Locked out in
West Bridgford?

West Bridgford is mostly Edwardian villas and interwar semis, and the front doors tell you which. The centre and Lady Bay run to bay-fronted period houses — wide hallways, separate reception rooms — and where one of those still has its original timber door, the lock is a mortice cut into the door itself. That is the case where BS3621 is the right standard, and it is worth knowing before you argue with an insurer about it.

The rear extensions are the part people forget. A lot of the period houses here have been extended at the back, which usually means French or patio doors on a multipoint mechanism — and a back door is the one a burglar prefers because nobody on the street can see it. If yours is stiff, dropped or needs lifting hard to lock, that is the mechanism rather than the lock, and it is a repair.

Flats and riverside apartments are a different call again. With a communal entrance, the lock that matters is your own flat door, and a euro cylinder there is worth checking: if it stands more than about 3mm proud of the handle plate there is enough to grip, and a TS007 3-star cylinder fixes it in ten minutes.

Gamston and Edwalton are newer and mostly composite doors, which are a straightforward cylinder job. Wherever you are, the price is fixed before I start and published in full — West Bridgford is not charged differently to anywhere else.