Most people meet a locksmith exactly once, standing outside a locked door. Fair enough — but lockouts are only one corner of the trade. This guide covers the rest of what a full-service locksmith actually does for homes and businesses in Fort Lauderdale: the planned work, the upgrades, and the behind-the-scenes systems like master keying that keep buildings running. (Car keys are their own specialty, with their own guides on this blog — this one is about homes and businesses.)
Home lockouts: back inside, without damage
The classic call. A professional opening means getting you back in without wrecking the lock or the door — picking or bypassing the lock with the right tools, not drilling it as a first resort. If a lock genuinely can't be opened non-destructively, a good tech tells you that before anything irreversible happens. Our emergency lockout page explains what to expect when you call.
Rekeying after you move in
If you just bought a home, here is the uncomfortable question: who else has a key? The sellers, their kids, a former tenant, the cleaning service, the dog walker, the contractor who "might still need to get in." You will never know the full list — which is why rekeying is the standard first job in a new home.
Rekeying keeps your existing locks and changes the pins inside, so every old key stops working and you start fresh with new ones. It's one visit for a typical house, and it costs a lot less than replacing every lock. When the hardware itself is worn, corroded, or bargain-grade, replacement is the smarter spend — our guide to rekey vs. replace walks through how to tell the difference.
Lock changes, deadbolts, and upgrades
Sometimes the locks themselves are the problem: a flimsy knob lock as the only thing on a front door, a deadbolt that barely reaches the frame, hardware so corroded by salt air that the key fights you every morning. A lock change is the chance to fix the whole picture — solid deadbolts, properly aligned strikes, and doors that close and latch the way they're supposed to.
A word on double-cylinder deadbolts (key needed on both sides): they have a place next to glass panels, but they can trap you in a fire if the key isn't in reach. It's a conversation worth having before choosing them for a main exit — safety first, always.
Smart and keypad lock installation
Keypad and smart deadbolts are one of our most requested home upgrades, and for good reason: kids who lose keys stop being a crisis, guests and caregivers get their own codes, and you can check from your phone whether the front door is locked. The catch is installation. A smart lock forced onto a misaligned door will chew through batteries, jam at the worst moment, and get blamed for what is really a door problem. Professional installation means the door, frame, and bolt are aligned first, so the motor only does its own job. More on our smart locks page.
Sliding glass door and patio locks
This is the South Florida special. Half the homes in Broward have sliding glass doors, and most factory slider latches are the weakest link on the house — a determined push or a pry at the frame is often all they stand up to. The fixes are well known to any local locksmith: a proper secondary lock that pins the sliding panel to the frame, a security bar in the track, and hardware that actually engages instead of wobbling.
Sliders also suffer here — tracks fill with sand and grit, rollers wear, and a door that has to be lifted to close is a door that isn't really locking. If your patio door takes effort, that's a security issue wearing a convenience costume.
Storefront locks and commercial door hardware
Commercial doors are a different world from house doors: aluminum-and-glass storefronts with narrow frames, mortise locks and deadlatches built for thousands of cycles, lever handles and closers that take daily abuse. When a storefront lock starts sticking, it's usually wear announcing itself — and a door that won't latch reliably is both a security problem and a liability problem. Commercial work also means closers that slam or won't pull the door shut, hinges, and weather sealing, all serviced as one system. See our commercial locksmith page for the full list.
Master key systems
A master key system lets one key — yours — open every lock in the building, while each individual key opens only its own door. The owner or manager carries one key instead of a janitor's ring; a tenant's key opens their suite and the front entrance, but not the office next door.
These systems are designed on paper before a single cylinder is pinned: which doors, which keys, which levels of access. Done properly, they're documented, expandable when you add a door, and they make staff changes simple — one cylinder rekeyed, and the system absorbs it. Done casually, they quietly undermine themselves, which is why master keying is planned work, not a walk-in job.
Panic bars and exit devices
The push bar on a commercial exit door is life-safety equipment. Building and fire codes require exit doors to open freely from the inside — one push, no key, no special knowledge — and that bar is what makes it happen, including in the dark, in smoke, in a crowd. Bars that stick, latch poorly, or have been "fixed" with a chain are serious problems: chains on exit doors are dangerous and illegal, full stop.
Panic hardware wears like everything else. Bars, latches, and the doors behind them need periodic service so the exit works the one time it's truly needed.
Rekeying for offices, rentals, and turnovers
Businesses and landlords live on a cycle: an employee leaves, a tenant moves out, a contractor's job ends — and the locks should change with them. Office rekeying after a departure is cheap insurance; rental turnovers between tenants are simply part of responsible property management, and many landlords across Broward keep a standing arrangement so a turnover rekey is one phone call, not a scramble.
The same visit usually covers the details that get missed: the back door nobody rekeys, the storage room, the mailbox lock. One walk-through with a checklist beats discovering an old key still works, the hard way.
Around Broward: what we see most
- Older homes, older hardware. In neighborhoods like Victoria Park, Wilton Manors, and Coral Ridge, beautiful older homes often carry decades-old locks — sometimes worth servicing, sometimes quietly past it. We show you the hardware's condition and explain the choice.
- New homeowners in Plantation, Davie, and Coral Springs. The pattern is consistent: rekey everything at move-in, fix the slider, and put a keypad deadbolt on the door the family actually uses.
- Condos and high-rises, downtown and along the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, and Pompano Beach — building rules, elevator reservations, and management approvals are part of the job; mention your building when you call and it's planned for.
- Hurricane-season hardware checks. Doors swell in Florida humidity, cylinders corrode in salt air, and gate and patio hardware takes a beating. A quick check in the spring — locks, sliders, strikes, closers — is planned daytime work; the same failure during storm week is an emergency.
Choosing a locksmith: what to expect
A professional visit has a shape to it: you describe the job, you get a clear quote before work starts, the tech shows up prepared for the hardware you described, and the finished work is explained — what was done, what shape the hardware is in, what to watch. Local matters, too: a Fort Lauderdale locksmith knows that your slider faces the canal breeze, that beachside hardware corrodes twice as fast, and which buildings make access easy or hard. That local knowledge is most of the value.
The bottom line
Whether it's a home in Davie, a storefront on Federal Highway, or a rental turning over in Plantation, the pattern is the same: the right hardware, correctly installed, changed whenever the people change. EZ Locksmith Inc. covers residential and commercial locksmith work across Fort Lauderdale and Broward County. Tell us what you're dealing with — call (954) 534-1003 — and we'll take it from there.
And when managing the keys themselves becomes the headache — too many copies out there, too much turnover — that's where access control comes in: codes, cards, and fobs you can change in seconds, managed with modern access control software. We break down the types, the features that matter, and who needs what in our guide to access control systems.