. In the flats near San Pablo Avenue, many doorframes have settled over decades, so a deadbolt that throws cleanly in August binds against its strike plate by January. Around here, a lock that “stopped working” is often a lock that’s out of alignment, and the fix is strike plate adjustment or a hinge tweak, not a new cylinder. Albany homeowners hold onto their houses for a long time, and we see a lot of rekey-and-restore jobs instead of full lock replacement. That’s the right instinct; original hardware in these old houses usually deserves attention, not a landfill.
Styles & brands we work with
Our Main Albany Services
Rekeying is the core work we do in Albany, but two other services generate most of the calls we get from this ZIP code.
Car Key Replacement in Albany
Albany drivers lose keys, snap keys in ignitions, and wear fobs into failure like drivers everywhere else, but the difference is that Cypress Lock & Key handles car key replacement in-house. Most locksmiths in the area will send you to a dealership for anything with a transponder. We don’t. We cut and program car keys locally, which means you skip the tow, skip the dealership service line, and usually pay noticeably less for the same result. If you’re stuck at the Safeway lot on Solano or your driveway off Marin, call us before you call a tow truck. Car Key Replacement in Albany covers what we can do for your vehicle.
Emergency Locksmith in Albany
Lockouts in Albany happen at the worst possible moments, and the old glass-knob doors in this city are not friendly to a credit-card shim. We’ve opened every type of door this housing stock can throw at us, from a 1920s rim lock to a modern Mul-T-Lock deadbolt, without damaging the frame or the hardware. When you call at midnight, you reach someone who can actually talk about your exact lock, not a dispatcher reading a script. Emergency Locksmith in Albany explains response times and what to expect when we arrive.
What happens when you call
- 1
A real person answersNo phone trees — you reach a local pro.
- 2
You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
- 3
A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
- 4
You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Rekey Locks in Albany
Rekeying is the single highest-value security step an Albany homeowner or landlord can take, and in a city where the housing stock runs this old, it’s also the gentlest thing you can do for your door hardware. A rekey changes the internal pinning of the cylinder so the old key stops working and a new key takes over. No new hardware, no damage to vintage trim or original glass knobs, and you control exactly who has access. For Albany specifically, rekeying is the clear recommendation after a tenant moves out of a rental flat near San Pablo Avenue, after escrow closes on a bungalow off Solano, or after a relationship changes and someone still holds a key. Cypress Lock & Key has served Albany since 2017, and we’ve rekeyed thousands of these locks without sending a single original mortise body to the scrap pile. If you want a fuller overview of the service itself, we keep a dedicated page for Rekey Locks.
Lock Rekey
Signs you need it
You’ve bought a home in Albany, ended a tenancy, or realized a key you gave out years ago has never come back.
What it costs in Albany
Standard lock rekeying in Albany runs $45 to $95 per lock for most Schlage and Kwikset cylinders, plus a $55 to $85 service call.
How we do it
We pull the cylinder, replace the pins so the old key is dead, cut you new keys, and test the lock in the door before we call it done.
Keyed Alike
Signs you need it
Your Albany home has four doors and four different keys, and you’re tired of fumbling at the back porch in the dark.
What it costs in Albany
Keying multiple locks alike in Albany typically runs $45 to $95 per cylinder when done during a single visit, with the same $55 to $85 service call covering the trip.
How we do it
We rekey each cylinder to a single pin configuration, cut a new set of matching keys, and test every lock so one key works the whole house.
What Rekey Locks Costs in Albany
The table below reflects the prices we see on typical Albany properties. Your exact quote depends on the age of your cylinder, the brand, and how many locks we’re doing in one visit.
| Item | Typical range in Albany |
|---|---|
| Service call to Albany | $55 – $85 |
| Rekey per standard lock (Schlage, Kwikset) | $45 – $95 |
| Rekey per high-security cylinder (Medeco, Mul-T-Lock) | $45 – $210 |
Does rekeying work on old Albany mortise locks?
Yes. Most 1920s-to-1940s mortise cylinders in Albany can be rekeyed without replacing the lock body or trim. The price runs $45 to $95 per cylinder, unless the internals are too worn to repin, in which case we’ll show you the worn parts before recommending anything.
Is a rekey enough when I move into an Albany home?
Almost always. Rekeying revokes every old key and gives you fresh control from day one. If a lock is outright failing, we’ll tell you, but most original hardware in Albany is worth rekeying and keeping. Call (877) 265-4385 for a quote, and you’ll know the full price before we dispatch anyone.
Brands We Service in Albany
We’re not a one-brand shop, and in old Albany houses that matters. We service Schlage, Kwikset, Baldwin, Yale, Sargent, Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, and Abloy. We stock common pin kits and replacement cylinders locally for the brands we see most, and when an Albany home has a high-security line like Medeco or Mul-T-Lock, we can usually turn the work around same-day. More on that at our brands page.
Pricing for Locksmith in Albany, CA
Good locksmith work in Albany is priced by the job, not by the hour. You should know what a service call costs, what each lock costs, and what’s included in both numbers. The table below shows the ranges we quote over the phone for jobs in this area.
| Service | Typical range in Albany |
|---|---|
| Service call (all standard jobs) | $55 – $85 |
| Rekey per standard lock (Schlage, Kwikset) | $45 – $95 |
| Rekey per premium lock (Baldwin, Yale, Sargent) | $45 – $210 |
| Rekey per high-security lock (Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, Abloy) | $45 – $210 |
| Car key replacement (basic, non-chip) | $85 – $150 |
| Car key replacement (transponder) | $120 – $210 |
| Car key replacement (proximity fob / smart key) | $150 – $350 |
| High-security key duplication (cut by code) | $20 – $75 |
| Emergency lockout | $75 – $160 |
Prices in Albany push toward the higher end when we’re dealing with original mortise locks that need careful disassembly, rusted strike plates, or doors that have settled and need alignment work along with the rekey. The figure we quote on the phone before dispatch is the price on your invoice. We don’t bait a low number and add a surprise “arrival fee” when the van pulls up.
Neighborhoods We Serve in Albany
Albany covers just over one square mile of ZIP code 94706, which means our techs can usually reach any address in the city within a short drive, daytime or not. The neighborhoods below are where we work most.
- The flats near San Pablo Avenue, where settled doorframes and older storefront locks are common
- Solano Avenue and the surrounding blocks, mixing vintage bungalows with newer door hardware
- The residential streets east of the Ohlone Greenway, heavy with Craftsman-era homes and original mortise locks
- Albany Hill and the surrounding hillside streets, where salt air and damp winters hit exterior hardware hardest
- North Albany toward the border with El Cerrito, a mix of mid-century stucco homes and older rentals that turn over regularly
We know which parts of Albany have the most settled frames, the most salt-air corrosion, and the highest share of original hardware. The neighborhood doesn’t change our prices; it changes how we plan the job.
Service Area – Cities Near Albany
Cypress Lock & Key is based for Albany work, but our vans cover the surrounding East Bay communities. That includes El Cerrito, CA just to the north, Kensington, CA in the hills to the northeast, Berkeley, CA to the south, and East Richmond Heights, CA across the freeway. If you’re in one of these cities and need a rekey or an emergency unlock, the phone number is the same.
Serving Albany, CA — Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Albany 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 Locksmith in Albany
Emergency response in Albany is typically a short drive given the city’s size. Call (877) 265-4385 and we’ll give you a realistic arrival window before we dispatch. Standard rekey and car-key jobs are scheduled around your day.
For a private single-family home, no. If you’re a landlord rekeying a rental unit in Albany, rekeying between tenants is a legal best practice and doesn’t require a permit.
We’re frank about scope: car key replacement, emergency lockout response, and lock rekeying are our three services. We don’t sell or install full security systems or do safe cracking. If you call for those, we’ll tell you straight and point you to the right specialist.
What happens when you call
- 1A real person answersNo phone trees — talk to a local locksmith pro.
- 2You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched. No surprises.
- 3We come out and measureLicensed & insured, at a time that suits you — the visit and the quote are both free.
- 4You get the price in writingLine-itemed, yours to keep, and nothing starts until you say go.
What Albany Customers Say
"Got me back in and the price was fair for the hour. He did arrive closer to 45 minutes than the 20 he estimated, which felt long standing outside, but he was honest that traffic was the problem."
— Marcus Prince"The old deadbolt was mounted crooked by whoever lived here before and had been sticking for years. He redrilled and reset it properly rather than just replacing the hardware."
— Lisa Sullivan"Locked out at eleven at night with a kid asleep in the car. He was there in 25 minutes, had the door open in under two, and did not do the thing where the price goes up once he's standing in front of you."
— Allen Chen