uPVC Door Locksmith in Altea
Doors that will not lock, handles that spin, patio doors that have to be lifted and shoved. On uPVC and aluminium doors the cylinder is rarely the problem: the mechanism inside the door edge is.
Open 24 hours · 7 days a week
What is actually going wrong
A multipoint door is a system: handle, gearbox, locking strip, keeps, hinges and cylinder. Almost every complaint traces back to one of them.
Handle spins freely
The gearbox has failed internally. The strip is no longer being driven at all.
Handle will not lift
The hooks are catching on the keeps because the door has dropped or the frame has moved. Forcing it is what breaks the gearbox.
Key turns but nothing locks
The cylinder cam is turning without engaging the mechanism. Often the cylinder, often the gearbox, and easy to tell apart once the door is open.
Door catches on the frame
Hinge adjustment. Doors move with the seasons here, and a door that scrapes in August was usually perfect in March.
Patio door heavy or jumping
Worn rollers, a dirty track, or a sash that has dropped out of square. Common on terraces that take the full afternoon sun.
Locked shut with nothing wrong
A mechanism that has thrown its bolts and jammed. The door has to be opened before anything can be diagnosed.
If the door is jammed shut with you outside it, start with door opening and the mechanism can be dealt with once we are inside.
Doors we work on
- uPVC front and back doors with multipoint strips
- Aluminium doors, common on villas and terraces here
- Sliding and lift-and-slide patio doors
- French doors with a locking master and slave leaf
- Composite doors fitted with the same mechanisms
- Tilt-and-turn windows with failed handles or gearing
Why this matters on the Costa Blanca
Villas in Altea Hills and Sierra de Altea can have four or five glazed doors onto terraces, all of them multipoint, all of them exposed to sun, salt and wind.
A house locked up for the winter and opened in spring will often have at least one door that has stiffened. Catching that as adjustment, before someone forces the handle, is the difference between a service visit and a new mechanism.
For rentals, this is worth doing between bookings rather than during one. See holiday rental locksmith work.
How a mechanism repair goes
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Open and inspect
The door edge is opened up and the strip, keeps and hinges are checked. Guessing from the handle alone is how the wrong part gets ordered.
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Adjust or replace
Alignment problems are adjusted. Failed gearboxes and worn strips are replaced with a matching part.
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Test through the range
Locked, unlocked, from both sides, with the door open and closed. A mechanism that works in one position and binds in another has not been fixed.
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Show you the difference
You lift the handle yourself before we leave. A repaired door should need no technique at all.
Related services
Lock Change & Repair
New cylinders, repaired mechanisms and upgrades on doors you already have.
Read moreDoor Opening
Apartments, town houses and villas opened without damaging the door.
Read moreHoliday Rental Locksmith
Guest lockouts, changeover key problems and cover for owners who are away.
Read moreCommercial Locksmith
Shops, restaurants, offices and small hotels, worked around trading hours.
Read moreuPVC and patio door questions
My door only locks if I lift the handle hard. Is that serious?
It is the classic early warning. The door has dropped slightly, so the hooks and rollers are no longer meeting their keeps, and the handle is doing the work of lifting the whole door. Left alone it ends with a snapped gearbox, usually while you are locking up to go out.
The handle spins and nothing happens. What has broken?
The gearbox inside the door, in most cases. It is the part the handle drives, and when its internals fail the handle turns freely with nothing on the other end. The door can be opened and the mechanism replaced; the door itself does not need changing.
Can a mechanism be repaired or does it have to be replaced?
Some faults are adjustment: hinges, keeps, a dropped sash. Others are genuine breakage inside the gearbox, which is a replacement part. The difference is established by opening the door edge and looking, not by guessing from the handle.
My sliding patio door sticks and has become heavy. Same job?
Usually yes. Sliding and lift-and-slide doors run on wheels and tracks that fill with the fine dust and salt this coast produces. Cleaning, adjusting the rollers and servicing the locking points normally restores them.
Do you carry parts, or does everything have to be ordered?
Common gearboxes, cylinders and handles are carried in the van. Less common mechanisms and older discontinued strips are ordered, and where a door has to be left in the meantime it is secured so it can be locked overnight.
Why do these doors fail so often near the sea?
Salt and airborne sand get into the gearbox and the hinges, and the doors themselves expand and contract more than most people expect between February and August. Terraces and pool-side doors in Altea Hills and along the front take the worst of both.
Door that will not lock properly?
Send a photograph of the door edge and the handle on WhatsApp. Most mechanisms can be identified from two pictures, which means the right part arrives with the technician.
Calls answered 24 hours a day, every day. WhatsApp works too, if a photograph explains it faster.