How to Re-key Door Locks Yourself

Re-keying the locks on your home is actually a fairly easy endeavor and odds are there is a kit available for the brand of locks on your doors. By accomplishing the re-keying as a do-it-yourself project, not only can you change the locks on your own schedule, but you can also save a significant amount of money--easily hundreds of dollars. Getting all new locks or hiring a locksmith to re-key your home can be extremely costly. Locksmiths often charge up to $100 just to show up, and then a set fee (about $20) per lock to be re-keyed. If you need the locks changed immediately you're probably also looking at a rush fee. Here's how to re-key those locks yourself.

First, count how many locks you need to change for all of the doors on your home. Remember to count deadbolts as well as handle locks if you need to change both. Also, be sure to take note of the brand of lock you already have on your home.

Worth noting, your old key is needed to take out the lock cylinder plug and then the new key is used to re-key your lock. This means you'll need at least one of your old keys to use this method. If you've lost your key(s), you'll need to call a locksmith.

Once you know what you need, head over to your local home center or hardware store. There you can purchase a re-keying kit which typically costs $10-$15. Make sure it's a set that works with your brand of locks and has the right number of keys. If you can't find a kit at the store that works for your brand, you can also search online for the correct kit (see below for a link to an online site that specializes in re-keying kits).

When you get home, follow the directions in the kit for your particular brand of locks. Typically this includes using the special re-keying tools in the kit to remove the lock cylinder from the knob or deadbolt and replacing the pins in the lock with the new ones in the kit.

The first lock should take you about 15-20 minutes. Once you're familiar with the process you should be able to knock out all the other locks in about 5 minutes each.

It's important you know that once you re-key your locks, your old keys will be ineffective. In other words, re-key kits can NOT be used with your old keys once they are re-keyed because the color coded pins match the new keys in the kit.