Yale lock fitting

Lemoncurd

Earlier this week we had most of our locks changed and a new Yale lock fitted. When the door is closed and just on the Yale lock there is quite a gap between the door and the frame (about 5mm, possibly more) so there is quite a bit of movement in the door. Presumably this would make it easier for someone to lever the lock open from the outside. My dad suggested that this might be ok if we wanted to put draught excluder in but on another look we wouldn't be able to fit any in because the mortice lock brings the door tight closed.
Before I complain is it normal for them to be fitted like this or should I ask for it to be adjusted?
When the company came out to quote the man also said that the cylinders on our pvcu doors should not protrude at all on the outside as this can give a bit of leverage if someone wants to break in but one of the new ones sticks out by almost a centimeter so I'll be bringing that up as well.

N9eav

It seems as though your security is pretty good. If you have a mortice lock as well as a Yale, then it would take a long time to bust the door in.

Protruding barrels on locks can be snapped off with the right tool, so it's not always good to leave too much sticking out. But are you expecting a drugs bust?

kroome

I would invite them back to do a proper job with a smaller tolerance, 5mm (or more) is too much when you've paid for a proper job as opposed to DIY.

Tom_Jones

There should be no movment in the door when the Yale lock is shut, sounds like it's been poorly installed, but it's easily fixed

As regards the cylinder lock, it is normal to have some protrusion on both the outside and inside of the handle, and 10mm is about normal, but yes if you have a special tool you can break the lock very easily.

Lemoncurd

Thanks, I went to speak to them shortly after the fitting had been done and the person who did the work was there and did all the talking - he said that the gap with the Yale lock was necessary for expansion which I argued wouldn't do us a lot of good considering the mortice lock pulled the door flush + the gap was nearly 1cm when I measured it form the outside! he then said that if he'd put it any deeper it would have compromised the strength of the door frame but agreed to to come back and adjust it when he came back to do some further work.
He said that the cylinders on the PVCu doors were just like that because those were the sizes they'd been able to get (although it was obvious to us that there were two different lengths of cylinder, two longer ones for the patio doors and a shorter one for the kitchen door and he'd put one long one and the short one on the patio doors and the other long one on the kitchen!).
We were given a quote for additional work which needed further parts ordered to replace broken ones and told that it needed two men so would be £75 for the work. They cancelled the first appointment and then just one man turned up today, he adjusted the Yale lock and switched the cylinders without question and agreed that they shouldn't have been like that. He also only charged us £40 saying that as he was the PVCu specialist he could do it quicker. I can't believe they'd consider sending two men who don't don't know what they are doing and try and charge us nearly twice as much as when they send one man who does know what he's doing!!!

N9eav

Finding someone who knows what they are doing is rare these days. At least you got somewhere in the end.


It's always a laugh when someone says " It's supposed to be like that"?