Short term letters saying goodbye to Jailer keys
Short term letters and HMO owners are sick to death of carrying around huge rings full of keys
Fumbling around on a cold dark night to get into number 14 has gone badly wrong and you have brought the wrong keys with you...again!
Key management is a pain and sadly part of the job, unless you are privileged enough to have smart locks. ( that’s for another blog ) Notwithstanding that there is a really cost efficient way that’s very easy to bring the sheer amount of keys you have down to a bare minimum.
Firstly if you are a HMO owner or manager you will know that your locks will need to have a turn on the inside and not a key , this is because of fire regulations, in the trade we call these thumb turns. If you didn’t know, you do now. Your client needs to get out fast if things get hot, so read on.
MASTERKEYING:
THE BASICS Here is one example of how you can reduce your keys and buy the locks you need to please the HMO officer when he rolls up. You have 5 rooms, fit these with 35x35TT euro thumbturn cylinders, these five locks will be 1-5 differs on your very own masterkey chart. You can issue the keys to your clients. The front door and back door are called communal doors. Each of the clients keys will fit the communal doors, their own rooms, but not other clients rooms. Your grand master (GM) key fits every lock….the front, back and all the clients doors !! Awesome, and now you have lost 6 keys already and that’s only one house ! Did you understand that ? If not read it again till you do as it’s the fundamental basics of masterkeying.
Now you have mastered the basics of masterkeying you find it VERY addictive too, and a massive boast to your friends that your property portfolio has so little keys.
OTHER WAYS OF MASTERKEYING:
Some of our customers fit British standard kite marked locks to their front and back doors, this is because cylinder snapping is a very real thing , it happens if a burglar gains entry to your house in this way it’s not worth thinking about. A kite marked euro lock CANNOT be masterkeyed as it’s basically one of the stipulations in the British standard, however they can be keyed alike. We recommend you key alike your communal front and back doors. This does take it off the masterkey system and you are adding a key back onto the ring, which the client will need also. But you still are 5 keys down, It’s a win win.
Here at Smart Choice Security we can specify masterkeying suites to suit your, budget and also plan for the huge property portfolio you aspire to. Contact me Matt Kemp, manager of Smart Choice Security. matt@smartchoicesecurity.co.uk or phone 033 3305 2967