The call usually comes in around 6:30 in the evening. A shop owner in Boca or Delray is trying to close up, turns the key in the glass front door, and nothing happens. Or the key turns but the bolt doesn't go anywhere. Or the door won't pull far enough closed for the lock to line up at all. Nobody wants to leave a storefront unlocked overnight, so it feels like an emergency.
The good news: after years of working on commercial doors across Palm Beach and Broward, I can tell you it's almost always one of three things. Some you can check yourself in five minutes.
1. The door has dropped out of line
This is the most common one by far. Most storefronts down here are narrow-stile aluminum doors hung on pivots or a continuous hinge, with a heavy door closer on top. Over time the pivots wear, the closer gets knocked around, and the door sags a few millimeters. That's all it takes. The hook bolt or latch now hits the frame instead of sliding into the strike.
Signs it's alignment:
- The lock works fine with the door open. Turn the key with the door standing open and watch the bolt. If it throws and retracts smoothly, the lock is fine and the door is the problem.
- You have to push or lift the door to lock it. If leaning on it makes the key turn, the bolt is binding against the strike.
- There are fresh scrape marks on the frame where the bolt meets it, or the gap at the top of the door is uneven from one side to the other.
- It's worse in the afternoon. Aluminum frames expand in the sun. A door that locks fine at 9 AM and fights you at 6 PM on a west-facing storefront is a classic South Florida symptom.
The fix is usually adjusting or replacing the pivot, adjusting the strike, or both. It's not a job for a hammer. Banging the frame to "persuade" it bends the bolt and makes the next fix bigger.
2. The door closer isn't finishing the job
A closer has two speeds: the sweep speed that brings the door most of the way, and the latch speed that pulls it the last few inches. If the latch speed is set too slow, or the closer is leaking oil, the door stops just short of fully shut. Customers and staff walk out, the door looks closed, and it isn't.
- Look for oil on the closer body or the floor under it. A leaking closer has lost its fluid and needs replacing, not adjusting.
- Watch the last 6 inches. If the door slows to a crawl and stops, or slams hard enough to bounce back open, the latch speed is wrong.
- Check the hold-open. Some closers have a hold-open setting that gets bumped on by accident.
Adjusting closer valves is something I'd leave to someone who does it regularly. Turn the wrong screw too far and it can come out under pressure and dump the oil.
3. The lock itself has worn out
When the door is lined up and the closer is fine, it's the lock. Storefront locks take a beating, opened and closed hundreds of times a day. The usual failures are a worn cam on the back of the cylinder, so the key spins without catching anything, a broken spring inside the lock body, or a cylinder that has been loosened by someone forcing it.
- The key spins freely or turns farther than it used to. That's usually the cylinder cam.
- The cylinder turns in the door when you turn the key. The set screw holding it has loosened, which is also a security problem.
- The key is hard to get in or comes out with fresh shiny spots. The cylinder or the key itself is worn, and a new key cut from a worn one only copies the wear.
A lot of the time this is a repair, not a replacement. A new cylinder or cam, and the lock body stays. If you've had staff turnover, it's also a good moment to rekey or set up a master key system so you're not handing out keys to every door.
What about doors with a panic bar?
Rear and side exit doors with a push bar have their own version of the same problems, plus one more: a dogging key left turned so the bar stays pushed in. That leaves the door unlatched. If the back door "won't lock," check the dogging first. If it's something else, our panic bar and exit device page covers what's typically involved, and why the exit rules matter.
What to do tonight if it won't lock
If it's 6:45 and you just need to go home: don't jam anything into the lock, don't try to force the bolt with pliers, and don't leave the door "mostly closed." Call me before 7. I'll ask a couple of questions on the phone, and I can usually tell you which of the three it is before I get in the truck. You get a firm price before any work starts, and it's backed by a 1-year parts and labor warranty. More on what we do for businesses is on our commercial locksmith page.