MW
M. Whitfield
Hoole
Key snapped in the back door at ten past eleven on a Sunday. The price I was given on the phone — £148 — was the price on the invoice, and Ruth had the door open in about four minutes without touching the lock.
Frodsham Street, Chester · since 2009
Your lock, not our lock sale.
A Master Locksmiths Association approved workshop with a door on the street. We pick before we drill, we publish what we charge at three in the morning, and the person who comes has a full name and a face.
Call 01244 396118Book a time instead
★★★★★Trusted by 200+ local customers
Locked out now
We answer, and we tell you the total
01244 396118Median 34 minutes to the door across our last 1,412 call-outs. Not a best case — the middle one.
Call — £96 daytime, £148 after 22:00
Totals, VAT included, first hour included, no call-out fee. Parts on top and every part is priced on this site.
Planning work
Upgrades, insurance specs, landlord compliance
Post-burglary upgrades, TS007 3★ cylinders, BS3621 and BS8621 to satisfy an insurer or a fire officer, HMO escape doors, master-key suites, CCTV.
Book a survey or a time slot
Written spec and a fixed quote before anything is ordered. Surveys inside CH1–CH4 are free.
Fee schedule
The price, before you ring
Eight of the ten locksmith sites we studied publish no price at all, and the two that do bury it. Here is ours. Every figure is a total including VAT — there is no call-out fee to add, and since April 2025 showing you anything else would be unlawful.
Daytime
08:00–18:00 Mon–Sat
£96
First hour included. Most lockouts and cylinder swaps finish inside it.
Evening & Sunday
18:00–22:00 · all Sunday
£124
The same engineers, the same van stock. No separate call-out fee.
Night & bank holiday
22:00–08:00
£148
Published because you cannot find this figure anywhere else in the trade.
The price we quote is the price you payAgreed on the phone before we set off, confirmed again at your door, and it includes VAT.
We pick before we drillDrilling forces a lock replacement you did not need. If a lock genuinely cannot be picked we tell you first, and what the replacement costs.
A named engineer, with photo IDYou get the name and the face of the person coming before they arrive.
Card on site, VAT invoice before we leavePaying by card also preserves your Section 75 rights. We think that matters more than it costs us.
After you put the phone down
The next forty minutes
We read eleven locksmith websites and not one of them says a word about what happens between your call and the door opening. That is the stretch where you are most anxious and most likely to ring somebody else. So here it is.
2 min
On the phone
We ask four things: where you are, what the door is made of, whether the key is lost, snapped or inside, and whether anyone is in the house. Then we give you a total.
~34 min
While you wait
You get a text with the engineer’s name and photograph. Wait somewhere lit and safe — a neighbour, a car, the pub on the corner. Do not force a uPVC door: a bowed door is a £30 adjustment, a forced one is a £240 mechanism. If you can, send us a photo of the lock. It is the single thing that most often means we arrive with the right part on the van.
On the doorstep
Photo ID before anything else, every time, without being asked. We confirm the price again before we touch the door.
Getting in
Picks first, always. Non-destructive entry leaves your lock working and costs you nothing beyond the labour.
Before we leave
Card taken at your door, VAT invoice in your hand or your inbox, and the 12-month parts-and-labour guarantee in writing. You also get your cancellation rights in writing — an emergency repair you asked for is exempt from the 14-day right, but anything extra we sold you while we were there is not, and we put that distinction on the invoice.
Eight things, all of them priced
Getting you in
Emergency entry from £96 inc VAT — locked out, key lost, key snapped, key on the inside. Non-destructive wherever the lock allows it, and safes opened, serviced and relocated.
Making the door secure
TS007 3★ and Sold Secure Diamond cylinders from £182 fitted. BS3621 mortice and nightlatch from £150 fitted. uPVC and composite door repairs from £96 — we diagnose alignment before we sell you a mechanism.
Keys, CCTV and landlord work
Cutting from £6 a key, restricted profiles and master-key suites for HMOs, offices and blocks. SSAIB-certificated CCTV and access control, surveyed then quoted. Between-tenancy changes on account terms.
Insurance
Which standard applies to your door
The question every insurer-directed customer asks first, answered from the door you can see rather than the standard you cannot. A lock stamped “5 lever” is not a BS3621 lock, and that difference is what a rejected claim is made of.
Your door
The standard
What we fit
Timber front doorDirect entry from outside
BS3621Key both sides. Kitemark on the forend.
5-lever mortice deadlock, kitemarked — not just “5 lever”
Flat or HMO escape doorOn a protected escape route
BS8621Keyless egress. Same attack resistance.
Thumbturn cylinder or lock. A key-both-sides lock here fails.
uPVC or composite doorMultipoint, lift-the-handle
TS007 3★or Sold Secure SS312 Diamond
Anti-snap euro cylinder, sized to the door. Never left proud.
A 1-star cylinder plus a 2-star security handle also reaches 3 stars. If you already have the handle, you need the cheaper cylinder.
Checkable
Every badge here is a link
One of the eleven sites we studied lets you verify its Master Locksmiths Association membership. The rest show a picture of a logo. A credential you cannot check is decoration, so each of these goes to the register that issued it.
MLA Approved CompanyVetted, inspected every three years, and examined. Search our postcode, CH1, on the MLA’s own directory.Verify at locksmiths.co.ukStandard DBS — every locksmithIt is illegal for most UK locksmiths to hold a standard DBS check; only the MLA is written into the Exceptions Order and may check its members. Anyone else saying “DBS checked” means a basic disclosure.All four engineers, renewed 3-yearlySSAIB certificatedFor the CCTV, alarm and access-control work. UKAS-accredited, recognised by insurers and police, checkable on SSAIB’s public register.Cert. 41-2019-663Companies HouseRegistered in England and Wales. Our registered office is our workshop, not an accountant’s address.No. 06914427ICO data protection registerRequired because we process customer data and install CCTV. Yours may be required too — we will tell you when.Reg. Z2841773Environment Agency waste carrierUpper tier. Needed because we take away the broken door, frame and boarding after a burglary repair.Reg. CBDU148820
Public liability£5m with Aviva. We publish the figure and the insurer because “fully insured” is not a number.Certificate on request
Sold Secure & TS007 hardwareWe fit Secured by Design accredited hardware. We are not “SBD approved” — no locksmith can be; SBD accreditation is not available to this trade.Product certificates suppliedPhotographs of our own jobs
Four people, named in full
Ruth ElleryQualified Master Locksmith · founder
MLA Level 4 · QML since 2011
Danny OkonkwoLocksmith · uPVC & multipoint
MLA Registered · DBS 001-2016-4471
Priya NandraLocksmith · safe engineer
MLA Registered · DBS 001-2021-8830
Marek SobczakCCTV & access control
SSAIB eng. 41-2019-663
Three of them, named and placed
Reviews from the people we've worked with.
AP
Ashgrove Property
Chester
We let eleven flats and the fire officer failed two of the escape doors. Danny came out, explained BS8621 in about a minute flat, and did the lot in a morning with a key schedule I could actually file.
JC
J. Cadwallader
Handbridge
Broken into on the Tuesday. Boarded the same night, new locks Wednesday, and a written spec that my insurer accepted without a single phone call back.
Locked out, or planning ahead
Either way you get a total before we set off, a named engineer, and a lock that still works when we leave. 01244 396118, Chester and about twenty miles round it.
Contact us