Master Rekey Systems
Rebuilding a hierarchy is a different job from designing one, and the constraint is whatever is already pinned into the building.
Call (408) 418-0044
A master rekey re-pins an existing hierarchy to a new set of cuts while keeping its shape. Every door keeps its place in the structure; what changes is which physical keys drive it. The usual triggers are a top master nobody can account for, a system that has run out of unused cuts, or years of small ad hoc changes that have left the chart no longer describing the building.
It is a sequencing job as much as a mechanical one. Cylinders come out in an order that keeps the premises usable, keys are exchanged in one pass so nobody is left holding a key that half works, and the old master is retired at a single point in time. Working through it door by door over several weeks is how a building ends up running two live systems at once.
What forces a full master rekey
- A top master that is unaccounted for. Re-pinning the one door it was last used on achieves nothing, because every cylinder it reaches still answers to it.
- The system has run out of room. With no unused change key cuts left under the master, adding a door means either a new level or a rebuild.
- The chart no longer matches reality. Cylinders swapped in a hurry over the years, each keyed to whatever was on the van, until nobody can say what any key opens.
- A merge or a split. Two suites becoming one, or one becoming two, generally means the hierarchy has stopped describing how the business is laid out.
- Keys that open more than they should. Cross-keying added as a favour has a habit of accumulating until half the staff are effectively carrying a master.
Have this settled before the work starts
- Every key in circulation, collected and grouped, including the ones in desk drawers nobody uses.
- The existing bitting chart if one survives, even an out of date one.
- A decision on who receives which level afterwards, made before the first cylinder comes out.
- A window in which the affected doors can be briefly out of service.
- A plan for keys held by cleaners, contractors and alarm response, who tend to be remembered last.
If the building has no hierarchy at all and every door simply runs on its own separate key, this is a design job rather than a rebuild. see master key systems.
Common questions
Can we rekey only part of the system?
Sometimes. If the compromised key was a sub-master, only its branch and the cylinders it reached need re-pinning, and the top master survives. If the top master is the problem, partial work leaves live doors still answering to the key you are trying to retire, which defeats the exercise.
How is a rekey staged in a building people are working in?
By key level rather than by floor: everything one level touches is done together, then the keys for that level are exchanged the same day. Handing out new keys ahead of the cylinders, or well after them, is what produces the calls about doors that suddenly stopped working.
Do all the cylinders have to be removed?
Only the ones the affected key touches. Interchangeable cores make this far quicker because the pinning happens on a bench and the door is only open for the moment it takes to swap a core. Fixed cylinders are either re-pinned at the door or taken away and brought back.
What should happen to the old keys?
Collect them and destroy them rather than storing them. A drawer of retired keys is indistinguishable from a drawer of live ones a year later, and mixing the two is how a system that was supposedly retired stays quietly in service.
Related locksmith services
Describe the lock or key problem
A short description of what happened gets the right tools on the vehicle.
Call (408) 418-0044