Door locks

B0bbyEwing

So I've been contacted by a young woman who's not all that long bought her house & she's just got round to changing the door locks. Problem is, the external end is sitting INside the door. The internal end protrudes a decent amount. 

While adamant she has measured the old lock & bought the exact same measurements, until I see it in person & get my tape measure on it my guess is she has somehow made an error in measuring/ordering or they've sent different to what she's ordered.

But the question she's asked me is why does the EXT portion of the lock need to be to the external side & I don't know. 

I'm sure it's not for decoration. There must be a reason. Is it to do with how you lock/unlock from the outside or something? She was considering flipping it round temporarily but I've suggested putting the old one back in & getting a refund pronto & I'll head over to see what the situation is. 

But yeah, why does it matter which way round it goes? Surely if it was flipped, the outside would protrude (OK, not good), the inside would sit inside the door (agreed, still not good) but the lock would still work, right? 

grumbler

What 'ends'? Are you talking about a euro cylinder? If so, I dont' think it has 'outside' and 'inside' sides. It has to work if you flip it, but the direction you have to turn the key to lock/unlock the door will change to counter-intuitive.

Lorian

Eurolock? The exterior portion is likely to have any anti-pick anti-drill and anti-snap hardening if it's a quality lock.

B0bbyEwing

Sorry yes a Eurolock. One of those ABS ones.

Ahh grumble, so obvious once you said it but yeah if it was flipped you'd end up opening it to close it kind of thing. 

Also didn't think the whole anti-thing would be one end only but makes sense. 

Thanks. 

victor2

Maybe she measured the old lock incorrectly, or didn't get what she ordered. This is what ABS say about the EXT marking, as @Lorian stated...

Make sure that the side marked EXT is
on the outside of the door as this is
the side with the Snap Secure features.

FreeBear

B0bbyEwing said: While adamant she has measured the old lock & bought the exact same measurements, until I see it in person & get my tape measure on it my guess is she has somehow made an error in measuring/ordering or they've sent different to what she's ordered.

I have had Euro-cylinders from Screwfix in the past - The dimensions listed on their web site are not always accurate, and the packaging can be misleading. I now take the cylinder with me to make sure I get the right one.

chrisw

For maximum protection you need the outside to have as little protrusion as possible to make it difficult to get tools on it. The inside doesn't really matter aside from aesthetics.

DullGreyGuy

Perhaps she only measured the overall length and didn't realise she needed to know the split between front and back?

Depending on the level of security of the lock there is either a vast difference or virtually none at all between the two sides. Assuming its anti-snap, anti-drill etc then all those features are only on the external side (you can see the anti-snap which is a deep cut in the lock before the lever that actually locks/unlocks the door - anti snap doesn't stop it snapping but makes it snap at a different place leaving behind a piece of the lock to block access to the mechanism... if you look carefully and its a good lock you can normally see the anti-drill rods in the piece that would be left behind were it snapped)

B0bbyEwing

chrisw said:

For maximum protection you need the outside to have as little protrusion as possible to make it difficult to get tools on it. The inside doesn't really matter aside from aesthetics.

Yeah I made that 'mistake' myself. I got the outside flush as you like but the inside one sticks out. I could've bought the next size down but I wasn't sure whether it'd shave too much off or whether it'd make it flush both ends. 

As it turns out, it would've been flush both ends and ideal but I couldn't be bothered to send it back so just dealt with it sticking out a bit inside. 

B0bbyEwing

Well it seems they were measured correctly. They measure just about the same as the old ones. Just a tad different.

One side measures 45 to bang centre of the screw hole. The 55mm measurement of the other end is ever so slightly one side of the centre hole. When you put them side by side & measure new and old - the new ABS lock is just a few mm shorter than the older lock.

Add to that that the door handle 'base' (whatever you call it) is about 13mm. I measured my own door handle bases & they measure 8mm. 

5mm would possibly be enough to have the ABS lock sitting flush rather than inside.

So new handles & more cost unfortunately.