The Pleasures of Replacing a Drill-out Deadbolt

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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House is elderly by suburban Long Island standards: built in the 50s. Back door had a key-operated deadbolt lock, the kind that requires a key from either direction. It had gotten looser and floppier and harder to open or lock over the last 4-5 years and this afternoon, when I was grilling ribs and needed to go in and out quite a bit from kitchen to back yard, it became positively recalcitrant. First it wouldn’t open: the deadbolt wouldn’t slide far enough back into the doorframe to let me open the door. Then the key wouldn’t come out. Then the key would not relock the door, key wouldn’t turn. Then it would but oops now yet again it won’t make the deadbolt retract enough to open the door. This will not do.

I decide to get a replacement from the hardware store, but step one is taking this one out, and, ermm, the only screws are on the plate of the deadbolt itself. I remove those, but deadbolt assembly doesn’t slide all the way free, doesn’t let go.

There are two round brass circles where I’d expect the screws. Can’t figure out what magic trick makes them get out of the freaking way. I do what I should’ve done from the start: hit up YouTube. Aah, you have to drill them out!

Bring up drill, fit appropriate size bit. It bites through the brass circles easily enough and yes there are phillips head screws behind them. Unfortunately, either I was too enthusiastic in my drilling or someone long ago over-torqued them, either way the phillips heads are a bit shredded and my screwdriver can’t get a bit on either one of them.

Aim drill down their throats and continue. The one on the right succumbs fairly readily, but the one on the left is stubborn. The whole brass assembly is by now hot as hell. I keep resting then going at it again. Finally, finally, it collapses inward like the one on the right did.

The contraption comes off into my waiting hands. along with what’s left of two long-shaft brass phillips head screws that were laying in the bottom.

Got replacement lock from the hardware store, opting for the kind with a simple twist lock for the interior and the screw heads remain accessible and visible from the inside. Stick the cute little rekeying tool in and configure it to use the same key as before.

Curiosity: why would someone building in the 50s put in a deadbolt that assumes major security issues from inside as well as outside, so that you need a key and you can’t disassemble the mechanism with a screwdriver? Or maybe that’s all that was available in hardware supplies back then?

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And if the house turns into a blazing inferno and you need to escape out the back door–surely you remembered to bring the key?

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My hero! (My house.) I think it required a key from either side because there are panes of glass in the door that someone could break and then turn that twisty lock and get in easily. This arrangement does make it easier to get out if the house is on fire! (We kept a key in a nearby cabinet for that purpose, but that would still take time.)

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Double-cylinder locks were intended for places where there was a window within reach of the lock. The internal key was supposed to be kept elsewhere, ideally not within reach of the window. However, they are now illegal in many places and types of building.

We have two doors like that in our 1950s-era house, and one of them still has a double-cylinder lock. It’s an internal door with that was external until a sun porch was built around it, decades ago. We never need to lock it and probably don’t have the key that fits it anymore. I haven’t bothered to remove it.

The other is the “new” external door to that sun porch that has a mullion window in its top half. But it has a standard deadbolt with a regular thumb turn because a) we live in a low-crime area and aren’t particularly worried about break-ins; and b) we have installed an alarm sensor in the room that would detect the sound of glass breaking.

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We had a double-cylinder lock on the front door in the previous house, for the security reason described. But it was a pretty cool arrangement – one of the keys that came with it was shaped like the thumbturn on the interior of a conventional deadbolt. So if that special key was inserted into the interior side, it looked and worked just like any conventional single-cylinder deadbolt. I only removed it when we were away on vacation.

While we’re speaking of locks, I’ll sing the praises of powdered graphite lubricant. In the present house it was getting difficult to insert or remove the front door key. A few squirts of graphite (it comes in a little plastic tube) and voila! Smooth as silk! May also be useful for stubborn latches but it’s mainly intended for lock cylinders.

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If I remember correctly, there were holes that would line up to let you remove the screws. The interior key had to be in place and turned most or all of the way to the unlock position to line them up.

Going on memory here, could be wrong, and it’s a moot point for you anyway.

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I’ve never seen this before:

The house we’re renting has an electric deadbolt in the front door — when you close the door, the bolt spins shut. I thought it must have been wired into the house electric with a lead running up the frame. No, no, no! It’s battery operated. Which I had to figure out when the deadbolt starting getting slower. And slower. And stopping in the middle of the “throw.” A tug here and a tug there on the casing and no dice. Then I grip what looks like it might be a cover and it pops off, sweet as you please, revealing four AA batts! :flushed_face: Install new batts, and Bob’s yer uncle.

Yes, the whole shebang is a PITA (if you step outside and the door shuts, you’re locked out) and totally useless as the six foot tall, eighteen inch wide window in the doorframe is right there! When the zombies come, I’m brunch. They’ll just push through the glass. Pray for burpo.

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Another benefit is that if someone gets in by breaking a window or something, needing a key on both sides makes it harder for them to carry out big bulky things like a TV. That’s why my mom got those kind of locks, after our house was burgled.

They aren’t great for fire safety, though, as mentioned, so her house has two sets of locks. We only use the double-keyhole-deadbolts when nobody’s home. When folks are home, we use locks that require a key from the outside but latch on the inside.

@AHunter3 , if you were in the yard grilling and going in and out frequently, why did you lock the door at all?

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@Chronos wanting the problem fixed; if I couldn’t make it stop misbehaving I needed to replace it while the hardware store was open.