The Locksmith Journal Sep-Oct 2016 - Issue 46 | Page 100

100 • HINTS&TIPS PROUD SPONSORS OF THIS PAGE How I solved it … Matt Raw began picking locks at an early age when his father brought home a set of locked drawers with no keys. His passion for picking locks and then producing keys from blanks never dwindled as he got older, and after many years of working in several industries, Matt decided to take his Locksmith exams in 2012 and set up ‘Locksmiths of Knutsford’. »»THIS IS MATT’S SECOND editorial for this regular feature. In this issue, he would like you to consider the following scenarios: SCENARIO 1: Do you work from home and live alone? Or perhaps your better half goes to work before you do, and you then take the kids to school and/or go into meetings? Anything that takes you away from where you run your sole-trader business could cause problems when you’re out, and your stock delivery or equipment arrives. Does the parcel get left behind a bush, only to be pilfered; does it get left with a neighbour that proceeds to inconsiderately go on holiday before your paths cross; or even worse, does the driver leave your parcel in the grey bin, unaware that it is due to be collected that day! Do you give the regular delivery drivers a key to your porch, or your house? SCENARIO 2: You’re having work done on a property that belongs to you. You want the tradespeople to be able to come and go as they please, so as to not interrupt your routine. Do you give a key to each of the workers? SCENARIO 3: You’re a busy parent. You want to make sure that when the kids come home, they don’t sneak out to play again after dinner. Maybe you’ve got a split/double spindle gearbox on the strip and you’re in the habit of closing the door, but only on the latch, and not realising that you have to lift the handle and turn the key for the door to be locked properly before you go out. THE COMPLEX SOLUTION: It’s quite easy to give a key to everyone, but with every key issued, it increases the possibility of a key being copied and/or falling into the wrong hands. We could also look at access control systems, as these can offer a solution to all of the problems above. The simple fact is, access control systems are very expensive and invariably rely on a mains power supply - the installation of the system in a domestic setting will likely result in a redecoration project, and after all that, you’ve then got the onerous task of administrating said system (and some companies charge a small fortune in annual fees for their software). ‘with every key issued, it increases the possibility of a key being copied and/or falling into the wrong hands’ THE EASY SOLUTION: With multi-point-locks arguably being the most common, I will look at it from this perspective. The problem can be broken into two parts – the strip, and the cylinder. Let’s look firstly at the task of making the locking mechanism safer. This can be achieved with considerable ease. THE STRIP There are a few companies that are now manufacturing automatic locking MPL’s (multi-point locks). Lifting the handle to engage the deadbolts/hooks becomes a thing of the past. With these new mechanisms, when the door closes, it releases the deadbolts/hooks into the keep and it locks them in place until the key is used in the lock. LOCKSMITHJOURNAL.CO.UK | SEP/OCT 2016 Thus, every time you shut the door, it is locked, unlike traditional split/double spindle locks whereby the door is only locked on a single point: the easily retractable latch. Now, I can hear you thinking about how good this is, but there is a design flaw in nearly all of these mechanisms. Most of these mechanisms are gravity fed, and gravity isn’t always quite strong enough to be used for such purposes; other mechanisms rely on relatively weak springs. Every locksmith will have come across a misaligned PVCu door at some stage. Indeed, my own mother has a three-year-old composite door in a PVCu frame, and it warps in the early morning when the sun has been shining on it. The simple fact is, that for these auto-locking mechanisms to operate, they have to experience absolutely no resistance to the deadbolts/hooks. If they cannot travel their entire throw distance, then they do not lock in place automatically, and this means that they can be easily disengaged with a wedge and airbag. This solution is therefore viable only on a properly installed door, and I would advise against it’s installation in doors of the single floor-to-ceiling panel type as they are prone to dropping out of alignment. THE CYLINDER A few lock manufacturers released new cylinders last year that appear to hold the solution. They produced a euro cylinder that requires only the swipe of a smartphone, token, or tap of a button on their app from a device that is within Bluetooth range. The lock is battery